Antoine Watteau

Jean-Antoine Watteau (UK: /ˈwɒtoʊ/, US: /wɒˈtoʊ/,^[2][3] French: [ʒɑ̃ ɑ̃twan vato]; baptised October 10, 1684 – died July 18, 1721)^[4] was a French painter and draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, as seen in the tradition of Correggio and Rubens. He revitalized the waning Baroque style, shifting it to the less severe, more naturalistic, less formally classical, Rococo. Watteau is credited with inventing the genre of fêtes galantes, scenes of bucolic and idyllic charm, suffused with a theatrical air. Some of his best known subjects were drawn from the world of Italian comedy and ballet.

Early life and training

Jean-Antoine Watteau

His drawings attracted the attention of the painter Claude Gillot, and by 1705 he was employed as an assistant to Gillot, whose work, influenced by those of Francesco Primaticcio and the school of Fontainebleau, represented a reaction against the turgid official art of Louis XIV's reign.^[22][23][24] In Gillot's studio, Watteau became acquainted with the characters of the commedia dell'arte (which moved onto the théâtre de la foire following the Comédie-Italienne's departure in 1697), a favorite subject of Gillot's that would become one of Watteau's lifelong passions.^[25][4]

After a quarrel with Gillot, Watteau moved to the workshop of

During this period Watteau painted The Departing Regiment, the first picture in his second and more personal manner, showing influence of Rubens, and the first of a long series of camp pictures. He showed the painting to Audran, who made light of it, and advised him not to waste his time and gifts on such subjects. Watteau determined to leave him, advancing as excuse his desire to return to Valenciennes. He found a purchaser, at the modest price of 60 livres, in a man called Sirois, the father-in-law of his later friend and patron Edme-François Gersaint, and was thus enabled to return to the home of his childhood. In Valenciennes he painted a number of the small camp-pieces, notably the Camp-Fire, which was again bought by Sirois, the price this time being raised to 200 livres.^[21]

Later career

Watteau then went to live with the collector Pierre Crozat, who eventually on his death in 1740 left around 400 paintings and 19,000 drawings by the masters. Thus Watteau was able to spend even more time becoming familiar with the works of Rubens and the Venetian masters.^[29] He lacked aristocratic

Watteau alarmed his friends by a carelessness about his future and financial security, as if foreseeing he would not live for long. In fact he had been sickly and physically fragile since childhood. In 1720, he travelled to London, England, to consult Dr. Richard Mead, one of the most fashionable physicians of his time and an admirer of Watteau's work. However, London's damp and smoky air offset any benefits of Dr. Mead's wholesome food and medicines. Watteau returned to France, spending six months with Gersaint,^[29] and then spent his last few months on the estate of his patron, Abbé Haranger, where he died in 1721, perhaps from tuberculous laryngitis, at the age of 36. The Abbé said Watteau was semi-conscious and mute during his final days, clutching a paint brush and painting imaginary paintings in the air.^[33]

His nephew, Louis Joseph Watteau, son of Antoine's brother Noël Joseph Watteau (1689–1756), and grand nephew, François-Louis-Joseph Watteau, son of Louis, followed Antoine into painting.

Critical assessment and legacy

Little known during his lifetime beyond a small circle of his devotees, Watteau "was mentioned but seldom in contemporary art criticism and then usually reprovingly".^[34] Sir Michael Levey once noted that Watteau "created, unwittingly, the concept of the individualistic artist loyal to himself, and himself alone".^[35] If his immediate followers, Lancret and Pater, would depict the unabashed frillery of aristocratic romantic pursuits, Watteau in a few masterpieces anticipates an art about art, the world of art as seen through the eyes of an artist. In contrast to the Rococo whimsicality and licentiousness cultivated by Boucher and Fragonard in the later part of Louis XV's reign, Watteau's theatrical panache is usually tinged with a note of sympathy, wistfulness, and sadness at the transience of love and other earthly delights.^[36] Famously, the Victorian essayist Walter Pater wrote of Watteau: "He was always a seeker after something in the world, that is there in no satisfying measure, or not at all."^[37]: 414

Watteau was a prolific draftsman. His drawings, typically executed in trois crayons technique, were collected and admired even by those, such as count de Caylus or Gersaint, who found fault with his paintings.^[4] In 1726 and 1728, Jean de Jullienne published suites of etchings after Watteau's drawings, and in 1735 he published a series of engravings after his paintings, The Recueil Jullienne.^[4] The quality of the reproductions, using a mixture of engraving and etching following the practice of the Rubens engravers, varied according to the skill of the people employed by Jullienne, but was often very high. Such a comprehensive record was hitherto unparalleled.^[4] This helped disseminate his influence round Europe and into the decorative arts.

Watteau's influence on the arts (not only painting, but the

In 1984 Watteau societies were created in Paris, by Jean Ferré, and London, by Dr. Selby Whittingham. A major exhibition in Paris, Washington and Berlin commemorated the 1984 tercentenary of his birth. Since 2000 a Watteau centre has been established at Valenciennes by Professor Chris Rauseo. A catalogue raisonné of Watteau's drawings has been compiled by Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat, replacing the one by Sir Karl Parker and Jacques Mathey;^[39] similar projects on his paintings are undertaken by Alan Wintermute^[40] and Martin Eidelberg,^[41] respectively.^{[citation needed]}

Gallery

• 
  Pierrot Content, c. 1711–1712, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid.^[42]
• 
  Marriage Contract and Country Dancing, c. 1711, Prado Museum, Madrid.^[43]
• 
  La Perspective (View through the Trees in the Park of Pierre Crozat), c. 1715, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• 
  St. Petersburg
• 
  Mezzetino, c. 1717–1720, Metropolitan Museum of Art

  , New York
• 
  Pierrot, c. 1718–1719, Louvre

  , Paris
• 
  Quellnymphe, c. 1718, private collection
• 
  The Love Song, c. 1717, National Gallery, London
• 
  National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
• 
  The Dance, c. 1716–1718, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
• 
  Actors of the Comédie-Française, between 1711–1718, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
• 
  Fêtes Vénitiennes, c. 1718–1719, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh
• 
  The Love Lesson, c. 1716–1717, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
• 
  Les Plaisirs du Bal, c. 1717, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
• 
  La Surprise, c. 1718, Getty Center, Los Angeles
• 
  La Boudeuse, c. 1715–1718, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg^[44]
• 
  Pilgrimage to Cythera, c. 1718–1719,

  Charlottenburg Palace

  , Berlin
• 
  The Italian Comedians, c. 1719–1721, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• 
  L'Enseigne de Gersaint, c. 1720–1721, Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin
• 
  Ceres (Summer), c. 1717–1718, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.