Abstract: Diderot’s final word on art, the Pensées détachées sur la peinture (1781) are examined in their relationship to the Salons in general and more particularly to the two supplements, Essais sur la peinture (1765) and the preamble to the Salon de 1767. If the fragmented text seems to take up the discourse of the Salons more than it favors a separate theoretical approach, it nevertheless beckons us to identify Diderot’s aesthetic ideas and put them into dialogue.
