18TH C FRANCE PAGE — The Practice of Drawing

FRANCE

The 18th century was a very exciting period for French drawing. Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) started life as a scene-painter but before long became a member of the Académie royale. By 1712 he was producing hundreds of figure drawings for his charming paintings of fêtes galantes and beggars, as well as portraits of the aristocracy. The voluptuous nudes, chubby putti and landscapes drawn in chalk by François Boucher (1703-1770) are the epitome of French Rococo style, but he also produced decorative studies of peasants and courtiers, designs for tapestries and mythological and religious scenes. Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), Boucher’s assistant, visited Rome where he made outdoor sketches like the Cypress Avenue at the Villa d’Este. He is best known, however, for amusing and sometimes risqué scenes like The Useless Resistance. The arrival of artists such as Jacques Louis David (1748-1825) in the lead up to the French Revolution saw a decisive move away from Rococo toward a new classical austerity. Other notable painters included Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (1749-1803) who were both admitted to the Académie royale in 1783.

Featured

Antoine Watteau, Study of a Standing Dancer with an Outstretched Arm, ca. 1710, black and red chalk, heightened with white, on grey-brown paper, Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.

This is one of many studies Watteau produced “a trois crayons” ( with three chalks), red or sanguine, black, and white, usually on a paper in a mid-tone such as grey, blue, or beige/brown. The technique had been pioneered and popularised by Rubens in the previous century.

Antoine Watteau, The Old Savoyard, ca. 1715, red and black chalk, with stumping, on buff laid paper, laid down on cream wove card, laid down on cream board, Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago.

Francois Boucher, Aurora, ca. 1733, red and white chalk on brown laid paper, with later framing line in brown ink on paper, Washington D.C., The National Gallery of Art.

Francois Boucher, The Pasha in His Harem, ca. 1735-1739, pen, ink, brush, grey wash, watercolour on paper, Vienna, Albertina.

Nicolas Lancret, Studies of a Couple Seated on the Ground, Looking at a Songbook, ca. 1740, red, black, and white chalk on light gray-brown paper, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Cypress Avenue at the Villa d`Este in Tivoli, 1774, brush in and brown ink, wash, over black-chalk preparatory drawing, Vienna, The Albertina.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Still-life with Fish and Parrot, 1740, black, white chalk on blue laid paper, New York, The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.