Antoine Watteau

Watteau in the last year of his life, by Rosalba Carriera, 1721

Jean-Antoine Watteau (October 10, 1684 – July 18, 1721) was a French painter whose work and legacy has left it's mark on the world of art. His career, though brief, helped to create a revival in color and movement at a time when sedentary poses and mute colors were rampant. His paintings were influenced by the likes of Correggio and Rubens. His work is also known for playing a part in the revitalized style first referred to as Baroque and later as Rococo. He is often credited with being the first major Rococo artist [1]. The Rococo movement was stylized by the use of delicate colors and curving forms. Many of the painters of the time, including Watteau, decorated their canvases with myths of love, graceful cherubs, and whimsical settings. Watteau also invented a specific genre of painting know as the fêtes galantes. This genre was known for its portrayal of idyllic rural life, a sense of theatrics, and pastoral charm. Watteau found inspiration for his paintings in the world of Italian comedy and ballet. He is known to have greatly influenced the great painters Jean-Honore Fragonard and Francois Boucher [2].

Early life and training

La Boudeuse from the Hermitage Museum

Not much is known about the birth and childhood of Jean-Antoine Watteau. It is known that he was born in the Flemish town of Valenciennes. Valenciennes was unique at the time because it had recently been annexed by the kind of France, Louis XIV. The Watteau family was of Flemish descent.

Watteau grew up in a home where his father, a master tiler, was often prone to drinking and brawling [3]. At a very early age, Watteau showed an interest and a definite gift for painting. He began painting the local people of Valenciennes, including the shop-keepers, the traveling performers, and the various tradesmen [4]. Realizing the talent, Watteau was soon apprenticed to Jacques-Albert Gérin, a local painter. However, Watteau's extraordinary talent soon surpassed that of his teacher and, like most young painters of his time, he made his way to Paris in 1702.

Once in Paris, Watteau found employment at a workshop on Pont Notre-Dame. His work was tasking, he was commissioned to make copies of popular genre paintings in the Flemish and Dutch tradition. Although a repetitive job, the daily tasks served to help Watteau develop many aspects to his talent, including his development of his characteristic sketchlike technique. This second rate painting occupation was not to last for long. Soon, Watteau's world changed when he met the painter Claude Gillot.

Watteau met Gillot in 1703 and was hired as his assistant immediately thereafter. Gillot was a pioneer of art, as well as a bit of rebellion. Gillot openly painted against the approved genre of official art commissioned under Louis XIV's reign. It was in Gillot's studio that Watteau was introduced to what would become a lifelong passion. The commedia dell'arte was a subject often painted by Gillot, even though its actors were expelled from France several years earlier). It was during this time that Watteau began painting this subject matter as well.

Watteau soon moved to the workshop of Claude Audran III, an interior decorator. It was through acquaintance and admiration of Audran, that Watteau began to pay particular attention to the elegance epitomized in his drawings. With Audran's help, Watteau was able to see the magnificent paintings by Peter Paul Rubens that were housed in the Palais du Luxembourg. Audran served as curator of the Palais, and was instrumental in obtaining Watteau entrance so that he could admire Ruben's canvases painted for Queen Marie de Medici.

Watteau was so impressed by the work of Rubens in particular, and with various Venetian masters in general, that he spent endless hours in studying. These artists inspired him to implement even more elegance and movement into his creations. Watteau was finding his own style, creating paintings that were inspired by Rubens, but were still uniquely his own. Watteau also found endless inspiration from the collection of his patron and friend, the banker Pierre Crozat.

Mature works

The Embarkation for Cythera (Louvre version): Many commentators note that it depicts a departure from the island of Cythera, the birthplace of Venus, thus symbolizing the brevity of love.

While studying with Audran, Watteau made important contributions to the art world. He is so well known for creating the fêtes galantes that many have failed to realize Watteau's role in developing chinoiseries and singeries. These decorations were based on oriental subject matter and various monkey motifs. The design was then applied to various foundations, including panels, furniture and porcelain. [5]

In 1709 Watteau tried to obtain the highly sought after Prix de Rome. The Prix was an art scholarship to Italy. However, the Academy that decides the scholarship turned Watteau down. Not accepting failure as an option, Watteau applied himself to his craft even more and tried again for the prize in 1712. Watteau was surprised to find that the Academy now regarded his talent as being so great, that instead of offering him the Prix de Rome, they instead offered him a position as a full member of the Academy. To complete his membership, Watteau was required to create a "reception piece". It took him five years to complete, but Pilgrimage to Cythera or the Embarkation for Cythera turned out to be one of his most famous masterpieces. These two versions of the same painting epitomize French Rococo at its peak. The elegant men and women are displayed in their shimmering silks. The painting is adorned with rose-cheeked cherubs. All these details are indicative of the style of this movement. It was with this painting that Watteau became known as the painter of the Fetes Galantes.[6]

Watteau's commedia dell'arte player of Pierrot, ca 1718-19, traditionally identified as "Gilles" (Louvre)

As Watteau made a living as a painter, he found his eager buyers in the class of the bourgeois. These bankers and dealers were quick to admire the idealized aristocratic elecgance of the Régence. There was an ever present irony in the paintings of Watteau, he painted the upper class, but sold these paintings to the middle class. He painted elegance and refinement, but lived most of his life under the oppressive reign of Louis XIV.

Antoine Watteau possessed a certain spirit that was captured in his paintings. Although many artists tried to capture his talent in their own works, they were always lacking that special something. Art critics have long proclaimed that Watteau, while painting depictions of frivolity and joviality, and the grand fêtes galantes he was known for, was actually painting on a deeper level than many gave him credit for. His paintings, though capturing these lighthearted scenes, were, in reality, displaying a very sober and melancholy view of life. This fleeting sense of futility mixed with the frivolity makes Watteau one of the only painters of the 18th century to display characteristics of a more modern artist. While Nicolas Lancret and Jean-Baptiste Pater strove to imitate what Watteau brought to the canvas, his spirit could never be equaled.

Among his most famous paintings, beside the two versions of the Pilgrimage to Cythera (one in the Louvre, the other in the Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin), are Pierrot (long identified as "Gilles"), Fêtes venitiennes, Love in the Italian Theater, Love in the French Theater, "Voulez-vous triompher des belles?" and Mezzetin. The subject of his hallmark painting is Pierrot or Gilles, shown in a pathetic clown costume, with a fading smile. The slowly fading smile seems to indicate either lost lines, or a lost sense of self. The expression captured here in paint has often been interpreted as Watteau's wry comment on his mortal illness.

L'Enseigne de Gersaint (1720): In one of Watteau's last paintings, the portrait of Louis XIV and his own artworks are being packed away. The painter had no reason to expect that his name would be remembered long.

Watteau's final masterpiece, the Shop-sign of Gersaint[7] was painted at Watteau's own insistence, "to take the chill off his fingers", this sign for an art shop in Paris is effectively the final curtain of Watteau's theatre. It has been described as Watteau's Las Meninas, because the apparent theme of the painting appears to be the promotion of art. This famous scene takes place in an art gallery where the façade has magically vanished. Watteau has taken the setting of the gallery and fused it with that of the street to create one contiguous drama.

As Watteau grew in talent and age, many of his closest friends became alarmed as he adopted a careless attitude about securing a financially stable future. Many of them worried that Watteau, who had suffered and continued to suffer from several illnesses, was aware that his life might not be extended very far. Contracting tuberculosis, Watteau decided to seek medical attention. In 1720, he traveled to London, England to consult Dr. Richard Mead. Dr. Mead was regarded as a highly knowledgeable and fashionable physicians. However, the damp and fog of England only caused his condition to worsen. Watteau decided to return to France and live out his last days there. On of his patrons, Abbe Haranger, allowed Watteau to take up residence at his home. Watteau died in 1721 at the age of 37. The Abbe said Watteau was semi conscious and mute during his final days, clutching a paint brush and painting imaginary paintings in the air.

Critical assessment and legacy

Only a small circle of close friends ever truly came to know the real Antoine Watteau. His art went largely unappreciated by a majority of people. Watteau "was mentioned but seldom in contemporary art criticism and then usually reprovingly". Sir Michael Levey once noted that Watteau "created, unwittingly, the concept of the individualistic artist loyal to himself, and himself alone".

Watteau's immediate followers (Lancret and Pater) went on to depict the frillery of the genres, but never with the same sense of irony as was found in Watteau's paintings. Following their paintings, two other artists (Boucher and Fragonard) tread a path laid by Watteau. But Watteau's art differed still from the whimsicality they painted. Watteau's art remains unique in its ability to capture a note of sympathy, a bit of wistfulness, and a sadness at the transience of love and other earthly delights.

Watteau's influence on the arts (not only painting, but the decorative arts, costume, film, poetry, music) was more extensive than that of almost any other 18th-century artist. According to the 1911 Britannica, "in his treatment of the landscape background and of the atmospheric surroundings of the figures can be found the germs of Impressionism".

The Watteau dress, a long, sacklike dress with loose pleats hanging from the shoulder at the back, similar to those worn by many of the women in his paintings, is named after him.

A revived vogue for Watteau began in Europe during the Victorian era and was later encapsulated by the Goncourt brothers and the World of Art.

In 1984 Watteau societies were created in Paris and London.

Since 2000 a Watteau centre has been established at Valenciennes.

• 

  La Partie carrée.

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  Das Ballvergnügen (Les Plaisirs du bal) (1717).

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  Der Tanz (1710-1720).

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  Der Jäger des Nestes (1710).

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  Die Familie des Mezzetin (1717).

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  Die französische Komödie (1718).

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  Die Skulptur, Tondo (1710).

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  Les Charmes de la vie (1718)

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  Jupiter und Antiope (1715).

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  Venezianische Feste (1717).

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  Mezzetin (1717-1719).

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  Maskerade (1717).

Notes

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Antoine Watteau

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Dormandy, Thomas. "The white death: the history of tuberculosis". New York University Press, 2000. p.11.
• Levey, Michael, Rococo to Revolution. Thames and Hudson, 1966.
• Roland Michel, Marianne, Watteau. Flammarion, 1984.
• Schneider, Pierre, The World of Watteau. Time-Life Books, 1967.

External links

• Watteau paintings at the Web Gallery of Art

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