Antoine Watteau Painted in What Period of Art? Cengage Advantage Books

Jean-Antoine Watteau

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Jean-Antoine Watteau

55 artworks

French painter, draftsman and printmaker

Born 1684 - Died seven/18/1721

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La gamme d'amour

The Honey Vocal

c. 1717

Oil on canvass

51.3 x 59.4 cms | 20 x 23 ^i/four ins

National Gallery, London, United kingdom

Credit: Ballad Gerten Fine Art Index

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WATTEAU, ANTOINE (1684-1721), French painter, was built-in in Valenciennes, of humble Flemish origin. Comte de Caylus, his staunch friend of afterward years, and his first biographer, refers to Watteau's male parent every bit a difficult homo, strongly disinclined to accede to his son's wish to become a painter; but other accounts prove him in a kinder lite as a poor, struggling man, a tiler by merchandise, who secured for his son the best possible education. Certain it is that at the historic period of fourteen Watteau was placed with Gerin, a mediocre Valenciennes painter, with whom he remained until 1702. It is to exist assumed that he learnt far more from the written report of Ostade's and Teniers'south paintings in his native town than from his commencement main'due south teaching. Not only in subject-matter, only in tbeir full general tonality, his earliest works, like

La Vraie Gaiete

(

True Cheerfulness

), which was in the collection of Sir Charles Tennant, suggest this influence. Gerin died in 1702, and Watteau, almost penniless, went to Paris, where he plant employment with the scene-painter Metayer. Things, however, went badly with his new main, and Watteau, broken down in wellness and on the verge of starvation, was forced to work in a kind of factory where devotional pictures were turned out in wholesale manner. Three francs a week and meagre nutrient were his reward; simply his talent shortly enabled him to pigment the

St Nicolas

, the copying of which was allotted to him, without having to refer to the original. Meanwhile he spent his rare leisure hours and the evenings in serious study, sketching and drawing his impressions of types and scenes. His drawings attracted the attention of Claude Gillot, an artist imbued with the spirit of the Renaissance, who after having successfully tried himself in the mythological and historical genre, was only at that time devoting himself to the characters and incidents of the Italian one-act. Gillot took Watteau as pupil and banana, only the young man made such rapid progress that he presently equalled and excelled his principal, whose jealousy led to a quarrel, as a result of which Watteau, and with him his fellow-student and afterwards educatee, Lancret, severed his connection with Gillot and entered about 1708 the studio of Claude Audran, a famous decorative painter who was at that fourth dimension keeper of the collections at the Luxembourg Palace. From him Watteau caused his knowledge of decorative fine art and ornamental design, the garland-similar limerick which he practical to the designing of screens, fans and wall panels. At the same time he became deeply imbued with the spirit of Rubens and Paolo Veronese, whose works he had daily before him at the palace; and he continued to piece of work from nature and to collect material for his formal garden backgrounds among the fountains and statues and stately avenues of the Luxembourg gardens. His chinoiseries and singeries appointment probably from the years during which he worked with Audran. Perhaps as a recreation from the routine of ornamental design, Watteau painted at this time

The Departing Regiment

, the first film in his second and more personal manner, in which the affect reveals the influence of Rubens'due south technique, and the first of a long series of camp pictures. He showed the painting to Audran, who, probably afraid of losing so talented and useful an assistant, made light of it, and advised him not to waste product his time and gifts on such subjects. Watteau, suspicious of his master's motives, determined to leave him, advancing every bit excuse his desire to return to Valenciennes. He found a purchaser, at the modest toll of 60 livres, in Sirois, the father-in-law of his later friend and patron Gersaint, and was thus enabled to return to the abode of his childhood. In Valenciennes he painted a number of the small camp-pieces, notably the

Army camp-Fire

, which was again bought past Sirois, the toll this time being raised to 200 livres; this is now in the collection of Mr Due west. A. Coats in Glasgow. Two small pictures of the same type are at the Hermitage in St Petersburg.

Returning to Paris after a comparatively short sojourn at Valenciennes, he took upwardly his habitation with Sirois, and competed in 1709 for the Prix de Rome. He only obtained the second prize, and, adamant to go to Rome, he applied for a crown alimony and exhibited the 2 military machine pictures which he had sold to Sirois, in a identify where they were spring to be seen by the academicians. There they attracted the attending of [Charles] de la Fosse, who, struck by the rare gifts displayed in these works, sent for Watteau and dissuaded him from going to Italy, where he had nothing to learn. It was to a great extent due to de la Fosse and to [Hyacinthe] Rigaud that Watteau was made an associate of the University in 1712, and a full member in 1717, on the completion of his diploma picture,

The Embarkment for Cythera

, now at the Louvre. A later, and even more perfect, version of the aforementioned subject is in the possession of the German language emperor. It is quite possible that the superb portrait of Rigaud by Watteau belonging to Mr Hodgkins, was painted in acknowledgment of Rigaud'south friendly action.

Watteau now went to live with Crozat, the greatest individual art collector of his time, for whom he painted a set of four decorative panels of

The Seasons

, one of which,

Summer

, is now in the collection of Mr Lionel Phillips. Crozat left at his decease some 400 paintings and 19,ooo drawings by the masters. It is easy to imagine how Watteau roamed among these treasures, and became more and more familiar with Rubens and the great Venetians. In 1719 or 1720 the state of his health had get so alarming that he went to London to consult the famous medico Richard Mead. But far from benefiting by the journeying, he became worse, the London fog and smoke proving particularly pernicious to a sufferer from consumption. On his return to Paris he lived for half-dozen months with his friend Gersaint, for whom he painted in 8 mornings the wonderful signboard depicting the interior of an fine art dealers shop, which is nowcut into two partsin the collection of the High german emperor. His health fabricated information technology imperative for him to live in the country, and in 1721 he took upward his domicile with M. le Feyre at Nogent. During all this time, as though he knew the near arroyo of the cease and wished to make the best of his time, he worked with feverish haste. Amongst his last paintings were a

Crucifixion

for the curé of Nogent, and a portrait of the famous Venetian pastelist Rosalba Carriera, who at the same fourth dimension painted her portrait of Wattea. His restlessness increased with the progress of his disease; he wished to render to Valenciennes, merely the long journeying was too dangerous; he sent for his student Pater, whom he had dismissed in a fit of ill-temper, and whom he now kept past his side for a month to give him the benefit of his experience; and on the 18th of July 1721 he died in Gersaint'southward arms.

Watteau'south position in French fine art is ane of unique importance, for, though Flemish past descent, he was more French in his fine art than any of his French contemporaries. He became the founder and at the same time the culmination of a new school which marked a defection against the pompous decaying classicism of the Louis Fourteen period. The vitality of his art was due to the rare combination of a poets imagination with a power of seizing reality. In his treatment of the mural background and of the atmospheric environs of the figures can be found the germs of impressionism. All the afterward theories of light and its effect upon the objects in nature are foreshadowed past Watteau'southward fêtes champêtres, which give at the same time a feature, though highly idealized, picture of the artificiality of the life of his time. He is the initiator of the Louis XV catamenia, but, except in a few rare cases, his paintings are entirely costless from the licentiousness of his followers Lancret and Pater, and even more of Boucher and Fragonard. During the last years of his life Watteaus art was highly esteemed by such fine judges equally Sirois, Gersaint, the comte de Caylus, and M. de Julienne, the last of whom had a whole collection of the masters paintings and sketches, and published in 1735 the

Aberg de la vie de Watteau

, an introduction to the four volumes of engravings subsequently Watteau by Cochin, Thomassin, Le Bas, Liotard and others. From the middle of the 18th century to about 1875, when Edmond de Goncourt published his Catalogue raisonn of Watteau's works and Cayluss soapbox on Watteau delivered at the Academy of 1748, the discovery of which is also due to the brothers de Goncourt, Watteau was held in such slight esteem that the prices realized by his paintings at public auction rarely exceeded 100. Then the reaction ready in, and in 1891 the

Occupation

according to Age realized 5200 guineas at Christies, and

Perfect Harmony

3500 guineas. At the Bourgeois sale at Cologne in 1904

The Village Bride

fetched £5000.

The finest collection of Watteaus works is in the possession of the German emperor, who owns as many every bit thirteen, all of the best period, and mostly from M. de Juliennes collection. At the Kaiser Friedrich museum in Berlin are two scenes from the Italian and French comedy and a fête champêtre. In the Wallace Collection are nine of his paintings, among them

Rustic Amusements

,

The Return from the Chase

,

Gilles and his Family

,

The Music Political party

,

A Lady at her Toilet

and

Harlequin and Columbine

. The Louvre owns, besides the diploma picture, the

Antiope

,

The Assemblage in the Park

,

Fall

,

Indifference

,

La Finette

,

Gilles

,

A Reunion

and

The False Footstep

, as well as thirty-1 original drawings. Other paintings of importance are at the Dresden, Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Petersburg and Vienna galleries; and a number of drawings are to be found at the British Museum and the Albertina in Vienna. Of the few portraits known to have been painted by Watteau, one is in the collection of the late M. Groult in Paris.

AUTH0RITIES. Since the resuscitation of Watteaus fame by the de Goncourts, an all-encompassing literature has grown effectually his life and work. The basis for all later enquiry is furnished past Cayluss somewhat bookish

Life

, Gersaint'due south

Catalogue raisonné

(Paris, 1744), and Juliennes Abergé. For Watteau's babyhood, the near trustworthy information will be establish in Celliers Watteau, son enfance, ses comtemporains (Valenciennes, 1867). Of the greatest importance is the

Catalogue raisonné de fifty'oeuvre de Watteau

, past E. de Goncourt (1875), and the essay on Watteau past the brothers de Goncourt in

L'Art du XVIII siècle

. See as well

Watteau

by Paul Mantz (Paris, 1892);

Antoine Watteau

, by Thou. Dargenty (

Les Artistes célèbres

, Paris, 1891);

Watteau

, by Gabriel Sailles (Paris, 1892);

Antoine Watteau

by Claude Phillips (London, 1895; reprinted without alterations or corrections by the author, 1905); and Camille Mauclair'due south bright monograph Antoine Watteau (London, 1905), which is of infrequent involvement as a physiological report, since the author establishes the connexion between Watteau's art and character and the affliction to which he succumbed in the prime of his life. (P.Grand.K.)

Source: Entry on the artist in the 1911 Edition Encyclopedia.

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