Key takeaways

  • Diderot argues for keeping the painting by walking God through it, the lighthouse, the torn tree, the survivors on the shore.
  • Among the figures he lingers on is a merchant who had counted his fortune a hundred times on the voyage home and lost nearly all of it.
  • The chapter ends with a confession, "The painter has humbled the philosopher," because guests now come to see the Vernet, not to hear Diderot.

This chapter continues the prayer that began at the end of chapter 4. Diderot has asked God to take everything away if wealth corrupts him, except one painting by Claude-Joseph Vernet. Now he makes his case for the exception, and he makes it the way he made his name as an art critic: by describing the picture until you can see it.

The text, with notes

Look at that lighthouse; look at the tower beside it, rising on the right; look at that old tree the winds have torn. How beautiful that mass is. Below the dark mass, look at those rocks clothed in green. That is how your mighty hand shaped them; that is how your kindly hand covered them. Look at that uneven terrace running down from the foot of the rocks toward the sea. It is the image of the wear you have let time inflict on the most solid things in the world. Would your own sun have lit it any differently? God, if you destroy this work of art, people will say you are a jealous God.

Note. Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714 to 1789) was a French painter best known for the sea: harbors, calms, storms and wrecks. Diderot admired him enormously. In his review of the Salon of 1767 he wrote about a group of Vernet landscapes as if he were walking through them, and here he does something similar, steering God around the canvas from the lighthouse to the rocks. “A jealous God” is the Bible’s own phrase, from the Ten Commandments in Exodus, turned into flattery: destroy the painting, Diderot warns, and people will say you envied the painter.

Take pity on the unfortunate people scattered along this shore. Was it not enough to show them the bottom of the abyss? Did you save them only to destroy them? Hear the prayer of this one, who is thanking you. Help the efforts of that one, who is gathering up the sad remains of his fortune. Close your ears to the curses of this furious man. Alas, he had promised himself such handsome returns; he had planned his rest and his retirement; this was his last voyage. A hundred times along the way he had counted the sum of his fortune on his fingers; he had settled how he would use it; and now all his hopes are dashed, and he has barely enough left to cover his naked limbs.

Note. Of all the figures in the painting, Diderot gives the most lines to the merchant on his last voyage, who counted his fortune on his fingers a hundred times and planned how to spend it, only to lose nearly everything. In an essay about money going out faster than its owner meant it to, the man who did his sums too early is hard to read as anyone but a cousin of the man holding the pen.

Be moved by the tenderness of this husband and wife. See the terror you have struck into this woman. She is thanking you for the harm you did not do her. Meanwhile her child, too young to know what danger you had put him in, him and his father and mother, is busy with the faithful companion of his journey: he is fastening his dog’s collar again. Spare the innocent. Look at this mother, just escaped from the water with her husband. It was not for herself that she trembled; it was for her child. See how she presses him to her breast; see how she kisses him.

God, recognize the waters you created. Recognize them both when your breath stirs them up and when your hand calms them. Recognize the dark clouds you had gathered, and that it has pleased you to scatter. They are already parting, already drifting away; already the sun’s light is coming back on the face of the waters; in that reddish horizon I can foresee calm. How far away it is, that horizon. It does not meet the sea. The sky goes down below it and seems to curve around the globe. Finish clearing this sky; finish giving the sea back its peace. Let these sailors float their stranded ship again; help their work; give them strength, and leave me my painting. Leave it to me as the rod with which you will punish a vain man. Already it is not me that people come to visit, not me they come to hear: it is Vernet they come to admire at my house. The painter has humbled the philosopher.

Note. The last line settles the argument, and not in Diderot’s favor. His visitors no longer come to hear him talk; they come to look at his wall. In chapter 1 the ink-stained old gown told people who he was. Now a possession has taken over that job, and he asks God to leave it in place as a punishment for vanity, which is a clever way of keeping it.

What to notice

The prayer is funny, and it is also a fair picture of how people argue for keeping the thing that matters most to them. Diderot does not claim the painting is useful or necessary. He claims it is beautiful, that it was a gift of friendship, and that losing it would reflect badly on whoever took it. The one admission that slips out at the end, that the painting now draws more attention than its owner, is the cost the Diderot effect rarely puts a price on. The essay ends in the next chapter, where he finally speaks plainly about money.

Read this chapter in the original French

Vois ce phare, vois cette tour adjacente qui s’élève à droite ; vois ce vieil arbre que les vents ont déchiré. Que cette masse est belle ! Au-dessous de cette masse obscure, vois ces rochers couverts de verdure. C’est ainsi que ta main puissante les a formés ; c’est ainsi que ta main bienfaisante les a tapissés. Vois cette terrasse inégale, qui descend du pied des rochers vers la mer. C’est l’image des dégradations que tu as permis au temps d’exercer sur les choses du monde les plus solides. Ton soleil l’aurait-il autrement éclairée ? Dieu ! si tu anéantis cet ouvrage de l’art, on dira que tu es un Dieu jaloux. Prends en pitié les malheureux épars sur cette rive. Ne te suffit-il pas de leur avoir montré le fond des abîmes ? Ne les as-tu sauvés que pour les perdre ? Écoute la prière de celui-ci qui te remercie. Aide les efforts de celui-là qui rassemble les tristes restes de sa fortune. Ferme l’oreille aux imprécations de ce furieux : hélas ! il se promettait des retours si avantageux ; il avait médité le repos et la retraite ; il en était à son dernier voyage. Cent fois dans la route, il avait calculé par ses doigts le fond de sa fortune ; il en avait arrangé l’emploi : et voilà toutes ses espérances trompées ; à peine lui reste-t-il de quoi couvrir ses membres nus. Sois touché de la tendresse de ces deux époux. Vois la terreur que tu as inspirée à cette femme. Elle te rend grâce du mal que tu ne lui as pas fait. Cependant, son enfant trop jeune pour savoir à quel péril tu l’avais exposé, lui, son père et sa mère, s’occupe du fidèle compagnon de son voyage ; il rattache le collier de son chien. Fais grâce à l’innocent. Vois cette mère fraîchement échappée des eaux avec son époux ; ce n’est pas pour elle qu’elle a tremblé, c’est pour son enfant. Vois comme elle le serre contre son sein ; vois comme elle le baise. Dieu ! reconnais les eaux que tu as créées. Reconnais-les, et lorsque ton souffle les agite, et lorsque ta main les apaise. Reconnais les sombres nuages que tu avais rassemblés, et qu’il t’a plu de dissiper. Déjà ils se séparent, ils s’éloignent, déjà la lueur de l’astre du jour renaît sur la face des eaux ; je présage le calme à cet horizon rougeâtre. Qu’il est loin, cet horizon ! il ne confine point avec la mer. Le ciel descend au-dessous et semble tourner autour du globe. Achève d’éclaircir ce ciel ; achève de rendre à la mer sa tranquillité. Permets à ces matelots de remettre à flot leur navire échoué ; seconde leur travail ; donne-leur des forces, et laisse-moi mon tableau. Laisse-le-moi, comme la verge dont tu châtieras l’homme vain. Déjà ce n’est plus moi qu’on visite, qu’on vient entendre : c’est Vernet qu’on vient admirer chez moi. Le peintre a humilié le philosophe.

Sources

  1. Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre (Denis Diderot, Œuvres complètes, edited by J. Assézat and M. Tourneux, Garnier, 1875, volume IV, pages 5 to 12) The French text we translate from, in the public domain.
  2. Claude-Joseph Vernet (Wikipedia) The painter's dates and his storm and shipwreck scenes.
  3. Salons (Diderot) (Wikipédia, in French) Diderot's art criticism, including the 1767 passage in which he walks through Vernet's landscapes.
  4. Exodus 20:5, King James Version (Bible Gateway) The source of the phrase "a jealous God."
  1. The rag rug and the confession

    The Essay: One cheap rug survives the makeover, and Diderot swears to keep it. Then he protests that wealth has not changed him, lets slip what it would look like if it had, and starts to pray.

  2. Laïs, who cost me nothing

    The Essay: Diderot shows off the painting he has just begged God to spare, promises that the debts will be paid, and ends the essay with a line borrowed from an ancient philosopher and a secret that is not quite true.

  3. The old robe and the new

    The Essay: Diderot mourns the shapeless old gown that fit him like a second skin, and discovers that the splendid new one has made him its servant.

  4. The Diderot effect, explained

    The Effect: One new thing makes everything around it look shabby, so you buy more. Where the idea comes from, why it works on nearly everyone, and how to stop it.

  5. Diderot effect quotes: the lines from the essay people repeat

    The Effect: The master and the slave, the room out of tune, the corner that asked for a cabinet. Twelve passages from the essay, in our own translation, and what each one says to anyone about to buy something new.

Page history: first published .