Diderot, Falconet and the Theology of Art the Testimony of the Correspondence

The debate over Diderot's views about religion no longer causes dispute. By his middle years Diderot was no longer vacillating between agnosticism and atheism; he had opted for a strictly materialistic, atheistic view of the cosmos.It is somewhat ironical therefore, that in his correspondence with the famous sculptor, Falconet, over the question of posterity and artistic fame, Diderot introduces a level of discourse which resonates with theological images and vocabulary.In the argument with Falconet, who denigrated the idea of posthumous reward, Diderot constructs a secular eschatology, a kind of mirror image of the Judeo‐Christian vision which he uses in order to explain and justify artistic creativity.Diderot's eschatology is, of course, terrestrial and is based on an optimism which is pre‐nuclear. His emphasis on the imperishable nature of artistic genius, however, is uncannily close to theological surmise about the immortality of the soul.Perhaps the strongest argument in Diderot's arsenal is the view that the future rectifies the errors of the past. The great artist who suffers for his métier will be rehabilitated by the opinion of posterity. This idea dovetails with the bliss which the faithful will experience in paradise, despite the sufferings they endured on earth.