Watteau and New Subjects

Rosalba Carriera, Self Portrait holding a Portrait, 1716, Uffizi Gallery, Florence

Rosalba Carriera, Portrait of Antoine Watteau, 1721

• Rosalba Carriera was an internationally famous female artist based in Venice. She painted many Grand Tour portraits, including that of Watteau. She usually worked in pastel, and specialised in head and shoulders portraits which conveyed a sense of elegance, delicacy and refinement. The pastel technique was chalky, which was associated with make-up, which both men and women wore at the time - to elegantly prepare themselves for the social world. The majority of her portraits are pensive and delicately expressive. She defends the accomplishments of women in history in comparison to men.


French Rococo Painting: What is Rococo?

William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty - Plate 2, 1753, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

• Here Hogarth presents a country dance, surrounding the scene are shapes which he associates with natural beauty: serpentine lines, bones, shells, the line of beauty and grace. He was incredibly interested in the serpentine line and its suggestion of flirtatiousness.

Hyacinthe Rigaud, Louis XIV, 1701, Louvre

Maurice Quentin de la Tour, Madame de Pompadour, pastel/gouache, 1748-55, Louvre

• These two portraits show the different styles of portraits at the time. Louis XIV is presented in the grand style. He was the first gentleman who knew how to dance, here he is represented as a leader of the dance and court ritual, showing off his dancers legs. Whereas Madame de Pompadour is a Parisian lead by aristocratic women, a tenor of the arts, she tends towards the civilised, witty, flirtatious to an extent.

Rubens, Garden of Love, c.1633, Prado

LeBrun, Horatius Defending the Bridge, 1643, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

• Louis 14th founded the Academy in 1648. There was great debate between the Rubenists and the Poussinians. Great principles were at stake - the Poussinists were defending DESIGN, the Rubenists were defending the IMPORTANCE of COLOUR.

• There was an increasing importance of the theatre during this period, it was a lot more lighthearted on the whole, a lot less serious.

Watteau, Harlequin, Emperor in the Moon, c. 1707, Nantes

• This is one of Watteau's early paintings. He depicts a character from an Italian comedy, this comedy was increasingly preferred by many, it had a simplistic storyline, slapstick, told a story of thwarted love, smart people such as bankers and aristocrats would openly dress up as these characters.

Watteau, L'escapolette (swing), engraving by L. Crepy

• Engravings were popular in the Rococo period, especially those of fantasy and wilderness. 

• Watteau was employed in Paris to copy images of love scenes from Flanders. Influenced by Rubens.

Watteau, Made Jealous, 1712

• Watteau's Made Jealous depicts the characters in the aforementioned comedy in old fashioned costumes, suggesting a nostalgia for a previous age. There is an intimacy of landscape and an introspective, melancholic atmosphere.

L. G. Scotin, Les Jaloux, engraving, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

• Many of Watteau's images were engraved. Some of the elements of this one were changed, additions of some kind of God, truncated images, people watching, sphinx like characters, semi messages, half hidden in the foliage, a reference to Pan (God of the wild, companion to the nymphs), associated with licentiousness.

Watteau, La Perspective, c. 1714, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

• There is an aristocratic ambiance to his paintings, but usually patrons were below aristocracy. Pierre Crozat, a great patron of contemporary French art, said "if music be the food of love, play on." Music facilitates love and the feeling of love.

Watteau with Jean de Julienne, engraving

• In this engraving Watteau is depicted holding a paintbrush, showing himself as a lover of the arts in general, association between the arts, music, in a natural setting. It is highly fantasised, showing a life and mood that they aspire to.

Watteau, Les Champs Elysees, 1717-18, The Wallace Collection, London

• In Les Champs Elysees he used the same figures poses as he has in many of his previou paintings. The name of the painting refers to the Elysian Fields (not the road in Paris!). Delicate evocation of the mood. Galant company.

Dirck Hals, Garden Party, before 1656, Haarlem

• Hals' painting has more explicit sexual overtones compared to Watteau, conveyed mostly through the dogs. Hals uses a mixture of nature and architecture and basically depicts wealthy people flirting.

Watteau, Fetes Venitiennes, 1718-19, National Gallery of Scotland

• The Fetes Venitiennes suggests Venice as the place of love. The statue in the background is like a Venus, or a nymph and seems to be waking up. There seems to be an element of dressing up, and there is a certain melancholy about it, very much a feature of Watteau's work.

Watteau, Rendezvous de chasse, c. 1718-20, The Wallace Collection, London

• The Rendezvous de Chasse, or the 'Meeting of the Hunt', depicts a woman being helped down from a horse. The painting illustrates flirtation in the countryside.

Watteau, Voulez-vous triompher des belles?, 1720, The Wallace Collection, London

• In this painting Harlequin and the other characters from the play are depicted, some exclaim in fright. A statue of Pan can be seen behind the figures. Everybody is in their own world to a certain extent - the people in the background ignore those in the foreground. Deep shade creates a sense of isolated fantasy world.

Watteau, Embarkation for [Departure from] the Island of Cythera,1717, Louvre

• This is a very famous painting with a mythological theme, old fashioned but the figures are not in classical dress. Venus is associated with Cythera. There is a drifting movement but the importance is the mood in this painting. Watteau invented his own genre and was accepted on that basis - Fete Galante.

Watteau, L'Enseigne de Gersaint, 1720, Charlottenburge Palace, Berlin

Watteau, Detail of L'Enseigne de Gersaint, 1720, Charlottenburge Palace, Berlin

• This painting originally had an arched top and fitted in the archway of the shop of a Parisian painting dealership. Lots has been written about this painting, people looking at the erotic and mythological scenes, couples flirting, taste for the arts not so different to flirting. The detail of this painting shows Louis XIV's portrait being put into a box, suggesting his age has passed. The flirtatiousness of the couples is mirrored by the couples in the paintings on the wall. 

Watteau, Gilles [Pierrot], 1718-20, Louvre

• Various characters from the play were often depicted in paintings. Gilles was one of them, a melancholic clown felicitating out attention. Many have read into the temperament and psychology of his paintings, reading into his characters as a mirror of the artist's emotions.

Boucher, The Rising of the Sun, 1752-3, The Wallace Collection, London

Boucher, The Setting of the Sun, 1752-3, The Wallace Collection, London

• Boucher encapsulates the Rococo in these paintings with their Pinky-blue hues. Apollo sets off from the sea in his chariot, travels across the skies and steps off to end the day being received again by the sea nymphs.

Fragonard, The Swing, 1767, The Wallace Collection, London

• Fragonard's The Swing is provocative as the lady's slipper flies through the air towards her lover who is hiding in the bushes, her dress billow and she is not wearing underwear increasing the eroticism of the scene. A statue of Cupid shushes at the viewer. Although her love is hiding in the bushes the woman's husband can be seen pushing the swing. The branches are very Rococo, lots of curvaceous movements. Fragonard was influenced by Watteau, but he is more obvious in his suggestiveness than Watteau.

Fragonard, Coresus Sacrificing himself to save Callirhoe, 1765, Louvre

• This is Fragonard trying to do History Painting. It is a scene of sacrifice. The central emotional impact is muffled by the surrounding characters. There is a lot of dramatic smoke. The chiaroscuro is very soft as opposed to the starkness of later works.

Greuze, The Inconsolable Widow, before1763, The Wallace Collection, London

• Greuze here presents not only pathos but also eroticism. It presents some continuities with Rococo but also goes into sensibility.

Chardin, The Young Schoolmistress, 1735-40, National Gallery, London

Chardin, House of Cards, 1735-6, National Gallery, London

• Charin was a genre painter, but it could be argued that his works and those by others have more of a moral content than some others. His painting House of Cards is an example of a moralising scene of daily life.

Chardin, The Attributes of the Arts, 1766, Minneapolis

• In this painting there are the attributes of the arts, Mercury tying his sandal, painting, architecture, and still life attributes. Chardin was celebrated by critics of the time.