Antoine Watteau (1684-1721): the Painter, His Age and His Legend

by François Moureau (Editor)

Champion-Slatkine [Published 1987]. Paper covers, 344 pages, [77] pages of plates : illustrations (22 in color). Papers presented at the Watteau colloquium, Grand Palais, October 29-31, 1984. Essays are in French or English, the former with brief summaries in English, the latter with brief summaries in French. [From back cover] The six sections of this book make up the most noteworthy critical review devoted to the Valenciennes painter since the Dacier-Vuaflart and the Parker-Mathey Catalogues. Little by little Watteau's life has been laid bare : upbringing in a good middle-class family in a Valenciennes impoverished by war (Vangheluwe, Machelart, Opperman), informal art education but nevertheless acceptance by the world of exacting art-lovers by the time he reached thirty (La Gorce, Moureau, Nordenfalk, Baticle), influences experienced, and exerted, both far more numerous than has hitherto been imagined (Eidelberg, Zolotov, Breme, Lefrancois, Sani, Vidal), rapid growth of his myth from 1720 onwards running parallel with Jullienne's distribution-enterprise (Schreiber Jacoby, Alien, Luna). The master of the fetes galantes revitalised a whole movement of eighteenth-century European art(Wittingham, Marx); he symbolised a life-style which became an enchanted dream-world for the following century (Montandon, Simon, Jones, Kocks). Ambiguous painter, ambiguous myth :Watteau's art is not easy to interpret, in spite of the apparent lucidity of his subjects. One section of this work attempts to take as its starting-point the humblest elements of artistic creation before subjecting the artist to the surgeon's knife of analysis. Variable materials, imperfect preparation, a fa presto which does not facilitate the task of today's restorers (Bergeon, Faillant-Dumas) : Watteau's «back-room» has for the first time been scientifically opened for inspection...

Paperback

Published January 1, 1987