La Bruyère

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani mainly reads Les Caractères, and first of all the passage on the "point of perfection" in art, comparable to ripeness in nature: there is good and bad taste, and "one argues about tastes with good grounds"1. He often quotes this text, whether to open a workshop or when discussing beauty, and sees in it an illustration of the Greek classical moment2. He also applies it to flavours, wine and fruit: an ideal point between the unripe and the rotten3. For him, this point of perfection assumes a world where everything is in its place. The characters are fixed, without becoming, locked in their determination, and they form an image of the Ancien Régime that he compares to baroque music4. He also singles out the text on peasants, "wild animals" who produce bread for others, which he considers the first great social text5. He places La Bruyère among the moralists Nietzsche loved, and speaks of a "Marxist La Bruyère" side to Clouscard.

1. 1Education : le Beau s'apprend-il ?20 Jul 2018 · 1:08:58
2. 2#9 TABLEAUX D'UNE EXPOSITION : L'art, vu d'ici ou d'en face?10 Feb 2022 · 47:54
3. 3Flagrandélices27 May 2025 · 1:20:14
4. 4Au bistrot avec Pagani : partie 118 Jun 2016 · 57:19
5. 5La Phénoménologie de L'esprit2 Jul 2018 · 1:02:24

Summary produced automatically from 26 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.