The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting [Hardcover]

Philip Conisbee (Author), Thomas W. Gaehtgens (Author), Mr. Colin B. Bailey (Author, Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 11, 2003

A comprehensive survey of French genre painting of the 18th century, from Watteau's "fetes galantes" to Boilly's paintings of modern Parisian life. Showcasing 113 works, the volume illustrates the variety and the vitality of genre painting throughout the period. Leading English, German, French and American scholars shed light on the development of genre painting, its interpretation, its collectors and its enormous appeal. Here are gathered together masterpieces by such eminent artists as Watteau, Lancret, de Troy, Chardin, Boucher, Greuze, Fragonard, Robert and Boilly. The wide range of their featured works encompasses military scenes, theatrical subjects, hunt pictures, pastorals, domestic life, moral pictures, fishwife subjects, paintings for the boudoir, and panoramas of the Enlightenment in landscapes and townscapes. Each work is thoroughly catalogued, and an appendix lists all genre paintings shown in the 18-century Salons.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In the period before the French Revolution, the grands sujets of history and myth dwarfed the emerging genre of paintings of everyday life, including "animals and fruits," garden parties, morning toilettes, kitchen duties and family scenes. Yet for reasons evidenced in the 230 color and 60 b&w illustrations of this lavish catalogue, that latter genre enjoyed a huge popularity among collectors and art connoisseurs, including Diderot, and foreshadowed the modern developments in art to come less than a century later. Essays establishing the historical context of genre painting will surely be of interest to scholars of the period, but verge on numbing for lay readers. The label copy in the latter half of the book is much more engaging, offering detailed insight into each painting in this travelling exhibition (which will be at Washington D.C.'s National Gallery of Art this fall). In particular, the writing on Chardin, with quotes from his contemporaries generously interspersed, reveals just how original this painter was-and how controversial. But the book's reproductions-in deep, sharp, full-page majesty-generate more than enough interest in themselves.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

The book's reproductions-in deep, sharp, full-page majesty-generate more than enough interest in themselves. -- Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 420 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First & Revised edition (August 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300099460
• ISBN-13: 978-0300099461
• Product Dimensions: 12.6 x 10 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.7 pounds
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,512,340 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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