With paint applied in thick layers, thin glazes and often fairly dry, Chardin rendered soft contours and textures with startling realism. He selected his subjects with great care and studied them closely and objectively. He later gained wider popularity when engraved copies of his works were produced. When his eyesight began to fail in later life, he turned to pastels, which he handled with sensitivity, balancing color, light and composition.
Key Works
The Silver Goblet 1728, MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS, FRANCE
The Young Schoolmistress 1735–6, NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON, UK
Saying Grace c.1740, MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS, FRANCE
The Morning Toilet 1740, NATIONAL MUSEUM, STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
Grapes and Pomegranates 1763, MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS, FRANCE
BOUCHER
1703–1770 • ROCOCO
Reclining Girl
1752 OIL ON CANVAS
59 × 73 CM (23¼ × 28¾ IN)
ALTE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH, GERMANY
The model is 15-year-old Louise O’Murphy. Small, delicately flushed and rounded, she was one of Louis XV’s many mistresses. This painting shows her childlike naivety but also emphasizes her voluptuous curves and provocative sensuality, exemplifying the atmosphere of the era.
The favorite artist of Louis XV’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour, François Boucher was known for his tranquil and graceful works on classical themes, decorative allegories and portraits.
The son of a lace designer, Parisian-born Boucher studied with the painter François Lemoyne (1688–1737) but was particularly influenced by the work of Watteau, Tiepolo and Rubens. When he was 20, he won the Prix de Rome and spent four years studying in Italy, where he was greatly inspired by Tiepolo and Veronese. He returned to Paris in 1731 and built up an extremely successful career, during which he received many honors.
Boucher first produced large-scale mythological and history paintings and became a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Later he became a professor of the Académie and head of the royal Gobelins tapestry factory. As the protégé—and also the teacher—of Madame de Pompadour, mistress to Louis XV, in 1765 he became the king’s official court painter and the director of the Académie. Immensely versatile, he designed fans, porcelain, slippers, interiors, theater sets, costumes and tapestries. He produced book illustrations and decorative schemes for the royal palaces, resulting in many engravings and reproductions of his work on to porcelain and biscuit-ware at the Vincennes and Sèvres factories.
His early paintings celebrated innocence, but his later work became more amorous and erotic. His delicate, cheerful, and sometimes risqué depictions of women created a new genre and he became the most fashionable painter of his day. Toward the end of his career, as French taste began to favor Neoclassicism, he was criticized for his artificiality and for not painting from life. Yet his work was intended to please, not to instruct.
Key Works
The Rest on the Flight to Egypt 1737, STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM, ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
Diana Leaving her Bath 1742, MUSÉE DU LOUVRE, PARIS, FRANCE
The Toilet of Venus 1751, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK, US
Madame de Pompadour 1759, WALLACE COLLECTION, LONDON, UK
REYNOLDS
1723–1792 • ROCOCO PERIOD
John Parker and his Sister Theresa
1779 OIL ON CANVAS
142.2 × 111.8 CM (56 × 44 IN)
SALTRAM HOUSE, DEVON, UK
This portrait of pink-cheeked siblings is appealing and informal without being sentimental. Clearly having a good rapport with the children, Reynolds worked directly on to the canvas, without preparatory drawings. The confidence of his style can be seen in the painting’s warmth and vitality.
One of the most significant figures in British art, Joshua Reynolds specialized in portraits and idealized images. He was one of the founders, and the first president of London’s Royal Academy of Arts.
The son of a grammar school headmaster in England, Reynolds was well-educated, which was rare for an artist of the time. From an early age he aspired to be a painter and despite his family’s poverty, at 17 he went to London to study with the portrait painter Thomas Hudson (1701–79), and began working as an independent, professional portrait painter two years later. In 1749, he traveled to the Mediterranean, visiting Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers and Minorca. From Minorca he went to Livorno in Italy, and then to Rome, where he spent two years studying the Old Masters, becoming inspired by the techniques of Michelangelo and Raphael, and fascinated by the antiquities of ancient Rome. In 1753, he settled in London and set up a portrait painting practice and by 1760 he was the most popular portrait painter in Britain.
Over his lifetime, Reynolds produced as many as 3,000 portraits, employing assistants to paint drapery and backgrounds. He became particularly renowned for his sensitive children’s portraits and the inventiveness of his poses, while with all his sitters, he managed to capture the essence of their individuality. His style became known as the “grand manner” and he helped to make British portraiture the most respected and influential in the world.
Reynolds’s success was achieved through intelligence, diligence and a firm grasp of how to organize a business, as well as great skill and ambition. He worked extremely long hours, rarely taking a holiday and he became wealthy and accepted in the highest levels of society. Sociable and intelligent, through his association with literary and intellectual figures of the day, such as Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709–84), Oliver Goldsmith (1728–74), Edmund Burke (1729–97) and David Garrick (1717–79), he raised the status of artists in Britain. He also helped to establish the Royal Academy of Arts, and in 1768 was made its first president. This was hugely significant because the Royal Academy became the principal institution for artists’ exhibitions. From 1769 to 1790, he delivered annual lectures called Discourses to Royal Academy students. He claimed that the aim of art is moral improvement and that artists should seek inspiration in noble and high themes. His Discourses became the basis for academic art education for nearly 200 years. In 1769, he was knighted. Twenty years later, the loss of sight in his left eye finally forced him into retirement.
Key Works
Anne Dashwood 1764, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK, US
Miss Bowles 1775, WALLACE COLLECTION, LONDON, UK
Omai (Omiah) 1776, CASTLE HOWARD COLLECTION, YORKSHIRE, UK
Lady Taylor 1781–4, THE FRICK COLLECTION, NEW YORK, US
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and her Daughter 1784, THE DEVONSHIRE COLLECTION, CHATSWORTH, DERBYSHIRE, UK
GAINSBOROUGH
1727–1788 • ROCOCO PERIOD, ROMANTICISM
The Painter’s Daughters with a Cat
c.1760–1 OIL ON CANVAS
75.6 × 62.9 CM (29¾ × 24¾ IN)
NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON, UK
Gainsborough’s daughters, Mary and Margaret, were about ten and eight years old here. The painting is unfinished and the outlines of a cat snuggled against them can just be seen. Although he was more relaxed with his own daughters, Gainsborough always portrayed something elusive about his sitters’ personalities.