Much admired by his contemporaries, Nicolas Le Camus de Mézières made a significant mark on French Neoclassical theory with The Genius of Architecture; or, The Analogy of That Art with Our Sensations (1780). Part handbook for the planning of the French mansion, part sensationalist exploration of form and its physiognomic values, Le Camus's always discreet and politic analysis argues that architecture should please the senses as well as the mind. Such a contention not only advanced the notion of aractère put forth by architects Germain Boffrand and Jacques-François Blondel, it also provided the theoretical underpinnings for the formal explorations of Etienne-Louis Boullée, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, and John Soane.

Robin Middleton is professor of art history at Columbia University. He is the editor of The Beaux-Arts and Nineteenth-Century French Architecture and collaborated with David Watkin on Neoclassical and Nineteenth-Century Architecture.

This hardcover edition of this book is out of print.

Series: Texts & Documents

See: Contents

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