(1684?C1721). French painter of Flemish descent, b. Valenciennes. Until 1704 poverty forced him to work in the shops of mediocre artists, where he produced genre and devotional subjects. In 1704?C8 he studied in the studio of Claude Gillot, an adept painter of scenes of theatrical life, which later became the subject of some of Watteau's finest paintings, such as Love in the Italian Theatre and Love in the French Theatre (both: Berlin). In 1708?C9 Watteau worked with the decorator Claude Audran. Watteau attracted the attention of eminent patrons in his last years, including the comte de Caylus, his biographer, and in 1717 he was made a full member of the Acad??mie royale. The Embarkation for Cythera (1717; Louvre) is characteristic of his art; it is a delicate, courtly fantasy, represented in warm and shimmering pastel tones that place him among the great colorists of all time. A lyric, Giorgionesque quality pervades his airy, gay, and sensuous scenes, which have a poignancy that none of his followers attained. Out of the most fleeting aspects of life he created an enduring and individual art. His exquisite paintings influenced fashion and garden design in the 18th cent. Other outstanding works include Gilles (Louvre), Perspective (Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston), Mezzetin (Metropolitan Mus.), and Gersaint's Shop Sign (1719; Berlin).   Related Paintings of WATTEAU, Antoine :. | The Pilgrimago to the Island of Cythera | An Embarrassing Proposal | The Burdens of War | Merry Company in the Open Air1 | Pierrot |
Related Artists:
Henry Alken Jnr
British 1810-94
Johann Jakob Ulrich
impression atist 28 Feb 1798 -- 17 March 1877. Swiss painter. He first studied under his father and then in Paris in 1822 in the studio of Jean-Victor Bertin. As a student he concentrated on unusual lighting effects in his landscape paintings well before they became a hallmark of the precursors of the Impressionists. In 1824 at the Salon in Paris he first saw paintings by Constable. On a trip to Italy in 1828 he did studies en plein air as preliminary sketches for his studio paintings. His early paintings emphasize brilliant colour, low horizons and scientific observation of cloud formations in a manner similar to Constable's studies, which he actually saw on visits to England in 1832 and 1835. Like Eugene Boudin, Ulrich was interested in poetic evocations of sun, water and effects of atmosphere rather than in the precise delineations of topography typical of Swiss art of that period. From 1824 he showed regularly at the Salons in Paris and in 1837 he returned to Zurich. Because the Swiss public was reluctant to accept his freer,
george frederic watts,o.m.,r.a.
1817-1904