Louis Marin, Poussin and the Sublime
In addition to his studies of representations of Louis XIV and a monograph on Philippe de Champaigne, Louis Marin (1931 92) is known to art historians for his analyses of Poussin, in particular The Arcadian Shepherds and The Israelites Gathering Manna, for which he drew on sources from philosophy, art theory and linguistics to carry out an investigation into looking, reading and representation. This essay looks at what happened next, when Marin turned his attention to the sublime in Poussin, a project that was unfinished at his death. The sublime is usually regarded as an unrepresentable experience, but Marin argued that in Poussin's case, while still disruptive, it was part of the apparatus of representation. This essay then discusses how Marin linked the sublime to Poussin's interest in variation and how he pursued his analysis of the representation of time by reinvestigating the role of ruins in Poussin's narrative paintings. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.