1684-1721 Antoine Watteau Art Locations He is best known for his invention of a new genre, the fete galante, a small easel painting in which elegant people are depicted in conversation or music-making in a secluded parkland setting (see under FETE CHAMPETRE). His particular originality lies in the generally restrained nature of the amorous exchanges of his characters, which are conveyed as much by glance as by gesture, and in his mingling of figures in contemporary dress with others in theatrical costume, thus blurring references to both time and place. Watteau work was widely collected during his lifetime and influenced a number of other painters in the decades following his death, especially in France and England. His drawings were particularly admired. Documented facts about Watteau life are notoriously few, though several friends wrote about him after his death (see Champion). Of over two hundred paintings generally accepted as his work   Related Paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau :. | Gathering in the Park | Fetes galantes | Gilles Detail | Der Jager des Nestes | The Gersaint Shop Sign |
Related Artists:
Giovanni di Paolo
Italian Early Renaissance Painter, ca.1403-1483,major Italian painter of the Sienese school. Typical of the Sienese painters of his era, he paid scant attention to the artistic innovations made in nearby Florence, but often depended on the style established by the Sienese masters of the 14th cent. Fortunately, Giovanni di Paolo was endowed with great imagination. His first dated work (1426) was the Pecci altarpiece (major panels in Siena; predella panels in the Walters Art Gall., Baltimore). He produced a tremendous number of works during his long career. Many paintings have remained in Siena, but there are probably more examples of his art in the United States. The Metropolitan Museum has several of his paintings; among them is a delightful scene of Paradise; in the Philip Lehman collection is the exquisite Creation of the World. The Madonna and Child in a Landscape (Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston) exemplifies his inclination toward pure fantasy and disregard for the laws of perspective. Giovanni di Paolo is best represented by six highly expressive scenes from the life of St. John the Baptist (Art Inst., Chicago).
Raphael Von Ambros
Czech, 1854 - 1895
Louis Le Nain
1593-1648 French Louis Le Nain Gallery French family of painters. Antoine Le Nain (b Laon, c. 1600; bur Paris, 26 May 1648) and his brothers Louis Le Nain (b Laon, c. 1600; bur Paris, 24 May 1648) and Mathieu Le Nain (b Laon, c. 1607; bur Paris, 26 April 1677) lived together and shared a studio in Paris. Since the studio was headed by Antoine, he is assumed to have been older than Louis. The brothers reputation rests on a number of paintings signed Le Nain, on the basis of which other paintings (but no drawings) have also been attributed to them. None of the signed paintings bears a Christian name, and there is no secure way of attributing works to the individual brothers, although many attempts have been made. Eighteenth-century sale catalogues, fearful of anonymity, effectively chose from the three names at random. Since the writings of Witt (1910) and Jamot (1922) in particular, it has been habitual to ascribe small paintings on copper to Antoine, and austere, larger peasant scenes to Louis. This division of hands will be found in almost all the subsequent literature on the artists, although it must be stressed that there is no evidence at all to support it. Great efforts have also been made to identify works by Mathieu, since he survived his brothers by nearly 30 years and presumably continued to paint after their deaths in 1648. However, no such activity after 1648 is securely documented, and none of the surviving works bears a date later than 1647; and the arguments for a separate Mathieu oeuvre, though cogent, should not be regarded as conclusive. The outstanding feature of the work of the Le Nain brothers, and the basis of their celebrity since the mid-19th century, is the artists treatment of the poor.