L'effet Catlin à Paris

The Catlin effect. Paris, 1845-1846 The presentation of George Catlin’s Indian Gallery in Paris, from May to September 1845, then of two of his Indian portraits at the annual Salon in March 1846, did more than simply arouse public curiosity, but had an immediate effect upon the new generation of artists, for whom the museum-show and paintings provided unexpected inspiration for construction of a new aesthetic in which “the other in art”, i.e. all forms of creation a priori excluded from academic consideration, played a major role. The article compares the reactions of Théophile Gautier, George Sand, Gérard de Nerval, Champfleury and Baudelaire, all of whom were highly attentive visitors to the museum. While recognising Catlin’s contribution, they disagreed on the meaning of the “savagery” they discovered there: did it spring from the primitive, from the primordial or from the essence of art ?