Personality and Class
What makes us who we are? Just as today we might turn to personality tests and horoscopes to explain our dispositions and destinies, our early modern counterparts looked to the four temperaments. Decided by the configuration of planets at birth, an excess of a bodily humor could account for one's disposition and life trajectory. One's disposition also experienced day-to-day fluctuations, influenced by the movement of the planets and changes in environment or diet. These dispositions or temperaments, in turn, could be used as explanations for a rigidly hierarchical society. Artists could attribute the hardship of beggars and peasants to their phlegmatic, and therefore idle, or choleric, and therefore dangerous, qualities. A privileged soldier's choleric violence, in contrast, could be celebrated as the strong will of Napoleon—or does the phlegmatic gesture of his idle hand undermine this reading?
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- Jacques Callot (French 1592-1635), The Large Hunt (1619). Etching; state i/iv, signed in plate; Gift of Howard L. Gray, Professor of History, 1915-1940; 1946.16.
- After Paul Delaroche (French, 1797-1856), Napoleon Bonaparte (1870-75), after painting of 1838. Engraving; Gift of Abby A. K. Turner Van Pelt Grimscom, Class of 1952, Katherine Drexel Van Pelt Beaver, and Charles B. P. Van Pelt; VP.786.
- Callot
- Delaroche
- Rembrandt_Callot_Callot
- Vivarès
- François Vivarès (French, 1709-1780), after Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669); Beggar Seated Warming His Hands at a Chafing Dish (1850-1900). Etched in reverse, copy no. 5 after etching of c. 1630, signed in plate, X.814
- Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669). Peasant Family on the Tramp (18th century restrike). Etching on wove plate, state ii/iii, X.319
- Jacques Callot (French, 1592-1635), Captain of the Barons (1622). Etching on wove paper, unique state, signed in plate, X.865