"...Diderot meant his 'dream' of a phantasmagoric - one is tempted to say cinematic (ft 78)- Coresus et Callirhoe to be understood as corresponding to the painting's most salient features and overall atmosphere, in particular to the partial dissolution of solid form under the influence of a colored chiaroscuro..." 143

ft 78 (p. 234-5) - There is an obvious affinity between Diderot's account of the projection of speaking colored images on a screen - an idea doubtless extrapolated from his acquaintance with magic lanterns - and the modern cinema. But I am thinking as well of the similarity between other aspects of his commentary on the Coresus et Callirhoe - e.g., his use of the fiction of dreaming, his description of his physical immobilization in the cave (a detail clearly derived from Plato), and his characterization of the projected images as fantomes...See Cavell, The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film, esp. pp. 25-7, where the 'helplessness' of the viewer is said to be 'mchanically assured'; pp. 101-2, where movies are compared with and distinguished from dreams and fantasies...also discussed in a long essay by Cavell, "More of The World Viewed" The Georgia Review, 28 (1974). also Francis Macdonald Cornford remarks in his translation of The Republic of Plato "A modern Plato would compare his Cave to an underground cinema, where the audience watch the play of shadows thrown by the film passing before a light at their backs."

Salon of 1765 

Diderot says "There is Fragonard's painting, there it is with all its effect...It is the same temple, the same ordonnance, the same personages, the same action, the same expressions, the same general interest, the same qualities, the same flaws. In the cave, you saw only the simulacra of beings, and Fragonard, on his canvas, has shown you nothing more than simulacra [simulacres]. You had a bautiful dream; he has painted a beautiful dream. When one loses sight of his painting for a moment, one always fears that his canvas might disappear as yours did, and that these interesting and sublime phantoms might vanish like those of the night.

Grimm says "an air of phantoms and ghosts rather than of real personages" and concludes that he prefers Diderot's dream to Fragonard's.

Fried says emphasis on dreaming together with notion of finding himself in an actual situation, bound and seated in cave, connect to Diderot's pastoral conception of painting. also acknowledges intensely dramatic character of picture and highly emotional nature of response it seeks to arouse. plus, "alleged dream involves physically entering not the scene of the action but a situation of which that scene is merely a part and an illusory one at that. (The illusory or immaterial nature of the projected images, and even more the physical constraints imposed upon the audience, signal the latter's radical exclusion from the cene, i.e., from the painting." 145

Ah! My friend, how beautiful nature is in this litle spot! Let us stop there. The heat of the day is beginning to be felt, let us lie down next to these animals. While we admire the work of the Creator, the conversation of this shepherd and this peasant woman will divert us. Our ears will not disdain the rustic sounds of the cowherd who charms the silence of this solitude and beguiles the tedium of his condition by playing the flute. Let us rest. You will be next to me, I will be at your feet, tranquil and safe, like this dog, dilient companion of his master's ife and faithful keeper of his flock. And when the weight of the light has diminished we will go our way again, and at some remote time we will still remember this enchanted place and the delicious hour that we spent there. (in absorption and theatricality, 120) un paysage avec figures et animaux, 1763

I actually find myself there. I shall remain leaning against this tree, between this old man and his young girl, as long as the boy plays... (121) pastorale russe, 1765

Peter Wollen, "Baroque and Neo-Baroque in the Age of Spectacle" 3 (April 3, 1993): 9-21.

overview and critique of Althusserian/Lacanian tradition of film spectatorship theory