Jean-Antoine Watteau

Jean -Antoine Watteau (* October 10, 1684 in Valenciennes, † July 18, 1721 in Nogent -sur- Marne) was a painter of the French Rococo. With its fêtes galante he created in the early 18th century a new genre.

Life

Antoine Watteau was the second of four sons of Jean -Philippe Watteau (1660-1726) and his wife Michelle Lardenois ( 1653-1728 ). At the age of ten he became an apprentice in his hometown with the painter Jacques -Albert Gérin.

After he had gone about 1702 to Paris, he had to earn his living, initially working for images dealer until he became acquainted with Claude Gillot, who accepted him as a pupil, and from whom he took over the preference for representations from stage plays. But Watteau was only a short time at Gillot worked. From this he went to the decorator Claude Audran, the manager of the Galerie du Luxembourg, on whose behalf he numerous wall decorations, so-called panneaux, painted, their profound compositions, however, is only as reproductions from engravings.

At the Palais du Luxembourg he studied the paintings of Rubens, whose love garden was also the model for Watteau's fête galante. To 1708 Watteau students of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture and applied for a scholarship at an exhibition in Rome, the Grand Prix received, next year but only the second prize. He later moved to his hometown, where he returned in 1711 to return to Paris.

At the suggestion of the painter Charles de La Fosse, he applied for membership of the Academy and was also allowed, but only in 1717 was added as a member, since he the prescribed Up ( the Embarkation for Cythera, 1717, oil on canvas, 129 x 194 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris) filed until this year.

To 1716 the art collector Pierre Crozat took him into his home, where his large collection of drawings opened a rich source study him, and where he graduated with art connoisseurs as Mariette, Count Caylus, Jean de Julienne and other acquaintance. In the fall of 1720, he made ​​a trip to London, from which he returned early in 1721.

At the age of 36 years, the painter Antoine Watteau died on July 18, 1721 in Nogent -sur -Marne at Vincennes from tuberculosis.

Works

He has established with his shepherd pieces gallant festivals, rural pleasures and actresses representations a new genre of painting and exercised by his characters, whose costume he mostly borrowed from the Arcadian pastorals of the theater, an influence on the fashion costume of his and later times. Came early in his time Coiffures à la Watteau on to that later full costumes à la Watteau, the Watteauhäubchen that negligees à la Watteau, etc. joined.

With great safety and vitality of the drawing he joined a witty and light, though sometimes fleeting brushwork and a finely trained natural feeling which is particularly evident in the landscape backgrounds of his paintings. The largest number of paintings of Watteau (19 ) is located, purchased from Frederick the Great, held by the Foundation for Prussian Palaces and Gardens in Berlin -Brandenburg ( in Charlottenburg Palace and the New Palace in Potsdam), including a change in the composition repetition of embarkation to Cythera, love lessons, a rural pleasure, the dancing iris and the company sign of the art dealer Gersaint, and soon in the Louvre in Paris ( the misstep, la Finette, l' indifferent, the Italian Harlequin Gilles and society in the park). A large number of pictures of Watteau is also in English privately owned ( the most prominent in London's Wallace Collection).

Among his other works are to be emphasized: the Italian and the French comedy and dance in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, two gallant outdoor parties ( in the Dresden Gallery ), the young Savoyard and the minuet ( in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg), the village wedding ( in Soanemuseum to London), the ball and the Hunting Party ( Dulwich College in London).

The majority of the artistic work of Watteau ( nearly 800 ) are u by Claude Audran, Pierre Aveline, François Boucher, Anne- Claude- Philippe, Comte de Caylus, Charles Nicholas Cochin, Gabriel Huquier, Larmessan, Jean -Baptiste Scotin, Simon Thomassin been stung a. ( a selection of them on 60 panels mechanically reproduced in decorations and paintings of A. Watteau, Berlin 1888). His painting style was continued for a time by his students Nicolas Lancret and Jean- Baptiste Pater.

Recueil Julienne

This four-volume corpus is one of the most important, famous and rarest graphic works of the 18th century. It is named after Watteau's friend and patron Jean de Julienne (1686-1766), whose concern was with this catalog raisonné of Watteau to preserve art and documented. 621 etchings published 1726-1735 enormously costly splendor volumes in 100 complete sets. The French king Louis XV. had 10 copies of this work. In order to sell the leaves individually numerous anthologies were disassembled later. The first two volumes appeared in 1726 and 1728 and contained 350 Watteau's drawings detail templates for painting on excellent paper quality in oversize ( grand format jesus ). For Jullienne employed 13 engraver, including Jean Audran and François Boucher. Jullienne even turned 20 etchings. Volumes 3 and 4 were finally carried out with 16 of the finest engravers in France, including Jacques- Philippe Le Bas, Louis Crépy, Charles Nicolas Cochin and Jean Audrans son Benoit. The grand aigle format was even greater, but here the painting itself became the subject.

Reception

Since the 18th century there has been in the reception of Watteau's work different positions. After the artist's death, tried his friends and acquaintances, including the above-mentioned Comte de Caylus, a detailed report of his work and his life. His contemporaries described his work primarily as " merry " and " cheerful ". Nevertheless, Watteau's got work in the following decades into oblivion. Only the romantic-melancholic look at his pictures in the 19th century, for example, by poems of the brothers Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, brought him to the attention of the art world. The historicist conception of Watteau as a suffering and lonely artist was present until the 1980s. It was supported by the only hard to read, " mystical " imagery of the artist and by the fact that he died of consumption. In the 1980s, in the fêtes galante primarily visible subject of love was resumed. Since the 1990s a number of scientists support the view that the issue of gallant love to read ambivalent in Watteau's picture content. On the basis of amorous conversations composed of painters, by means of gestures and facial expressions, in not clearly readable character constellations a " semantic vacuum ".

Exhibitions

• 2013: Antoine Watteau. La musique de leçon. Palais des Beaux -Arts, Brussels.

Others

The French film The Vanishing Point by Laurent de Bartillat uses an art-historical approach to Watteau's work as part of the storyline and establishes a thesis to Watteau's private life.

The Diogenes Verlag shows since 1985 on the title page of Patrick Süskind's novel Perfume a detail of Watteau Jupiter and Antiope ( cf. Jupiter, Antiope ) - the armpit of a naked sleeping as a symbol of fragrant seduction.