ABSTRACT
The painting’s power over critics was not simply a function of its exclusive origins, however. Instead, it elicited disbelieving reactions of wonder from astonished observers. This is not to say that such out-of-body experiences were completely proper, and critics effectively managed to have their cake and eat it too, so to speak, by doubling themselves. One body participated in all the pleasures that the imagination had to offer, while a separate mind proleptically anticipated a reader’s objections. The fact that Choir of the Capuchin Church had copies made after it did not trouble critics then, as long as they were made with fidelity. “Copies and modifications of external nature, and of works of art, constitute original works in painting,” one reviewer asserted in a review of “Sully’s Capuchin Church.” Some critics seemed sympathetic to the idea that viewers should be more dubious of the Granet, but not because it was going to corrupt their virtue.
