DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.68073#0301
FRENCH, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
We have now come to the age of elegance in painting. In
the preceding sections of this book we have passed through
many periods and many schools and have brought forward
superb examples of great masters of several countries,
but we now come to a time when the Art of Painting may be said to
have reached perfection. The French Painters of the Eighteenth
Century show us something entirely new in manner and in subject.
They have grace, elegance, delicacy, style, beauty, brilliancy, clarity,
and translucence of color. What can, for instance, equal the lightness
of Watteau and Fragonard, or the dewy freshness of Greuze?
There are such things as the floating silk of the thistle’s parachute;
such things as the feathery dust on the wings of “painted butterflies”;
such things as the velvet pile on the petals of flowers; such things as
the purple bloom on the plum and the grape; such things as the down
on the breast of the cygnet; such things as the roseate gleam of the
Oriental pearl; such things as the prismatic twinkle of the morning
dew; and such things as the liquid silver of the moon’s bright ray.
All these most precious and evanescent beauties Watteau, Lancret,
Pater, Fragonard, Drouais, Chardin, and other painters of the Eight-
eenth Century caught upon their palettes.
It was the genius Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) who opened the
magic casements into this new world of fairy-like color and fairy-like
lightness.
In the reaction from the heavy solemnity and gloom of the last
years of Louis XIV, when the Sun-King was setting under the dark
clouds of the bigoted and severe Madame de Maintenon’s influence,
French taste swung to the other extreme of gaiety, fancy, gallantry,
and caprice. Law’s Mississippi Bubble, while it lasted, enabled a
great many persons to become suddenly rich; and, as is always the
275
We have now come to the age of elegance in painting. In
the preceding sections of this book we have passed through
many periods and many schools and have brought forward
superb examples of great masters of several countries,
but we now come to a time when the Art of Painting may be said to
have reached perfection. The French Painters of the Eighteenth
Century show us something entirely new in manner and in subject.
They have grace, elegance, delicacy, style, beauty, brilliancy, clarity,
and translucence of color. What can, for instance, equal the lightness
of Watteau and Fragonard, or the dewy freshness of Greuze?
There are such things as the floating silk of the thistle’s parachute;
such things as the feathery dust on the wings of “painted butterflies”;
such things as the velvet pile on the petals of flowers; such things as
the purple bloom on the plum and the grape; such things as the down
on the breast of the cygnet; such things as the roseate gleam of the
Oriental pearl; such things as the prismatic twinkle of the morning
dew; and such things as the liquid silver of the moon’s bright ray.
All these most precious and evanescent beauties Watteau, Lancret,
Pater, Fragonard, Drouais, Chardin, and other painters of the Eight-
eenth Century caught upon their palettes.
It was the genius Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) who opened the
magic casements into this new world of fairy-like color and fairy-like
lightness.
In the reaction from the heavy solemnity and gloom of the last
years of Louis XIV, when the Sun-King was setting under the dark
clouds of the bigoted and severe Madame de Maintenon’s influence,
French taste swung to the other extreme of gaiety, fancy, gallantry,
and caprice. Law’s Mississippi Bubble, while it lasted, enabled a
great many persons to become suddenly rich; and, as is always the
275