18th-Century France — The Rococo and Watteau 18th-Century France — The Rococo and Watteau Overview In 1715 the French greeted a new king for the first time in seventy-two years. Louis XV, a boy only five years old, succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV, the Sun King, who had made France the preeminent power in Europe. For the next eight years the late king's nephew, the duc d'Orléans, governed as regent. His appetite for beauty and vivaciousness was well known, and he set aside the piety enforced by Louis XIV at Versailles. France turned away from imperial aspirations to focus on more personal—and pleasurable—pursuits. As political life and private morals relaxed, the change was mirrored by a new style in art, one that was intimate, decorative, and often erotic. The Rococo Style Louis XIV's desire to glorify his dignity and the magnificence of France had been well served by the monumental and formal qualities of most seventeenth-century French art. But members of the succeeding court began to decorate their elegant homes in a lighter, more delicate manner.

This new style has been known since the last century as "rococo," from the French word, rocaille, for rock and shell garden ornamentation. First emerging in the decorative arts, the rococo emphasized pastel colors, sinuous curves, and patterns based on flowers, vines, and shells. Painters turned from grandiloquence to the sensual surface delights of color and light, and from weighty religious and historical subjects—though these were never ignored completely—to more intimate mythological scenes, views of daily life, and portraiture. Similarly, sculptors increasingly applied their skills to small works for the appreciation of private patrons. After Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Louis XIV, c. 1700, bronze, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1943.4.87 1 of 11 Antoine Watteau and the Fête Galante Though several painters of the preceding generation had experimented with the ingredients of rococo—emphasizing color, a lighthearted approach, and close observation—Antoine Watteau merged them into something new. Born near the Flemish border, Watteau was influenced by the carefully described scenes of everyday life popular in Holland and Flanders.

Arriving in Paris in 1702, he first made his living by copying these genre paintings, which contained moralizing messages not always fully understood by French collectors. He worked for a painter of theatrical scenes and encountered the Italian commedia dell'arte and its French imitators. The stock characters of these broadly drawn, improvised comedies appear often in Watteau's paintings, and the world of the theater inspired him to mingle the real and imagined in enigmatic scenes. Through work with a fashionable rococo decorator, Watteau came eventually to the attention of patrons and established artists. He began studies at the official Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture—membership in which was necessary for important commissions—and gained access to new art collections being amassed by aristocrats and members of the expanding bourgeoisie. Influenced by his study of Rubens and Venetian Renaissance artists, Watteau developed a free, delicate painting technique and a taste for warm, shimmering colors. In 1717 Watteau's "masterpiece" submitted for admission to the Academy was accepted as a "fête galante." With this new category, the Academy recognized the novelty of his work.

The immediate popularity of these garden scenes, in which aristocratic young couples meet in amorous pursuits, suggests how well the fête galante matched the pleasure-seeking spirit of the early eighteenth century. Engravings made Watteau's subjects and manner widely known. Though the lyrical mystery of his own work remained unique, other painters who specialized in the fête galante, notably Pater and Lancret, also enjoyed international popularity. Antoine Watteau, French, 1684 - 1721, A Fête Galante with Falconers, c. 1711-1712, red chalk over graphite on laid paper, Gift of Neil and Ivan Phillips, 1988.1.1 2 of 11 Ceres, Roman goddess of the harvest, is surrounded by signs of the summer zodiac: Gemini, Cancer, and Leo. This is one of four paintings of the seasons in mythological garb that Watteau painted for the home of Pierre Crozat. None of the others survive. Watteau lived briefly in the Crozat household, studying the wealthy banker's impressive art collection, particularly works by Veronese.

The shimmering brightness and lively pastel colors in Ceres reflect the influence of the Venetian painter and soften her large figure and formal pose. Watteau was probably introduced to Crozat by Charles de La Fosse, a well-known painter and established member of the Academy, and it is likely that Watteau painted Ceres after sketches made by the older artist. Their collaboration stands at the transition between the monumental forms of the preceding century and the rococo. Antoine Watteau, French, 1684 - 1721, Ceres (Summer), c. 1717/1718, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.50 3 of 11 A troupe of the popular Italian comedy (commedia dell'arte) is gathered on stage, perhaps at curtain call. Standing awkwardly in the center is the vulnerable figure of Pierrot, the simple-minded valet and unlucky lover who was the most human of the commedia's stock characters. Scaramouche, the braggart, introduces him while the other characters interact around the strangely still Pierrot.

A brilliant draftsman, Watteau frequently sketched friends posed in theatrical costumes. Possibly their faces, not those of actors, are painted here. It has been suggested that the figures illustrate the passage from youth on the left to old age on the right, or that the melancholic Watteau saw himself in the sad Pierrot. Watteau's intention was to evoke a mood, not simply describe a scene, and his greatest paintings, like this one, remain puzzling and oddly poignant. Italian Comedians was among Watteau's last works. Ill most of his life, he traveled to England in 1719 for treatment by the fashionable physician Robert Mead. This painting was probably the doctor's payment. Unfortunately, Watteau died of tuberculosis soon after, not yet thirty-seven years old. Antoine Watteau, French, 1684 - 1721, The Italian Comedians, probably 1720, oil on canvas, Samuel H.

Kress Collection, 1946.7.9 4 of 11 In this lush park elegant young aristocrats flirt, dance, and engage in intimate conversation, each couple an "episode" in the progress of courtship. Their anecdotal character makes Pater's paintings less ambiguous than Watteau's enigmatic works, which a contemporary criticized as having "no subject." Pater studied under Watteau—who admitted to being an impatient master—and took over his commissions after he died. Haunted by fear of poverty, Pater worked incessantly but also rather mechanically, reusing figure groups and motifs from one painting to the next. He was received by the Academy as a painter of "modern subjects," and more than six hundred of his fêtes galantes survive today. Several of the poses in this painting and Pater's unfinished On the Terrace can be traced to seventeenth-century Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, whose works could be seen in Paris during the 1700s. The dark dress of the woman on the right, fashionable in the preceding century, and the garden sculpture of Venus, which underscores the painting's focus on love, also reflect his influence.

But Pater, in keeping with rococo tastes, has refined Rubens' robust figures. They are composed in graceful groups, their fine silks painted with cool, powdery colors, applied in feathery brushstrokes. Jean-Baptiste Joseph Pater, French, 1695 - 1736, Fête Champêtre, c. 1730, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.19 5 of 11 As a young artist, Boucher engraved the works of Watteau for publication. Engravings like his, often with verses added, spread the rococo style across Europe. Boucher himself became the most fashionable artist in France under the patronage of Madame de Pompadour, Louis XV's powerful mistress, whose refined tastes influenced French art for two decades. It may have been either the husband or the brother of the woman in this painting who introduced the young artist to his future patron. Of the more than one thousand paintings Boucher produced, only about twenty are portraits.

Contemporaries noted that the artist had difficulty capturing a likeness, a handicap thought in the 1700s to be less severe for women's portraits than men's, since flattery could substitute for veracity. The pale colors, rich fabrics, and rustic touch of the straw hat are typical of Boucher's style. It captured the grace of a pampered way of life, in which, as a contemporary noted, "we really have nothing else to do but to seek pleasant sensations and feelings." François Boucher, French, 1703 - 1770, Madame Bergeret, possibly 1766, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1946.7.3 6 of 11 Of the artists who followed Watteau's lead, Lancret was the most talented and inventive. More a rival than an imitator, he was admitted to the Academy as a painter of fêtes galantes but also produced historical and religious paintings—and portraits, especially of actors and dancers. In this inspired hybrid Lancret set such a portrait within the elegant garden of a fête galante.

As if spotlit, the famous dancer La Camargo shares a pas de deux with her partner Laval. They are framed by lush foliage, which seems to echo their movements. Marie-Cuppi de Camargo (1710–1770) was widely praised for her sensitive ear for music, her airiness, and her strength. Voltaire likened her leaps to those of nymphs. Fashions and hairstyles were named after her, and her real contributions to dance were substantial. She was the first to shorten her skirts so that complicated steps could be fully appreciated, and some think she invented toe shoes. Nicolas Lancret, French, 1690 - 1743, La Camargo Dancing, c. 1730, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.89 7 of 11 The Love Letter was commissioned by Madame de Pompadour herself. The king's mistress ordered it and a companion painting for her chateau at Bellevue, where they probably hung over doorways, built into curving oval frames. Pieces of canvas were later added at the corners to make this painting rectangular.

The scene is a pastoral idyll. The young "shepherdesses" wear fine silks, and a contemporary audience would understand an erotic promise in the display of pink toes. Idealized visions of country life were common on the stage and in real-life masquerades. Denis Diderot, disdainful of the frivolity of Boucher's scenes, complained, "Shall I never be rid of these damned pastorals?" Yet the encyclopedist, who was an influential critic, also appreciated the brilliance of Boucher's painting, which captures the luminous colors of shells, butterflies, and polished stones—objects the artist collected so he could copy their fragile iridescence. François Boucher, French, 1703 - 1770, The Love Letter, 1750, oil on canvas, Timken Collection, 1960.6.3 8 of 11 In this scene Diana, virgin goddess of the hunt, steals forth through the moonlight to kiss the sleeping shepherd Endymion, whom the gods granted eternal sleep to preserve his beauty and youth.

Diana and Endymion was painted when Fragonard was still a student at the Academy and heavily influenced by Boucher, who was his teacher. It was one of several mythological vignettes set at different times of the day; another depicts Aurora (Dawn) rising. Both compositions, painted as over-door decorations, were based on designs Boucher had done for the Beauvais tapestry works. Despite similarities to the older artist's work, Diana and Endymion already displays important elements of what would become Fragonard's own style: rich colors and a fluid handling of paint. Jean-Honoré Fragonard, French, 1732 - 1806, Diana and Endymion, c. 1753/1756, oil on canvas, Timken Collection, 1960.6.2 9 of 11 The costumes and setting here suggest a masquerade, perhaps in Venice. Like the elegant and enigmatic trio depicted, however, the painting remains mysterious.

It has been attributed to many different artists, most recently Le Lorrain, a little-known artist who spent nine years in Italy and was recognized primarily as a "painter of ruins." Le Lorrain also designed interiors, furniture (including a neoclassical suite in a portrait by Greuze in the Gallery's collection), and sets for public spectacles (like Louis XV's coronation). The frosty colors and cold, hard light in this painting appear similar to those in another work by Le Lorrain, but few of his works exist for comparison. Eventually he accepted an invitation from Catherine the Great to head the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, dying there only a few months after he arrived. Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain, French, 1715 - 1759, Three Figures Dressed for a Masquerade, c. 1740s, oil on canvas, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.92 10 of 11 Sweeping drapery and a taut twist of the head create movement and energy in this portrait bust.

The slightly parted lips, drilled pupils, and carefully detailed features—the lines etched around eyes and mouth—animate the personality of the subject, who was a counselor to Louis XV and whose son fought in the American War of Independence. Both painted and sculpted portraits of the period sought to capture more than a sitter's likeness, and Lemoyne has conveyed a sense of Cromot's strong character and lively intelligence. His voluminous robes are a convention from ancient sculpture and partly cover his informal modern dress. Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne II, French, 1704 - 1778, Jules-David Cromot, Baron du Bourg, c.

1757, marble, Gift of Camille de Nucheze, direct descendant, and her husband, John Hadley Cox, 1985.39.1 11 of 11 Air: Three Putti with Birds | Boucher, François | V&A Search the Collections Air: Three Putti with Birds Boucher, François, born 1703 - died 1770 Air: Three Putti with Birds Object: late 18th century-early 19th century (painted) Artist/Maker: Boucher, François, born 1703 - died 1770 (painter (artist)) Materials and Techniques: Download PDF version François Boucher (1703-1770) was born in Paris and probably received his first artistic training from his father who was a painter before attending the Académie de France in Rome. He may also have travelled to Naples, Venice and Bologna. Around 1731 Boucher returned to Paris where he rapidly gained the royal favour and interest from private collectors.

He was a very prolific artist and produced a wide range of artworks from pastoral paintings, porcelain and tapestry designs as well as stage designs influencing deeply the new Rococo movement. This painting is a copy after a composition signed and dated by Boucher in 1741. It depicts the allegory of Air and originally belongs to a series of four paintings depicting the Elements. 595-1882 forms a pendant with another copy after Boucher's Allegory of Fire (596-1882). This work is a fine example of the early career of Boucher, who already pervaded his oeuvre with mischievous pastoral scenes which would become the hallmark of his art and eventually of the whole rococo period. Physical description Three winged putti in a square composition; two petting a bird, another carrying a bird and flying away. Place of Origin Height: 86.6 cm estimate, Width: 74.6 cm estimate Object history note Bequeathed by John Jones, 1882 Ref : Parkinson, Ronald, Catalogue of British Oil Paintings 1820-1860. Victoria & Albert Museum, HMSO, London, 1990.

p.xix-xx John Jones (1800-1882) was first in business as a tailor and army clothier in London 1825, and opened a branch in Dublin 1840. Often visited Ireland, travelled to Europe and particularly France. He retired in 1850, but retained an interest in his firm. Lived quietly at 95 Piccadilly from 1865 to his death in January 1882. After the Marquess of Hertford and his son Sir Richard Wallace, Jones was the principal collector in Britain of French 18th century fine and decorative arts. Jones bequeathed an important collection of French 18th century furniture and porcelain to the V&A, and among the British watercolours and oil paintings he bequeathed to the V&A are subjects which reflect his interest in France. See also South Kensington Museum Art Handbooks. The Jones Collection. With Portrait and Woodcuts. Published for the Committee of Council on Education by Chapman and Hall, Limited, 11, Henrietta Street. 1884. Chapter I. Mr. John Jones. pp.1-7. Chapter II.

No.95, Piccadilly. pp.8-44. This gives a room-by-room guide to the contents of John Jones' house at No.95, Piccadilly. Chapter VI. ..... Pictures,... and other things, p.138, "The pictures which are included in the Jones bequest are, with scarcely a single exception, valuable and good; and many of them excellent works of the artists. Mr. Jones was well pleased if he could collect enough pictures to ornament the walls of his rooms, and which would do no discredit to the extraordinary furniture and other things with which his house was filled." Historical significance: This painting is a copy after an oval composition, signed and dated 1741, and formerly in a private collection, New York and sold again at Sotheby's, New York, 23rd June 2003, lot 93 (it may correspond to the version that was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1954-55, No. 457) (See Ananoff and Wildentsetin, no. 183).

It depicts two naked putti petting a dove while a third putto is flying away with another bird. This composition is traditionally interpreted as an allegory of Air and was part of a cycle of four paintings representing the Elements, all four were engraved by Jean Daullé in 1748 (see The British Museum, London, 1866,0113.21 and The Victoria and Albert Museum, E.6917-1903). The print is inscribed with the following verses: Jeunes Oiseaux, que la tendresse inspire, Sortez de nos bois; Unissez vos voix; Chantez l'Amour; l'Air est votre empire. According to the print, the original painting by Boucher belonged to Louis XV, King of France whereas the print was dedicated by Daullé to the Count of Bruhl. Another copy of Air appeared on the Paris art market, 24-25 Sep. 1962 and again in 1971, 1976 and 1979.

The cycle is composed of allegories of the other three elements: Earth, Ivens collection, England, Water and Fire, both lost and known only through Daullé's engravings. The V&A also owns a copy of Fire (596-1882), which forms a pendant with 595-1882. Compare with 595-1882, Daullé's engraving appears in reverse, which suggests that the V&A version was not made after the print but after the original painting. These paintings from Boucher's early career anticipates somehow the pastoral imagery pervaded with putti, mythological figures, shepherds and shepherdesses in idyllic landscapes that would contribute to characterise the Rococo movement, of which Boucher became one of the greatest exponents. Historical context note Pastoral is a genre of painting whose subject is the idealized life of shepherds and shepherdesses set in an ideally beautiful and idyllic landscape. These scenes are reminiscent of the Arcadia, the Antique Golden Age that the Roman author Virgil (1St BC) described in the Eclogues and were at the time illustrated on the Roman wall paintings.

The pastoral was reborn during the Renaissance, especially in Venice, in the oeuvre of such painters as Titian (ca. 1488-1576) and Giorgione (1477-1510), and gradually evolved over the centuries. In the 17th century in fact, the Arcadian themes were illustrated in the Roman school led by the painter Claude Lorrain (1604-1682) whereas a century later, Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and his followers forged the new genre of fêtes galantes, which appears as a derivation of the pastoral. The pastoral became the hallmark of the Rococo movement in which François Boucher's (1703-1770) elegant eroticism found his true expression. This tradition, which had became an illustration of the carefree aristocratic world, died with the French revolution and was never revived although the celebration of the timeless Mediterranean world in the oeuvre of such painter as Henri Matisse (1869-1954) may be seen as a continuing interest for the theme.

Descriptive line Oil Painting, 'Air: Three Putti with Birds', after François Boucher, late 18th century-early 19th century Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no) C.M. Kauffmann,Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, I. Before 1800. London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973, p. 41-42, cat. no. 39 B. Long, Catalogue of the Jones Collection 1923, p. 3, pl. 30. A. Ananoff and D. Wildenstein, L'opera completa di Boucher, Milan: 1980, cat. no. 198, plate XVI. Materials Art Periods in France: ROCOCO STYLE PLEASE VISIT OUR ART BOUTIQUE TO VIEW PRINTS BY FRENCH ARTISTS Art Periods: ROCOCO STYLE The term rococo style, or the rococo, refers to a style of decoration current in Europe, particularly France, during the 18th century. It applies both to interior decoration and to ornaments.

By extension it may also be applied to some sculpture, paintings, furniture, and architectural details, although hardly to architecture as such. It was a style of high fashion and had few popular forms. Rococo is derived from the French word rocaille, originally meaning the bits of rocky decoration sometimes found in 16th-century architectural schemes. It was first used in its modern sense around 1800, at about the same time as baroque, and, like baroque, was initially a pejorative term (see baroque art and architecture ). The revival of the rococo occurred gradually during the 19th century, beginning as a vogue for collecting French 18th-century pictures and furniture and for imitation rococo interiors. The earliest rococo forms appeared around 1700 at Versailles and its surrounding châteaux as a reaction against the oppressive formality of French classical-baroque in those buildings. In 1701 a suite of rooms at Versailles, including the king's bedroom, was redecorated in a new, lighter, and more graceful style by the royal designer, Pierre Lepautre (1648-1716).

Versailles remained the creative center of the rococo until Louis XIV's death, in 1715, after which the initiative passed to Paris. Successive waves of the style during the Regency (1715-23) and the long reign of Louis XV (1723-74) may be seen in such Parisian interiors as the Hôtel de Toulouse - Galerie Dorée, 1718-19, by François Antoine Vassé (1681-1736); the Hôtel de Lassay -- late 1720s, by Jean Aubert (d. 1741); and the Hôtel de Soubise - 1736-39, by Germain Boffrand (1667-1754). The essence of rococo interior decoration is twofold; first, the forms are almost flat instead of being, as in baroque schemes, in high relief; second, architectural and sculptural features are eliminated so that the designer is confronted with a smooth surface, interrupted only by the window recesses and the chimneypiece.

In a typical rococo decorative scheme, series of tall wooden panels (including the doors), decorated with brilliantly inventive carved and gilded motifs in low relief, are arranged around the room. After 1720 the panels were usually painted ivory white and the motifs tended to be concentrated at the tops, bottoms, and centers with straight moldings down the sides. Further motifs appeared on the dadoes and along the coving, which replaced the cornice, at the tops of the walls. The forms were fine and were originally based on ribbons; later forms consisted mainly of elongated C- and S-shapes; plant tendrils, leaves, blossoms, and sometimes shells and small birds were also introduced. In later schemes the forms were often mildly asymmetrical in arrangement, but asymmetry was more the province of three-dimensional objects, such as wall brackets, candlesticks, and table ornaments, the master designer of which was Juste Aurèle Meissonnier. Mirrors were an important part of the ensemble, and paintings were sometimes set into the paneling over the doors. The overall effect is glittering and lively, a fitting background to 18th-century aristocratic social life, with its emphasis on privacy and its cult of human relationships.

In rococo painting, the powerful rhythms, dark colors, and heroic subjects characteristic of baroque painting gave way to quick, delicate movements, pale colors, and subjects illustrating the varieties of love: romantic love, as in the Antoine Watteau Pilgrimage to Cythera (1717; Louvre, Paris); erotic love, as in the François Boucher Cupid a Captive (1754; Wallace Collection, London); or mother love, as in the Jean Baptiste Chardin The Morning Toilet (c.1740; Nationalmuseum, Stockholm). Sculpture was equally lively and unheroic, but its most typical manifestation was portrait busts, the outstanding quality of which was realism, as is evident in the Jean Baptiste Lemoyne Reaumur (1751; Louvre). During the second quarter of the century the rococo style spread from France to other countries, and above all to Germany. Francophile German princes eagerly adopted the latest fashions from Paris and often employed French-trained architects and designers. Transplanted to Germany, the rococo took a more fanciful and wayward turn, with greater emphasis on forms derived from nature.

The supreme example of German rococo style is the Francois Cuvillies Hall of Mirrors in his Amalienburg Pavilion (1734-40), a hunting lodge in the park of Nymphenburg Palace, near Munich. Germany, however -- like Austria and Italy to some extent -- also produced an indigenous form of rococo, a style evolved out of, rather than in reaction against, the baroque. Because the baroque style in Austria, Germany, and Italy was already much freer than in France, it needed only a fairly small adjustment in scale, pace, and mood to turn baroque decorative forms into rococo ones. This type of rococo found a home both in churches and in palaces. Its most beautiful manifestation is the interior of the pilgrimage church of Die Wies (1745-54) in southern Bavaria, executed by the brothers Johann Baptist and Dominikus Zimmermann. Germany's other great contribution to the rococo style was the rediscovery (1709-10) of the Chinese art of porcelain manufacture (see pottery and porcelain) at Meissen, near Dresden. Meissen ware achieved enormous popularity, and soon every major court in continental Europe had its own porcelain factory.

Small porcelain figures such as those made by Franz Anton Bustelli (1723-63) at Nymphenburg (see Nymphenburg ware) are perhaps the quintessence of the rococo, fusing all its qualities into a single miniature art. The rococo style began to decline in the 1760s, denounced by critics who condemned it as tasteless, frivolous, and symbolic of a corrupt society. Within 20 years it was supplanted, together with the baroque, by neoclassicism. Michael Kitson, Reader in the History of Art, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, London. Source: The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Release #9.01, ©1997. Bibliography: Germain Bazin, Baroque and Rococo (1985); Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, L'Art au dixhuitieme siècle (1880-82; trans.

as French XVIII Century Painters, 1948); Eberhard Hempel, Baroque Art and Architecture in Central Europe (1965); Erich Hubala, Baroque and Rococo Art (1989); Stephen Jones, The Eighteenth Century (1985); W. G. Kalnein and Michael Levey, Art and Architecture of the Eighteenth Century in France (1972); Fiske Kimball, The Creation of the Rococo (1943; repr. 1965); Michael Kitson, The Age of Baroque (3d ed., 1976); Michael Levey, Rococo to Revolution (1966; repr. 1985); John L. Varriano, Italian Baroque and Rococo Architecture (1986). Images: "xxx" Copyrights Notice and Disclaimer: Images of artists' works displayed throughout this site have been obtained from numerous sources, including digital libraries at educational institutions, educational software, and Mark Harden's Artchive . Credit is attributed when known. Some works are considered to be in the public domain, based on current U.S. and international copyright acts.

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Or Gautier again : Chaque piece devait etre...quelque chose qui rappelat ces empreintes des medailles antiques qu'on voit chez les peintres et les sculptures. At first sight it would appear that Verlaine is indulging the Parnassian ethic in his Fetes galantes--a straight impassive transposition of Watteau's paintings of the Regency period, just as Leconte de Lisle and Gautier sought poetical sources in the historical and Biblical past. But Verlaine has chosen carefully. In Watteau he sees and identifies with a fellow Romantic, with his ennui, with the iconoclast who discards the Classical severity of le grand siecle, just as the packers in Watteau's L'Enseigne de Gersaint bundle Louis XIV out of sight into a crate. Verlaine is in the process of discarding Parnassian impassibility. In his Civilisation (231-6), Kenneth Clark describes the Rococo in art and architecture as the visible form of the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of love.

He goes on : Rococo was to some extent a Parisian invention, and provocatively secular...Instead of the static orders of antiquity, it drew inspiration from natural objects in which the line wandered freely--shells, flowers, seaweed. Rococo was a reaction against the academic style ; but it was not negative. It represented a real gain in sensibility. It achieved a new freedom of association and captured new and more delicate shades of feeling. All this is expressed through the work of one exquisite artist, Watteau...Next to love Watteau cared most about music for which, his friends tell us, he had a most delicate ear. Nearly all his scenes are enacted to the sound of music. In this he shows himself as part of a tradition going back to the Venetians, of whom Pater said that they painted the musical intervals of our existence when life itself is conceived as a kind of listening. Watteau achieves this effect of music by translating experience into a different sensuous medium : colour. Watteau's colour has a shimmering, irridescent quality which makes one think immediately of musical analogies.

In Clair de lune, Verlaine effects a transposition of certain elements--a paysage choisi--of Watteau's art, but moves on and away from the Parnassian ideal of objective description towards a refined description of a musical interval of our existence, where the portrayal contains the bare essence of detail in order to convey a mood. The Clair de lune scene is the objective correlative of that mood. Watteau's world of Fetes galantes is a stylised one, depicting an 18th century France that is like the garden of the Hesperides, where cultivated men and women make love and music in an apparently eternal trance, unbroken by any premonitions of coming Terror or by ominous mutterings of Sansculottes. In considering Watteau, one feels that he has taken certain aspects of that aristocratic world as his point of departure, as stock definitions of that world, and then he expands, refines, develops, returns persistently to those 'stock definitions', rather like Variations on a Theme. In this, Watteau appears not simply as a painter. He is also a social commentator.

The broad mass of Fetes galantes is the world of effete gallantry and politesse, almost a projection into a fantasy world of prelapsarian innocence. Of course, these 'galants' must have been aware of the rumblings of social change--this perhaps explains their self-immersion in galanteries--but Watteau intrudes ordinary people into some of these scenes : porters, packers, musicians,the painter himself, and his beloved Commedia dell'Arte. The porter in L'Enseigne de Gersaint, with his wistful bemused smile, is a pungent comment on those facile aristocratic 'lovers of art'. In his self-portrait in Fetes Venitiennes, he indicates both that he is aware of his mal du siecle malaise, and that, as the ordinary humble musician, he has a deep awareness of the utter dearth of morality and social empathy in these aristocrats. That self-portrait as humble anguished musician is an extension of the social role he gives to the Commedia dell'Arte, for these strolling players have an equal importance in his 'stock definitions' of this society, by dint of their regular recurrence.

Watteau reveals his affinity for, his empathy with, this group, for he individualises them--one might say humanises them when one thinks of the lack of emotion displayed by the 'galants'--particularly in the cases of Le Mezzetin and Gilles. The Commedia dell'Arte's stock-in-trade was the Italian farce, performed with a raucous, vivid, vulgar ebullience. Theirs was a strong, natural, uninhibited force, but their format began to change in character and to approximate to French Comedy after they were installed at the Hotel de Bourgogne, and Harlequin became the central figure of extravagant fantasy which came to be known later as pantomime. So, here, we have two worlds of fantasy in equipoise : the garden of Hesperides and the buffoonery of the Comedie Italienne. But these latter were expelled from France in 1697, only to be replaced, in the public eye, by French artistes in the forains, who assimilated features of the Commedia to their format. In 1714 the Opera sold to the forains the right to sing plays in dialogue.

So then Harlequin, the absurd valet of Italian farce, became the hero of adventures in the fantastic world of pantomime, vaudeville and comic opera. The extent of Watteau's feeling about this decline of the original format of the Commedia, the extent of his partisanship is seen in his pair of pictures--L'Amour au Theatre italien and L'Amour au Theatre Francais--contrasting the styles of the Italian and French players, to the latters' disadvantage. It is this feeling that, in the dispersal of their original format, there has been a dispersal of their natural vitality and exuberance--this feeling Watteau makes a particular point of portraying, almost as if they had lost prelapsarian innocence in this world of aristocratic 'galants'. This feature, then, is the link between Watteau's paysage choisi and that of Verlaine in Clair de lune. These more diversified but less natural players are one element in Verlaine's serie de dechiffrements in order to convey his etat d'ame : a wistful sighing in the realisation of the loss of an earlier innocence.

The Symbolist concept that reality is no more than a facade, concealing either a world of ideas and emotions, or an ideal world aspired towards, is associated in the case of Baudelaire with the doctrine outlined in his sonnet Correspondances. For Baudelaire, objects are not simply objects but are the symbols of ideal forms lying concealed behind them : La nature est un temple ou de vivant piliers Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles. L'homme y passe a travers des forets de symboles... 'L'homme' and la nature', we have them both in Clair de lune. They form the facade that is the objective correlative of Verlaine's emotions. In meaning, Verlaine's paysage choisi has a triple function in the poem : (1) it acknowledges the fact that Watteau's 'paysage' is a subjective, stylised representation ; (2) it acknowledges that Verlaine's own choice is selective and subjective ; (3) it defines and stresses the artificial, highly stylised Baroque layout of this chateau setting.

Verlaine's paysage is that of Watteau's L'Amour auTheatre Italien , but Verlaine fills out the obscurity around the group with other 'dechiffrements' : trees, birds, statues, fountains. These are the Comedie Italienne after 1714, but whose former anarchical buffoonery has become somewhat stylised. As was said earlier, Verlaine deletes the non-essential frippery. So here Scaramouche, Isabella, Pierrot, Harlequin, Mezzetin, Pantalone, and the Doctor lose their identity in masques. They are quasi tristes sous leurs deguisements fantasques , for here they are in a stylised chateau garden of the aristocracy, entertaining some lack-lustre 'galants' with a difffused form of entertainment that is a far cry from their original naturalness, their raucous anarchism. They might well be sad, but they are here to entertain. The quasi suggests that their joviality is affected, but, as an archaism, the word links their present artifice with their former naturalness.

The faintly archaic form of ll.1-2 suggests 'period' ; the luth , although used at this time, is also a link with the strolling players of the Middle Ages ; the allusion to bergamasques is a link with the rustic Italian revels of their homeland. In short, the first quatrain makes several allusions to the naturalness that they have lost, and the consequence is that they are quasi tristes. The structural layout of this quatrain has the word tristes as its focal point : the succession of charmant...jouant...dansant , particularly emphasised by the et...et and the 'contre-rejet' of quasi...all lead up to tristes , in place of the expected other item in the list of their actions in the performance. In this first quatrain, Verlaine uses the Impressionist technique : focussing on one item, one action after another, for the essence of Impressionism is that only the point of focus can be highlighted at any given moment, while the rest has a diffuse appearance. The quatrain concentrates essentially on what is seen by the audience : the actions of the troupe, including the jouant du luth.

This Impressionist technique continues in the next quatrain, in that the focus is on the faces of the troupe, on their expressions, but essentially on the song they sing. The song seems to pervade the atmosphere--this is stressed by the double reference : chantant...chanson--and merges with the moonlight playing on the scene, just as the double reference in the first quatrain--bergamasque...dansant--stresses that this activity is there the visual feature of emphasis. So the visual focus moves from the elements of the dance--feet, arms,swerve, motion, which are, of course, unstated--to a more restricted focus on face and expression, and then up and over them to the moonlight . They sing sur le mode mineur--a deliberate curtailment of their inherent exuberance in deference to the convenances factices of their aristocratic audience. Their song about la vie opportune would be an admirable and universal theme were it not allied to l'amour vainqueur--with its implicit phonic pun : vainqueur X 'vain coeur'--which is a pursuit of the dilettantes of Fetes galantes.

The whole phrase is like a quotation from a notation of Romantic idees recues. So their song-theme and manner of singing are both in deference to the tastes of their audience. Line 7 might well be a statement from one of the audience who envies the troupe their freedom and their fantasy world--those apparently liberated happy souls who are outwith the restrictive politesse of his world. But the inclusion of this line between the double reference to singing gives further point to the probability that the speaker envies the closeness, the contact the players still have with their natural selves : dancing, playing music, and now singing--their singing can still relay an individuality of cadence, tone and harmony, despite the mode mineur. The final quatrain details the apotheosis of this naturalness of l'homme merging with la Nature. The structure of the first two quatrains has laid emphasis on the consequences of restricting natural impulses--quasi tristes...Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire a leur bonheur--but that merging of Man and Nature through the song has invoked that prelapsarian state of harmony that existed between them.

One recalls here how Baudelaire in his Harmonie du soir made use of 'Le ciel est triste et beau' as one facet of the facade he used in order to recreate the emotion he experienced at the memory of a past love affair. In line 9 of Clair de lune, Verlaine makes use of part of Baudelaire's phrase for similar purposes : as part of the facade he is using to convey an emotion. The whole quatrain takes on the graceful stylisation of a Japanese painting : the birds are dreaming in the moonlit trees, the fitful complaint of the fountains is reminiscent of lovers' ecstasies. This is a harmony between the terrestrial and the cosmic. Even the contrived harmony of the Baroque garden is superceded, as the fountains flow, almost in a surge of joyful effulgence, parmi les marbres. The visual focus has risen up and away from that troupe with their limited, stylised performance, to the moonlight, and back down through the trees to that final image of the God-made and the Man-made in ecstatic harmony.

This world which the poem evokes by suggestion and vague reference is the world of a lost prelapsarian innocence--Eden. The concentration of repetition in these last lines, with the phrases clair de lune and jets d'eau broken and taken up again with embellishment and change of accent, this melodic effect is a rendition of prelapsarian harmony and extase in song. The world Verlaine feels he has lost is something similar to that depicted in Giorgione's Fete champetre, and is summed up in Book IV, ll.763-774 of Milton's Paradise Lost : Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings, Reigns here and revels ; not in the bought smile Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared, Casual fruition, nor in court amours Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball, Or serenade, which the starved lover sings To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain. These lulled by nightingales embracing slept, And on their naked limbs the flowery roof Showered roses, which the morn repaired.

Sleep on Blest pair ; Yet the sadness, the wistfulness Verlaine feels seeps through, with the use of broad doleful vowel sounds, the weak rhymes, the simplicity of the words that do not detract, by any over-richness, from that vague melancholic effect he wishes to convey. Verlaine has moved a good deal away from that delight Gautier displayed in summoning up a detached, objectified transposition d'art. In La vigne et la maison, Lamartine takes his soul back to the state of childhood innocence. The Soul's rebuke on the futility of such a journey is acid : 'C'est rouvrir des cercueils pour revoir des trepas !' The votre ame of Clair de lune at first glance appears to be that of Watteau, but it is, in fact, Verlaine's soul, which the poet takes through present artifice into a harmony with nature which is out of time, but is also past and irrevocable. Verlaine has reopened 'des cercueils pour revoir des trepas'. His is the pain of lost innocence. Posted by

Question: Which painter was particularly known for depicting the fte galantes of 18th century France?
Answer: Watteau