Jean-François Niceron

Abstract

What harmony was to Mersenne, perspective was to Jean-François Niceron. It is the underlying law of the visible world just as harmony is the law of that which is audible; both supply the rational basis for analysing the communication of the external world to our senses. Considered purely mathematically harmony and perspective are similar, being merely practical applications of the abstract laws of mathematical proportion. Aesthetically, Mersenne’s analysis of harmony and Niceron’s work on perspective represent that search for balance and degree which, in the seventeenth century, all critics considered as conducive to the sublime; Nature itself was bound by the laws of proportion, and therefore all art had to observe like laws.¹ Aesthetic consideration meant more to Niceron than to Mersenne and there is discernible in this most attractive man some sign of an attenuation of the rigorous ascetism of the Order. His intellectualism had a creative outlet.