Le Brun's Expression générale et particulière en de achttiende-eeuwse acteur

Charles Le Brun's theory of the expression of the passions was widely acclaimed in eighteenth-century discussions of acting. Prints copying Le Brun's original illustrations were used as models by actors trying to master the art of facial expression. Even so, Le Brun's theory of expression was strictly analytical, developed by a painter, and part of seventeenth-century France’s austere culture of the ‘honnête homme’; in this article I attempt to discover its importance for eighteenth-century Dutch theatre and come to the conclusion that during the greater part of the eighteenth century Le Brun's influence was at best superficial. While eighteenth-century theorists of the theatre and facial expression never forgot to mention him, they emphasized the importance of the imagination (Du Bos), observation (Parsons), or calculation (Riccoboni, Diderot). Referring to artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo and Rubens, and mentioning Le Brun’s illustrations of the passions, probably served merely to remind the reader that the actor's ability to give visual expression to the passions gave him, as a man of intelligence and taste, the right to share the higher social status of the history painter. Only in the Theoretische lessen over de gesticulatie en de mimiek (1827) by Jelgerhuis the influence of Le Brun on acting became clearly noticeable. I accept the reasons for this given by Kirchner (1991), but I also point to the 1780’s debate on the authentic style for Dutch acting, between Simon Stijl and Martin Corver, which may have prompted Jelgerhuis to advocate classically authentic acting, not limited to Dutch examples, and not only fit for the Dutch stage.