Antoine-Chrysostome Quatremère de Quincy (1755 – 1849) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 armchair archaeologist and architectural theorist

Architectural theory

Architectural theory is the act of thinking, discussing, or most importantly writing about architecture. Architectural theory is taught in most architecture schools and is practiced by the world's leading architects. Some forms that architecture theory takes are the lecture or dialogue, the...

, a Freemason, and an effective arts administrator and influential writer on art.

Born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, he trained for the law, then followed courses in art and history at the Collège Louis-le-Grand and apprenticed for a time in the atelier of Guillaume Coustou the Younger

Guillaume Coustou the Younger

Guillaume Coustou the Younger was a French sculptor.The son of Guillaume Coustou the Elder and nephew of Nicolas Coustou, he trained in the family atelier and studied at the French Academy in Rome, 1736–39, as winner of the Prix de Rome...

 and Pierre Julien

Pierre Julien

Pierre Julien was a French sculptor who worked in a full range of rococo and neoclassical styles.He served an early apprenticeship at Le Puy-en-Velay, near his natal village of Saint-Paulien, then at the École de dessin of Lyon, then entered the Parisian atelier of Guillaume Coustou the Younger...

, getting some practical experience in the art of sculpture. A trip to Naples in the company of Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era...

 sparked his interest in Greek and Roman architecture.

He was involved in the troubles of the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

. As a member of the Revolutionary Committee of Public Instruction his set of three Considerations on the arts of design in France was offered before the Assemblée Nationale at a time (1791) when the continuation of the former academies was under question; he offered a program for their reform. in part by opening up the Paris salon

Paris Salon

The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...

s. In 1791-92 he orchestrated the conversion of the Church of Ste-Geneviève in Paris (under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Rondelet

Jean-Baptiste Rondelet

Jean-Baptiste Rondelet was an architectural theorist of the late Enlightenment era and chief architect of the church of Sainte-Geneviève. He published a treatise on Architecture between 1805 and 1816. He grew up and helped the world build the Panthéon. Which is still a site today standing 10...

) into the Panthéon

Pantheon

-Mythology:* Pantheon , the set of gods belonging to a particular mythology* Pantheon * Pantheon, Rome, now a Catholic church, once a temple to the gods of ancient Rome* Any temple dedicated to an entire pantheon-Other buildings:...

, infilling the windows to give it the character of a mausoleum. In 1796 he was accused of taking part in the preparations for the royalist insurrection of 13 vendémiaire and condemned to death, but acquitted in time. Next year he was elected to the Council of Five Hundred

Council of Five Hundred

The Council of Five Hundred , or simply the Five Hundred was the lower house of the legislature of France during the period commonly known as the Directory , from 22 August 1795 until 9 November 1799, roughly the second half of the period generally referred to as the...

 from the Seine department, then went into hiding after taking part in a royalist coup; in exile in Germany, he read Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....

 and Gotthold Lessing, whose philosophy informed his own theories of aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

. In 1800, back in Paris, he was appointed secretary general of the Seine council. From 1816 until 1839 he was perpetual secretary to the Académie des Beaux-Arts

Académie des beaux-arts

The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...

, which gave him great influence upon official architecture, and in 1818 he became a professor of archaeology at the Bibliothèque Nationale. He briefly returned to politics in 1820.

Quatremère de Quincy was the author of numerous articles and books. Between 1788 and 1825 he edited the Encylopédie Méthodique, to which he contributed much of the text. His Dictionnaire historique de l'Architecture was published in 1832-33. He wrote biographies of several artists: Antonio Canova

Antonio Canova

Antonio Canova was an Italian sculptor from the Republic of Venice who became famous for his marble sculptures that delicately rendered nude flesh...

 (1823), Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

 (1824) and Michelangelo

Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni , commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art...

 (1835).

Quatremère de Quincy transformed the simple metaphor of architecture as language into a framework for reconceptualizing the structure of architecture; modern writers describing "vernacular" architecture, or the Baroque "idiom" or the "vocabulary" of Classicism owe a debt to Quatremère de Quincy

His essay De l'Architecture Égyptienne, written for a competition posed by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres is a French learned society devoted to the humanities, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France.-History:...

 in 1785 and published in 1803, just as the Description de l'Egypte

Description de l'Egypte

Description de l'Égypte is the title of several books.* Description de l'Égypte - Description de l'Égypte ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l'expédition de l'armée française Pub; First Edition , L'Imprimerie Imperiale, 1809-1813; l'Imprimerie...

was in preparation, nevertheless was an important influence on the Egyptian Revival phase of Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

, for its theoretical observations concerning the origins of architecture rather than for its historical naiveté. He was among the first to point out the use of polychromy in Greek sculpture and architecture. Though he insisted that landscape gardening could not be admitted among the fine arts, he was a key figure in the establishment of the first landscaped cemeteries, and his essay, translated into English as The Nature, the End and the Means of Imitation in the Fine Arts influenced J. C. Loudon.