The Head and the Hand

The Head and the Hand

One day, Gide went to the Louvre to see the Poussins again (Richelieu, rooms 825 and 826). At first, he felt disappointed: the paintings, he noted in his Journals, “seemed dull.” They betrayed a “sort of awkwardness” and showed a certain “heaviness in the execution.” As I observe the few unsuspecting visitors who enter these outlying rooms, I have the impression they would agree with Gide’s verdict: “no manual dexterity,” “no brio.” They are coming from the Rubens of the Galerie Médicis and their eyes are filled with movement (Richelieu, room 801). At the sight of The Judgment of Solomon (Richelieu, room 826), we too might conclude, like Gide, that “in no other artist perhaps has the head so dominated the craft” (l, 514). In Poussin, the head dominates the hand: that’s the common preconception, which is not false. His hand even began to tremble during his last years, and his head was able to control it. You have to stand before the Poussins a long time, as I did with Marc Fumaroli, to understand their eloquence. As he was leaving the Poussins, Gide “stopped short” in front of Valentin de Boulogne’s The Judgment of Solomon, as we do too, since it’s still on our way (Richelieu, room 830). “An almost pathetic work,” Gide wrote. He had to come back to the Poussins to be convinced of their greatness. I return to them without delay.