What piece of music does the Watteau painting refer to? Antoine Watteau - biography and paintings of the artist in the Rococo genre - Art Challenge

Jean Antoine Watteau, better known as Antoine Watteau(fr. Jean Antoine Watteau, October 10, Valenciennes - July 18, Nogent-sur-Marne) - French painter and draftsman, founder and greatest master of the Rococo style.

Watteau is one of the most famous artists in world art history. Thanks to the efforts of the Goncourt brothers, Baudelaire and Verlaine, he took a place first in the Wallace collection, then in the Louvre (in 1869 there were 8 of his paintings) and finally in the history of art.

Biography

Watteau came to Paris in 1702 from northern France, from Valenciennes. From 1703 to 1708 Watteau worked in the workshop of Claude Gillot, copying and depicting the plots of Italian comedy. From this important stage in the creative formation of the artist, only one pictorial evidence has survived - the Moscow painting "Satire on Doctors".

In the following years, Watteau tried himself in different genres, the controversial chronology of the few surviving works of this period does not allow us to draw definite conclusions about the evolution of his interests, but his manner becomes freer, the brushstroke becomes fresher and lighter.

In 1710, after a short trip to Valenciennes, Watteau again lived in Paris, in the atmosphere of painting, music and theater he loved so much. Among his close friends are the writer and editor of the French Mercurius Antoine de la Roque, the dealers in paintings, frames and glass Gersin and Sirua, Italian comedy actors, poets and musicians.

Formed outside the rigidly regulated academic system, Watteau calmly considered and selected the stories that carried him away, not caring about the hierarchy of genres, freely surrendering to the will of feelings and fantasies. He did not like to work to order, preferring the freedom of design and the play of the imagination. He painted landscapes, masquerades in the spirit of Gillo, portraits of Italian actors, holidays in parks, caring more for mood, emotional and scenic richness of the scene than for scrupulous portrait resemblance or solemn grandeur.

Creation

Watteau was the creator of a peculiar genre, traditionally called "gallant festivities." The essence of these scenes is revealed not so much in their direct plot meaning, but in the subtlest poetry with which they are imbued. "Celebration of Love"(), like other paintings by Watteau, contains a rich range of emotional shades, which are echoed by the lyrical sound of the landscape background. Watteau discovered the artistic value of the fragile nuances of feelings, subtly replacing each other. His art for the first time felt the discord between dream and reality, and therefore it is marked by the seal of melancholic sadness.

Theatre

Watteau was very fond of theatrical plots, although he hardly accurately reproduced episodes of certain performances. In the theater, he was attracted by a flight of imagination, a living embodiment of fantasy, and finally, that sincerity of the game, which he did not find in a life similar to acting. The whimsical rhythms, the smoothness of small, as if vibrating strokes, the tenderness of exquisite colorful harmonies, the variability of color nuances correspond to the nature of the figurative world of Watteau.

His wonderful drawings are endowed with picturesqueness, especially since they are usually made in three colors (red, white and black), which made it possible to convey a sense of colorful hues and subtle gradations of plastic form. After the undivided dominance of the historical genre and allegorical scenes, Watteau discovered a variety of real types of French society of that time - soldiers and impoverished Savoyards, noblemen and actors of the fair theater.

decorative arts

Watteau preferred small paintings, but he was also a master of decorative art, he himself made ornamental panels for the interiors of mansions, painted carriage doors, harpsichords and fans, which influenced rococo architectural decor. And decorative works, and large canvases - "Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera"(), and famous "Sign of Gersin"() are distinguished by features typical of Watteau: amazing painting, quivering and tender; the finest gamut of fleeting moods; virtuoso compositional skill - the skill of a director who suddenly stopped an excellently thought-out theatrical action at the most important moment in the dramatic development of the relationships and characters' characters.

Artworks

• "Bivouac", circa 1710, State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow;
• "Savoyar with a marmot", 1716, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg;
• "Feast of Love", Dresden;
• "Society in the Park", about 1720, Dresden;
• "An Embarrassing Proposal", circa 1716,
• "Capricious", about 1718, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg;
• "Mezzetin", 1719, Metropolitan Museum of Art;
• "Pilgrimage to the island of Cythera", 1717-1718, Louvre, Paris;
• Gilles, Louvre, Paris,
• "Sign of the shop of E. F. Gersin", 1720, Art Gallery, Berlin-Dahlem.

Watteau and cinema

In 2007, the film "The Mystery of Antoine Watteau" was filmed in France with the famous actress Sylvie Testu in the title role.

Watteau Antoine - biography, facts from life, photographs, reference information.

Watteau Antoine (Jean Antoine Watteau, Watteau) (October 10, 1684, Valenciennes - July 18, 1721, Nogent-sur-Marne), French painter and draftsman. In domestic and theatrical scenes - gallant festivities, marked by exquisite tenderness of colorful nuances, quivering drawings, he recreated the world of the subtlest mental states.

Antoine Watteau was born in the Flemish city of Valenciennes, soon ceded to France, at the age of eighteen he came to Paris on foot, without money, without work, without patrons. He worked in the painting studio of the famous Marchand Mariette on the Notre Dame bridge; around 1704-1705 he became a student of the famous decorator Claude Gillot, who also painted scenes from the lives of actors. From 1707-08 he worked for Claude Audran, a woodcarver. Thanks to Audran, who acted as curator of the painting collection of the Luxembourg Palace, Watteau got acquainted with a series of paintings by Rubens. devoted to the history of Marie Medici, the works of the Flemish and Dutch masters, who had a strong influence on the technique and color of his work.

early paintings

Early small genre paintings - depicting a funny street scene ("Satire on Doctors", c. 1708, Moscow, Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin), a wandering organ grinder with a marmot ("Savoyar", 1716, St. Petersburg, Hermitage), episodes from a soldier's life ("Bivouac", ca. 1710, Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts; "Recruits catching up with the regiment", ca. 1709, Nantes, Museum of Fine Arts; "Military Rest", ca. . 1716, Hermitage) - reveal the sharpness and originality of the perception of the world, the artist, of course, is not looking for value in the pretentious art of the era of Louis XIV. and refers to the art of the 17th century - the peasant genres of Louis Le Nain, Callot's graphics, the Flemish masters.

In the period 1712-19. Watteau is fascinated by writing scenes from theatrical life. In the canvases “Actors of the French Theater” (c. 1712, Hermitage), “Love on the Italian Stage” (Berlin, Art Museums), “Harlequin and Columbine” (c. 1715, London, Wallace Gallery), “Italian Comedians” (1716 -19, Washington, National Gallery) he used sketches of the poses, gestures, facial expressions of the actors he liked, which he did in the theater, which became for him a haven of living feelings. Full of high poetry is the sad and kind image of the naive simpleton, the hero of the fair theater Gilles in the costume of Pierrot in the canvas “Gilles” (Paris, Louvre).

The finest nuances of human experiences - irony, sadness, anxiety, melancholy - are revealed in his small pictures depicting one or more figures in a landscape ("Cunning", 1715, Louvre; "Capricious", ca. 1718, Hermitage; "Mezzetin", 1717 -19, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art). The heroes of these scenes are offended and shy, awkward, mocking, sly and coquettish, often sad. The ironic alienation that always shines through in Watteau's paintings gives them a touch of surreal, fantastic and elusive mirage. Elegance and virtuoso ease of writing, iridescent range of carmine, green, lilac colors, variety of tonal shades echo the poetic game of feelings that these images-characters embody. Watteau's characters are far from reality, as if playing a pantomime, they depict a serene life in a very special world on the verge of theater and reality, a world created by the artist's imagination.

Pilgrimage to the island of Cythera

The so-called gallant scenes of Watteau - "Joy of Life" (c. 1715, London, Wallace Gallery), "Venetian Holiday" (Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland) depict a dream world with a touch of sadness. For the "Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera" Watteau was admitted to the French Academy (1717-18, Louvre, Paris; later version - Charlottenburg, Berlin). This pictorial elegy of Watteau is not built on collision, action (it is not even clear whether the departure or return is depicted on the canvas), but only on subtle shades of mood, a general poetic and emotional atmosphere. The composition of The Pilgrimage is devoid of stability - the characters either rush into the depths of the picture in groups, or disperse in pairs, or suddenly turn to the viewer with gestures or a glance. The characters seem to obey the "visible" music - the rising and falling lines that unite the entire procession in waves, almost dancing movements of couples, pauses, alternation of color spots create the feeling of an audible melody.

The iconography of the "gallant festivities" ("fetes galantes") goes back to the "gardens of love", known since the Middle Ages. However, unlike the Rococo park idylls, Watteau’s “gardens of love” embody not just a holiday of beautiful nature; in colorfully refined canvases, the unsteady poetry of feelings and reflections on human existence on earth is painted in penetratingly sad lyrical intonations. In 1719-20, the seriously ill artist visited England (perhaps hoping for the advice of English doctors), where he enjoyed great success; subsequently, the art of Watteau had a significant impact on English painting in the mid-second half of the 18th century.

Upon his return to Paris, for the “Great Monarch” shop owned by Gersin, from whom Watteau, exhausted by illness, asked for shelter, he wrote one of his most famous works and the only one he was pleased with, “Gersin's Shop Sign” (1720, Berlin, Art Museums ). According to Gersin himself, “it was written in a week, and even then the artist worked only in the morning; fragile health did not allow him to work longer. The everyday scene depicting the interior of the shop (in the style of “antique shops” by D. Teniers) is full of metaphors - reflections on their time: the clerks pack a portrait of King Louis XIV into a box - associations arise both with the name of the shop and with the oblivion of the bygone century. Watteau spent his last days in Nogent near Paris, where he transported a heap of theatrical costumes, props for future paintings, and where he painted the image of Christ for the local church. In the manner of Watteau, never rising, however, to the height of his teacher, the French artists Pater and Lancret worked.

10 October 1684(1684-10-10) 18 July 1721(1721-07-18) (aged 36) Франция!} Wikipedia Watteau, Antoine Views 1

Antoine Watteau is an artist whose biography is described in this article. It was one of the most original and famous in the 18th century. And he became the creator of a new style - Rococo, based on the traditions of Dutch and Flemish art.

early years

The artist Antoine Watteau was born on 10/10/1684 in Valenciennes. Initially, the city was Flemish, but then went to France. Antoine's father worked as a carpenter and roofer, but earned little. However, noticing his son's interest in drawing, when Antoine painted small pictures from everyday life, he gave him to study with a local artist.

But his teacher could not be called talented. His lessons gave Antoine almost nothing. And at the age of 18, he went to Paris on foot, wanting to find a mentor who would help him improve in painting.

First work

Since 1702, Antoine has been living in Paris. At first, he had a pretty hard time. To support himself, he got a job as an apprentice for artists in the workshop of Mariette, which was located on the Notre Dame bridge. Painters wrote for a merchant who was only interested in a quick sale of paintings. The owner of the workshop paid pennies to his workers. And for them, painters copied lurid paintings. Watteau is an artist who resented this attitude towards art. But he had to endure until he found a real teacher.

The first real teacher - K. Gillo

And fate gave Antoine a gift - a meeting with C. Gillo, a real talented artist. Watteau became his student. K. Gillo preferred to write rural plots, theatrical scenes, village holidays. Watteau mastered this theme to perfection and subsequently often adhered to it. She was close to him in spirit. But it soon became clear that the inclinations and tastes of Gillot and Watteau did not coincide in many ways. And this led to the rupture of their relationship. But this did not prevent Antoine from maintaining respect and appreciation for the teacher throughout his life.

New teacher - K. Odran

Watteau began searching for a new teacher. They became Claude Audran. He was engaged in decorations and wood carving. From 1707 to 1708 Watteau worked and studied with K. Odran. These classes taught him fluidity, expressiveness and ease in painting. Since Audran was the curator of the painting collection, Antoine also had the opportunity to admire the art of the old masters.

Most of all he was attracted by the paintings of Rubens. Partly because he, too, was Fleming, and the craftsman's art had a tactile persuasiveness. But Watteau wanted to paint his own paintings, and not copy other people's ideas. And he decided to leave Audran.

Watteau radically changes his life

Under the pretext of wanting to go to his native land, Antoine said goodbye to the teacher. Arriving home, Watteau painted several paintings. And when he returned to Paris, he applied to the Academy of Arts for participation in the competition. The winner had to go to Rome for further education. But only second place was given to Watteau. The artist who won the first place, subsequently, could not become a great master.

Education

But in any case, Antoine needed to get an education. And his path still lay through the Academy of Arts. In 1712, Watteau managed to enter this institution. He had the opportunity to receive the title of academician, which he received in 1718.

life and creation

After some time, he became famous. His paintings were very popular, and fans did not let pass, wanting to communicate with a talented painter. This is partly why Watteau had to change his place of residence frequently.

But the reason for this was also some qualities of nature. Watteau is an artist who was inherent in constancy and love for change. So constant moving not only saved him from excessive attention of fans, but also satisfied his spiritual impulses. He needed silence. Watteau liked to copy paintings by old artists. And this had a great influence on his own work.

As Antoine's friends described him, he was of a slight build and of medium height. His mind was always perceptive, alive. Watteau spoke little, he expressed all his emotions in drawings and paintings. Constant thoughtfulness created a feeling of a certain melancholy nature. In communication, Antoine was often cold, which embarrassed even friends, making them feel awkward.

Indifference was one of Watteau's serious shortcomings. Another "fad" - contempt for money. The enormous popularity of his paintings and the amounts offered for them annoyed the artist. He always believed that they paid too much for the works of art he wrote, and he returned everything that seemed to him to be surplus.

Drawings, like paintings, Antoine wrote not for sale, but exclusively for himself, expressing on paper and canvas the most subtle nuances of human emotions - irony, anxiety, sadness. The heroes of Watteau's works were shy, awkward, flirtatious, and so on. And it's amazing how the artist could convey these subtle shades of the human soul.

Watteau is an artist who created a new style - rococo. All Antoine's paintings are imbued with a light virtuosity of writing, a variety of tonal shades, and poetic play. Many paintings kept at the Academy of Arts have acquired the status of honorary ones. Watteau transferred many subjects to canvas, starting from his sketch drawings. Even early works anticipated the future style of a true master.

Illness and death of the artist

Watteau died on July 18, 1721 at the age of 36. The cause of death was consumption. Part of the disease was aggravated by a trip to England in 1720. He lived there for almost a year. In England, Watteau worked hard, and his paintings were a huge success. But the climate of this country was not conducive to good health, which began to deteriorate. Even before the trip to England, Watteau fell ill with consumption. And this disease began to progress. Watteau returned to his homeland quite ill.

He settled with a friend who traded paintings. But due to illness, Watteau became very weak and worked only in the mornings. Six months later, he wished to change his place of residence, and friends helped him move to Nogent. But the disease did not recede. Watteau was getting weaker and weaker, he wanted to return to his home, but did not have time.

Watteau was born in the small Flemish town of Valenciennes on October 10, 1684. The first lessons in painting were taught to him by the local artist Gerin, in whose studio the young Watteau copied the works of Rubens, Van Dyck and other famous Flemish painters. The young man's studies did not last long, Gerin's lessons gave a little to the novice artist, but encouraged him to more serious studies in painting.

Paris

Around 1700, Watteau went to Paris, having no means of subsistence, no patrons. There he begins to work in a small workshop located on the Notre Dame bridge. His duties include making cheap religious images and copying other people's paintings. The work paid meagerly and was also boring and exhausting.

In 1703, fate brings Watteau together with the Mariette family - the art dealer Pierre and his son Jean, a well-known collector of Dutch paintings. Visiting them, the young artist gets acquainted with the works of Titian, Rubens, Sempol, Picard and Callot, who became his first sources of inspiration.

teachers

During one of these visits to Marietta's house, Watteau meets with his first real teacher, Claude Gillot, and in 1703 the young artist begins to work in his studio. In the works of Gillot, images of scenes from everyday rural life, gallant and theatrical motifs prevailed. This topic became close to Watteau, contemporaries noticed the extraordinary similarity of the works of both artists, which probably led to a gap between them in 1708.

From 1708 to 1709, Jean-Antoine worked as an assistant to the decorator Claude Audran, who became his second teacher. Watteau devotes a lot of time to ornamental paintings, which subsequently affected the style of his mature works, giving them a characteristic accuracy and lightness.

Odran was the curator of the painting collection of the Luxembourg Palace, and his student had the opportunity to get acquainted with the work of the great painters of that time.

The rise of Watteau as a painter (1709-1716)

Working with Audran, young Jean-Antoine realizes that he must realize himself. To do this, he enters the Academy of Arts and tries to get the Grand Prix at the competition. But, disappointed by the second place that his work took, in 1709 Watteau makes a trip to his homeland in Valenciennes.

In 1710, the artist returned to Paris as a recognized and mature master. His work is dominated by battle painting, very popular among the participants in the Flemish war. It is the military theme that brings Watteau first fame.

Initially, upon his return, the artist settles with his father-in-law Sirua, who is engaged in the sale of paintings and frames. Through him Watteau makes acquaintance with Pierre Crozat. The millionaire Crozat, who served as the royal treasurer, was an art connoisseur and patron of the arts. In 1714, he placed at the disposal of the artist an estate in Nogent-sur-Marne. All the conditions for creativity were created here, and Watteau could work calmly without thinking about finding means of subsistence.

The period of late creativity (1716-1721)

This period of time was the most fruitful for Watteau. The artist often moves and lives in turn with Sirois, Crozat, Zhora, Fleigels. Contemporaries notice that after a while he began to be weary of any apartment in which he lived.

In 1917, Watteau became a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Arts. And from the end of 1719 to the summer of 1720 he visits London, where he meets with French artists. In the UK, Jean-Antoine works a lot, and his works are a success.

The artist spends the last year of his life in Nogent-sur-Marne in the company of close friends: Gersin, La Roque and Patin. In this estate he died on July 18, 1721.

In the discipline "History of foreign art"

"The work of Antoine Watteau in the context of Rococo art".

Introduction 2

Chapter 1. Biography of Antoine Watteau. four

Chapter 2. Creativity of Antoine Watteau. 6

2.1. Creativity of Antoine Watteau and theater. 7

2.2 The work of Antoine Watteau and the decorative arts. fourteen

Conclusion. twenty

Bibliography. 22

Introduction

The rococo stylistic direction dominated European art during the first three quarters of the 18th century. It was not so much an independent artistic phenomenon as a phase, a certain stage in the pan-European baroque style. The term "rococo" arose in France at the end of the 18th century, during the heyday of classicism, as a contemptuous nickname for all mannered and pretentious art of the 18th century: a curved, capricious line resembling the outlines of a shell is its main feature. Rococo art is a world of fiction and intimate experiences, decorative theatricality, sophistication, sophisticated sophistication, there is no place for heroism and pathos in it - they are replaced by a game of love, fantasy, lovely trinkets. The heavy and pathetic solemnity of the Baroque is being replaced by a chamber fragile decorative effect. The slogan of the short, short-lived "century" of Rococo is "art as pleasure", the purpose of which is to excite light, pleasant emotions, entertain, caress the eye with a bizarre pattern of lines, exquisite combinations of light elegant colors, which was especially expressed in the architectural decoration of interiors, with the new requirements of which Rococo painting also took shape. The most common form of painting has become a decorative panel, mostly oval, round or intricately curved; The composition and drawing are based on a softly curved line, which gives the work a pretentiousness and elegance that is obligatory for this style. In their coloristic searches, the rocaille masters went from Rubens, Veronese and the Venetians, but preferred not their rich, rich colors, but pale undertones: red becomes pink, blue becomes blue, lemon yellow, faded blue, pink, lilac colors appear, even fictional - like "the color of the thigh of a frightened nymph." One of the founders of the Rococo style was the talented Antoine Watteau, who gave the most perfect embodiment of the principles of this style. Emotionality and melancholy dreaminess give the characters of Watteau's images a special sophistication, which is no longer achieved by the immediate followers of the master, who turned his motives and manner into an exquisite and superficial fashion.

Chapter 1. Biography of Antoine Watteau.

Watteau, Jean Antoine (1684-1721), French painter and draftsman. Born in Valenciennes in 1684. In 1698-1701 Watteau studied with the local artist Gerin, at whose insistence he copied the works of Rubens, Van Dyck and other Flemish painters. In 1702, Watteau left for Paris and soon found a teacher and patron in the person of Claude Gillot, a theater artist and decorator who painted scenes from the life of the modern theater. Watteau quickly surpassed his teacher in skill and approx. 1708 entered the studio of the decorator Claude Audran. In 1709, Watteau unsuccessfully tried to win the Grand Prix of the Academy of Arts, but his work attracted the attention of several influential people, among whom were the philanthropist and connoisseur of painting Jean de Julienne, the art dealer Edm Francois Gersin, the banker and collector Pierre Crozat, in whose house the artist lived for some time, etc. In 1712 Watteau was introduced to the title of academician and in 1717 became a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Watteau died at Nogent-sur-Marne on July 18, 1721.

Watteau was one of the most famous and original French artists of the 18th century, who, based on the traditions of Flemish and Dutch art, created a new style - Rococo. In his mature years, Watteau studied the painting of Rubens, in particular the cycle of his paintings dedicated to Marie de Medici and adorning the walls of the Luxembourg Palace. Among the artist's drawings, several sketches from these panels have been preserved. At the heart of Watteau's favorite theme - images of gallant festivities - is Rubens' painting of the Gardens of Love.

Another equally important source of Watteau's work is drawings by Venetian masters from the collection of his friend and patron Pierre Crozat. The works of Titian and Paolo Veronese, as well as the landscape drawings of Domenico Campagnola, made a particularly strong impression on the artist. The works of the Parisian teachers Watteau, Gillot and Audran became for him examples of refined taste, manifested in the creation of exquisite arabesques from figures and plants, reflecting the artistic passions of the early 18th century. In the depiction of theatrical scenes, he was a follower of Gillo.

All these sources are felt in Watteau's style, but in a very original alloy. His early works - scenes in taverns, images of bivouacs and military camps, painted in the Flemish tradition - have qualities that anticipate the mature style of the master. However, the subjects that most fully meet the taste of Watteau himself are the images of the characters of the Italian comedy (Gilles, the Louvre; Metsetin, New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and gallant festivities. The genre of gallant festivities is scenes with fashionably dressed ladies and graceful gentlemen against the backdrop of nature. However, Watteau fills them with a sense of longing for an unattainable dream world. Even the costumes - elegant variations on the themes of modern fashion - are the fruit of the artist's imagination.

Chapter 2. Creativity of Antoine Watteau.

Creativity Watteau marked the beginning of a new stage in the history of European painting, graphics and decorative arts. Following the characteristic motifs of genre painting of the 17th century, Watteau turned to the image of contemporary life (“Savoyar with a Marmot”), in which he introduced special intimacy and lyrical excitement. In adulthood, the artist prefers theatrical scenes and the so-called "gallant genre", depicting in his paintings all kinds of holidays, masquerades and amusements, romantic dates, an exquisite game of love of careless ladies and gentlemen ("Holiday of Love", "Hunting Rest", "Joys of Life", "Society in the Park").
Poetic imagination played an important role in Watteau's creative method. Watteau was the first to recreate in art the world of the subtlest states of mind (“Capricious”, “Awkward Proposal”), often tinged with irony and bitterness. The characters in Watteau's paintings are constantly repeating types, but behind their gallant play lies an infinite variety of shades of poetic feeling ("Venetian holiday"). The decorative sophistication of Watteau's works formed the basis of the Rococo artistic style.
In addition to the "gallant scenes", Watteau painted landscapes ("Landscape with a waterfall"), portraits ("Gilles", "Metsetin"), mythological compositions ("The Judgment of Paris"), religious compositions ("The Holy Family"), nudes (" behind the toilet).
Watteau is also known as the author of drawings in which he captured the most diverse representatives of French society.
Watteau was recognized in the artistic environment as a subtle and original master. In academic circles, his authority grew so much that in 1712 he was accepted as a member of the Academy, and in 1717 he received the title of academician for the large painting “Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera”.

2.1. Creativity of Antoine Watteau and theater.

2.2 The work of Antoine Watteau and the decorative arts.

Watteau preferred small paintings. But he was also a master of decorative art: he himself made ornamental panels for the interiors of mansions, painted carriage doors, harpsichords and fans. This influenced the architectural decoration of the rococo. Both decorative works and large canvases - “Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera” (1717), and the famous “Gersin Sign” (1720) are distinguished by features typical of Watteau: amazing painting, quivering and tender; the finest gamut of fleeting moods; virtuoso compositional skill - the skill of a director who suddenly stopped an excellently thought-out theatrical action at the most important moment in the dramatic development of the relationships and characters' characters.

"Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera".

This highly elegant (and melancholic) painting was presented by Watteau to a jury of academicians at his election to full membership of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1717. The island of Cythera, which appears in the title of the canvas, is Cyprus, the birthplace of the goddess of love Aphrodite (in the Roman tradition - Venus). Therefore, the pilgrimage to Cythera was for the French of the 18th century (even for those who were not very skilled in ancient mythology) a very transparent allegory.
"Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera" is more moody than a narrative picture, as, indeed, most of Watteau's works. From the title, we can conclude that the author wants to show the "holiday of love." But no. Rather, it is the end of the holiday, when all the ambrosia has already been eaten and the nectar has been drunk. The feeling of transience and fragility of happiness (and, by and large, its impossibility, because a person cannot be satisfied with “transiency”, and at the moment of the highest bliss yearns for the fact that “everything will end”) is emphasized by the autumn, twilight transparency of the landscape.

Antoine Watteau often included statues in his compositions related to the plot and mood of the painting. In The Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera, the statue of Venus is half-hidden in the shade of the trees. We turn our gaze to her thanks to the pink flowers with which the stone body of the goddess is twined. It should be noted that a quiver with arrows is tied to the foot of the statue of the goddess with a pink ribbon. This is a sign of the presence of Cupid, the playful son of Venus. As for the pink color, Watteau intersperses it so that it leads the viewer's eye along a whimsical trajectory - from the pink flowers of Venus, through the lady's cape and the bright pink camisole of the gentleman standing with his back, to the putti, soaring in the sky above the island.
Watteau always worked quickly (the huge "Gersin Sign" painted in a week is not a myth at all) and often applied the paint too hastily, which sometimes led to blots and distortions. But in this case, it was this haste that helped the master brilliantly convey the texture of the foliage - it only becomes more expressive thanks to the brush marks left on the surface of the picture. The paints are applied in thin, almost transparent layers, using the "wet on wet" technique, while the brown tones show through the green, which undoubtedly enriches the tonal range of the picture. In the same manner, Thomas Gainsborough painted foliage, who greatly revered Watteau's talent.

"Sign of Gersin"

Shortly before his death, returning from England, Watteau wrote his "requiem" - "Gersin's Sign".

“On my return to Paris in 1721, when I was just starting my business,” Gersin narrates, “Watto came to me and asked if I would agree to settle him and let him, as he put it, “stretch his hands” and write a sign so I can hang it over the entrance to the archway. I did not want to accept this offer, I preferred to occupy him with something more thorough, but, noticing that the work would give him pleasure, I agreed. Everyone knows how successful this thing was for him; everything was done from nature, the poses were so truthful and unconstrained, the composition was so natural; the groups are so well placed that they attract the eye of all passers-by, and even the most experienced painters come several times to admire the sign. It was written in a week, and the artist worked only in the mornings; fragile health, or rather weakness, did not allow him to work longer. This is the only work that somewhat flattered his pride - he frankly admitted this to me.

It is hard to believe that something so profound in conception was executed so quickly; the unusually large format for Watteau only reinforces doubts. It is hard to believe that "everything was done from nature." Suppose this applies to the interior and individual figures, but not to the composition as a whole. As for the author's high self-esteem, this is the rarest example of self-satisfaction in Watteau's biography, which testifies to the absolutely exceptional merits of the work.

The significance of this painting for the entire Rococo era is no less than the significance of Velázquez's Las Menin for the previous century. Without assuming a causal relationship, it is necessary to note the intriguing similarity of the directors: in both cases, all the characters are spectators.

Various hypotheses have been expressed regarding Watteau's idea, the most convincing of which is the one that was elaborately formulated by Louis Aragon and later developed by a number of authors. The meaning of this interpretation is that, under the guise of a sign, Watteau presented the history of painting as he knew it; at the same time, this is a picture of the creative evolution of the painter himself, which has become his "artistic testament". One of the arguments in favor of this point of view is a poem placed under Aveline's engraving, which reproduces the pictorial original. An anonymous poet explains that Watteau presented here the characteristic manners of various masters, their handwriting and taste.

Without rejecting this view, one can interpret the idea of ​​the picture in a slightly different way. Within the walls of the shop-gallery, Watteau depicted a whole world - the world of art.

Indeed, before us is the history of painting, as if played out on a stage, which you can step on directly from the street, as one of the charming heroines of the picture does.

However, we will hesitate on the threshold.

Watteau conceived the painting as a sign to place above the entrance to the shop. Hence the fundamental significance of the semantics of the door and the threshold. Generally speaking, gates and doors perform an extremely important function in the space of human communication. They regulate relations such as "cultural - natural" (gates of the city), "sacred - secular" (gates or doors of the temple), "public - private" (doors of the house), etc. All sorts of rituals of entry and exit are connected with this, one way or another emphasizing the meaning of the border. The location, shaping and design (symbols, images, inscriptions, etc.) of gates and doors signify certain conditions for spatial communication. Here, on the doorstep, one can clearly see that the expression "language of space" is not only a metaphor. A number of spatial mediators can be extended by windows; the frame of the picture goes back to it.

And although in the "Gersin Sign" Watteau, like the all-seeing hero of Lesage, gives the viewer the opportunity to see "through the walls", the threshold serves its purpose, delimiting the external and the internal, the street and the interior. The only character placed in the outer space of the picture is a dog lying down at the threshold and selflessly biting fleas.

On the border itself are the favorite heroes of Watteau, a gallant couple: the lady, depicted from the back, barely stepped through the threshold, and the gentleman, presented full face, offers her his hand. To their left is a group of employees busy packing pictures. On the right, a little further away, there is a group of visitors who are keen on looking at the paintings. All the walls of the shop are occupied by paintings of various sizes, hung close to each other.

The light is directed in such a way that the right side of the interior is illuminated more than the left. There are reasons to think that the lighting is symbolic. Before us is the sunset of the Roi-Soleil era: his portrait is placed in a box, as in a coffin, and with it the art of the “grand style” goes into the past; however, looking to the right, one can see the morning of a new era, at the dawn of which Watteau himself spoke. Isn't it his "muse" that shows admiring young people a small picture, visible to us, as in Las Meninas, from the reverse side? And isn't this the work of Watteau himself?

Before us is a whole world of painting, its heroes, its actors, its audience, spectators, old and new, curious voyeurs and soulful contemplators, and in everything - invisibly present, full of love and sadness, a dreamy and slightly ironic artist, looking back with a farewell smile to the lived and experienced. “He says goodbye to the world that has been dear to him for so long, to art lovers, many of whom were his good friends, although they did not always understand him to the end, with noble customers and sophisticated merchants, with his own heroes who finally came to his everyday world; says goodbye to the paintings that look from the walls of the shop, with the smell of old paper, on which priceless prints of famous engravings have been preserved. (M. German)

Switching attention from the object being contemplated to contemplation itself, Watteau demonstrates a finely developed phenomenology of vision. If it is legitimate to interpret the “Gersin Sign” as a kind of history of painting, then this history is inseparable from the viewer, because the tastes and manners of painting characteristic of painters of different times are just as closely connected with different forms of perception.

Rodin once remarked that great masters, as a rule, precede the era where their ideal triumphs. “The languid grace of Watteau seemed to have left its mark on the entire reign of Louis XV, he lived under Louis XIV and died under the regent.”

These words are more than fair in relation to the "Gersin Sign": the epilogue of Watteau's work serves as a prologue to the art of an entire era.

Conclusion.

Antoine Watteau was one of the greatest masters of French art of the 18th century, an artist of subtle poetic feeling and great pictorial talent. A dreamy and melancholy master of "gallant festivities", he introduced genuine poetry and depth of feelings into the depiction of the life of secular society, and a shade of some kind of melancholy and dissatisfaction into the interpretation of love scenes and careless amusements. Very often in his paintings there is an image of a lonely dreamer, melancholic and sad, immersed in thought and removed from the noisy fun, from the vain vanity of the crowd. This is the true hero of Watteau. Sickly, lonely and withdrawn, he himself shunned society and amusements and looked at them through the eyes of an outside observer, at the same time admiring the festive colorfulness of the crowd, the refined grace of gentlemen and ladies and guessing behind this brilliant surface empty indifference or deep human suffering. His works are always covered with lyrical sadness. We will not find in them stormy fun, sharp and sonorous colors. The color of Watteau is based on subtle and delicate nuances of tones, he is attracted by faded, muted colors.

Watteau's line in painting is continued by Lancret and Pater, but their works are devoid of both Watteau's subtle poetry and the sharpness of his realism. Watteau, Chardin and some other realist artists of the middle of the century develop the realistic achievements and coloristic searches more fruitfully.

Revered during life and after death (especially by Julien and Crozat), by the middle of the century Watteau was practically forgotten;

The art of Watteau also became widespread in other countries: in England thanks to Mercier (until about 1740) in Spain thanks to Quillard, not counting the numerous fakes created in the middle of the 18th century in Paris for the Prussian court. Drawings. The three largest collections of drawings by Watteau (Stockholm, British Louvre Museum) testify to the virtuosity of sanguine and charcoal, which in most cases were superimposed on tinted paper.

Watteau's work opened up new paths to the artistic knowledge of modern life, to a heightened perception of lyrical moods and the poetry of nature; in its content, it is broader and richer than rococo art, in the development of which the heritage of Watteau (especially his ornamental panels) played an important role.

Bibliography.

Akimova L.I., Buseva-Davydova I.L. History of Arts - M., 2003

Alpatov M.V. Etudes on the history of Western European art, 2nd ed. - M., 1963

Nemilova I. S. Watteau and his works in the Hermitage - L., 1964

Chegodaev A.D. Antoine Watteau - M., 1963

www.art-history.ru

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