The Rise Of French Painting

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

Lancret, who lived on till 1743, continued Watteau’s Italian comedy manner, and had considerable success with his theatrical portraits, two of which are in the Wallace Collections. He is seen at his best in the portrait of an actress known as ‘La Belle Grecque’, which has a vivacious charm of its own and is full of life. The pose of the figure is particularly happy and conveys admirably a sense of movement. But while they could imitate more or less cleverly the superficial appearance of Watteau’s pictures, neither Lancret nor Pater were able to give their paintings that undercurrent of pathos which lifts Watteau’s work high above the trivial.

Only a very superficial observer of Watteau’s pictures would accuse him of being a painter of frivolities, a chronicler of picnics. Watteau lived in an artificial age, and being a true artist he could not help reflecting something of its artificiality. The French Court life of his day had the splendor of autumn leaves about to fall. Watteau, himself a dainty rose with canker in the bud, shows us the hectic charm of a civilization already being consumed by mortal malady; but his honesty and intellectual insight prevented him from pretending that the happiness of his puppets was anything more than a passing moment of self-deception. His pictures haunt us, not because of their gaiety, but by reason of their gentle, uncomplaining melancholy; and the late Sir Frederick Wedmore penetrated to the secret of Watteau when he laid stress on ‘the reflective pathos, the poignant melancholy, which are among the most appealing gifts of him who was accounted the master of the frivolous, of the monotonously gay.’

Watteau is unique in his qualities of drawing and color. There have been many painters who were great draughtsmen, and a number of painters who have been great colorists; but those who were supreme both in drawing and color we can count on the fingers of one hand. Watteau is among them. If we look at the little figures in a typical Watteau like ‘The Conversation’, we perceive that the drawing rivals that of Raphael in its perfection of form and that of Rembrandt in its expressiveness. Watteau’s powers of drawing many be studied still further in his chalk drawings in the British Museum Print Room.

As for his paint, hardly among his predecessors will you find anything so exquisite in color and so jewel-like in quality. The brightness of his palette, and the little touches with which he laid on his color, make his pictures vibrate and sing as those of no other artist had done before. Watteau was not only a great master; he was one of those pioneer artists whose original research and brilliant achievements have given a new impetus to the art of painting.

The Rise Of French Painting (continued)