18th century, French School, Gallant scenes

18th century, French school

Gallant scenes

(2) Oil on panel, 24 x 19 cm

With frame, 44 x 36 cm

This pair of works attributable to the artistic context of the French eighteenth century celebrates the theme of courtly love and sensual pleasure, typical of Rococo painting: in fact, two courtship scenes are represented that strictly follow the parameters of the rituals of the ancient courts. The atmosphere of celebration and fun that transpires from the two canvases perfectly reflects the carefree and refined lifestyle of the aristocracy that gravitated around the main European courts in the eighteenth century. The attention to detail, such as precious fabrics, jewels and extremely valuable ornaments, underlines the luxury and refinement of court life, in line with the taste and aesthetics of the French Rococo. The two works in question fall fully within the purely eighteenth-century pictorial genre of the gallant scene. This current was radically opposed to the imposing and solemn classicism of the previous century, and wanted to communicate an indisputable sense of voluptuousness, frivolity and inevitable decadence, in a sort of lost paradise. By now the nobility, almost completely stripped of the power that had firmly belonged to them until the seventeenth century, with its sumptuous parties tried in vain to demonstrate its apparent wealth in these paintings, the voice of the spirit of the times. This current of painting, which, around the middle of the century enjoyed immense fortune, was swept away by the events that followed the French Revolution. In these two small gallant scenes one can strongly perceive the influence of the activity of the key figures of eighteenth-century art in France, Watteau and Boucher. Jean-Antoine Watteau was one of the initiators of the Rococo style in France, with his scenes of gallant parties and his marvelous bucolic landscapes populated by mythical characters or by a courtly audience madly in love with life and its pleasures. Influenced by Rubens and the works of the early eighteenth century of the flourishing Venetian school, with particular reference to Tiepolo's production, the French artist prefers the use of a colorful, expressive and vibrant palette, as well as the use of sharp, quick brush strokes. Close to the teachings of Watteau is also François Boucher, who dedicated himself more to the perfection of perspective, learned from the Baroque masters, and to the search for a lively colorism, borrowed from the models, perceived as absolutely illustrious, of Rubens and Correggio. The courteous and gallant scenes of the French artist have a bucolic and pastoral air, which seems to be perceptible also in these two paintings, a mirror of the French artistic climate of the second half of the eighteenth century.