Word: watteau
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...gallery and install in it the museum's collection of French paintings, the first question was what could possibly replace La Giaconda's enigmatic smile? The answer, decided Director Andre Parrot and Curator Michel Laclotte, was the tragic clown figure, Gilles, painted in 1720 by Antoine Watteau. And surprisingly, the replacement so far has met with nothing but approval...
Rivals in Pleasure. That Gilles should remind Chastel of Bottom is no surprise, for both play essentially the same comic role. In the commedia dell' arte farces so popular in Watteau's day, Gilles, or Pierrot, was the simple-wilted country bumpkin, often a servant who pointed out the follies of his master and for his audacity got his ears boxed. But Watteau's dignified, wistful figure is aimed not at burlesque. In all probability it was intended as a portrait of a patron or friend...
...Watteau often painted such personalities in commedia dell' arte costumes, for the masquerade was the sign and symbol of his era. To capture its magic, the Flemish-born painter had run away to Paris at the age of 18, then studied with Stage Designer Claude Gillot and Interior Decorator Claude Audran before striking out on his own. The times cried out for a chronicler. After the aged Sun King, Louis XIV died in 1715, French society, under the leadership of the dissolute regent, the Due d'Orleans, gave itself over to a rabid pursuit of pleasure, rivaling that...
Fleeting Gifts. In dozens of airy canvases, Watteau portrayed the costumed promenades and the subtle indiscretions, the muted serenades and lush elegance of invisibly manicured garden estates. Collectors snapped his pictures up. Yet no matter what he showed, Watteau's view remained strangely aloof. A subtle veil of distance shrouds all his pictures, making them seem as much fantasy as reality. Unlike the nude nymphs of Boucher, Lancret and Fragonard, who with varying degrees of success were to echo his style, Watteau's aristocratic Co-lombines and shepherdesses remained fully clothed...
...sign, like artists. Porcelain factories turned out incense burners shaped like snails or elephants, tulip stands decorated with genre scenes. Yet, while artisans were elevated to the status of artists, painters often became as subservient as craftsmen. The vast majority of oils, watercolors and drawings made by Fragonard, Boucher, Watteau and Nattier to decorate boudoirs and gaming rooms were skillful but skin-deep pictures of pretty ladies, handsome gallants and idyllic landscapes...