Abstract: While Montaigne carries out written work in his Essais, creating verbal representations, his anti-rhetorical declarations seem to deny the possibility of mimesis, advocating instead a liberated mode of writing which explores the birth of unformed ideas in what Olivier Pot calls a “pure diegetic”, a raccontare which pits itself against artifice. The use of the words peindre and peinture in the Essais are examined here so as to understand what Montaigne really meant when he set out to “paint” himself.
