Watteau's soldiers
Subtitle: scenes of military life in eighteenth-century France
By: Aaron Wile
Contributors: Watteau, Antoine, 1684-1721; Frick Collection
Publisher: Frick Collection
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 112
ISBN-13: 9781907804793; 9780912114668
Subjects: French Painting; Themes, motives; Exhibitions; Soldiers in art
Other titles: Scenes of military life in eighteenth-century France
Description: Celebrated for his dreamlike paintings of amorous aristocrats and melancholy actors, Antoine Watteau also produced a number of captivating works with military subjectspaintings and drawingsearly in his career. They were executed when France was engaged in the costly and ultimately disastrous War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), but they look past the turbulence of battle and the heroic deeds of generals and kings to depict the more prosaic aspects of warmarches, halts, encampments, and bivouacs. They focus on the quiet moments between the fighting, outside of military discipline, when soldiers could rest and daydream and smoke pipes and play cards. Although they owe a debt to seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish precedents, they put forward a new, thoroughly modern vision of war in which the soldier s inner life, his experience of war, is brought to the fore. Offers a new interpretation of Watteau s military works. Includes a catalogue raisonne of all Watteau works related to military subjects, and a lively and accessible essay by Aaron Wile that explores Watteau's engagement with the cultural history of war, and the ordinary soldier s experience of it.
Notes: Published in conjunction with an exhibition organized by The Frick Collection, New York, and on view from July 12 to October 2, 2016.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Watteau and the inner life of war; title: Complete list of Watteau's military works