Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)
THE THEATER IN ART
French Rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau was born in Valenciennes in northern France and studied art with Jacques-Albert Gérin as a teen. In 1702, he moved to Paris where he worked painting copies until taking a position as an assistant to Claude Gillot, a theater set designer and ardent admirer of commedia dell’arte, or Italian theatrical comedy.
In 1708, Watteau mentored with interior designer and decorative painter Claude Audran, who introduced him to Peter Paul Rubens’s Marie de’ Medici Cycle at the Luxembourg Palace, where Audran served as curator. Rubens’s art influenced Watteau immensely; however, Gillot and Audran played no small role in shaping the young artist’s unique aesthetic, which integrated color and nature with elements of theater, design, and comedy. Watteau was also gifted at depicting humanity with authenticity, realism, and a touch of pathos.
In 1712, Watteau was accepted into the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Because his artwork did not fit into any preexisting group, however, the Academy created a new category called fêtes galantes, a term used to describe art that depicts light and playful courtly scenes set within pastoral backdrops. Watteau’s requisite reception piece, Pilgrimage to Cythera (also called Embarkation for Cythera), is considered his career-defining pièce de résistance; it took five years to complete. The painting, which pays homage to the mythological Greek island of Cythera, is part of the Louvre’s permanent collection. It was so popular that Watteau painted another at a friend’s request; this second painting is housed at the Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin. —RJR
Notable works: Pilgrimage to Cythera, 1717; Le Faux pas (The Misstep), 1718; Pierrot, 1719.
FUN FACT
Although Watteau is generally known for his paintings, he was also a superior draughtsman and relished drawing in chalk.