In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Eighteenth-Century Studies 37.3 (2004) 455-463



[Access article in PDF]
The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 6-September 7, 2003; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., October 12, 2003-January 11, 2004; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, February 8-May 9, 2004). Catalogue edited by Colin B. Bailey, with Philip Conisbee and Thomas W. Gaehtgens (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, in association with the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 2003). Pp. 412. 187 color and 103 b/w illustr. $49.95 paper.
Colorful Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., October 26, 2003-February 16, 2004). Catalogue by Margaret Morgan Grasselli, with essays by Ivan E. Phillips, Kristel Smentek, and Judith C. Walsh (Washington, D.C.: The National Gallery of Art, 2003). Pp. 185. 178 color and 67 b/w illustr. &65 cloth, $45 paper.

Two exhibitions in Washington, D.C., this fall at the National Gallery of Art, have presented the public with a visual feast of eighteenth-century French art. The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting featured over one hundred works of eighteenth-century French painting from American and European collections and was jointly organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie. It was curated by Colin B. Bailey, chief curator, The Frick Collection, New York, and formerly deputy director and chief curator at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Philip Conisbee, senior curator of European Paintings, The National Gallery of Art, and Thomas W. Gaehtgens, director, Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte, Paris and professor at the Freie Universität Berlin. Accompanying the Washington installation was an exhibition of works on paper largely drawn from the National Gallery's own exceptional collection, accompanied by loans from its patrons. Colorful [End Page 455] Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France was curated by Margaret Morgan Grasselli, curator of Old Master Drawings at the National Gallery of Art. The exhibition presented 115 works that explored one of the most innovative periods in color printmaking, during which a variety of techniques and processes, such as the four-color separation principle still used in printing today, were discovered and implemented. Although the exhibition will not travel after it closes February 16, 2004, the public can still request to see individual works from the National Gallery's Prints and Drawings collections by making an appointment with the Prints and Drawings Department Study Room. Both exhibitions were accompanied by full-color catalogues with scholarly entries on each exhibited work.

The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard surveyed French painting from Watteau's fêtes galantes of the 1710s to Boilly's elegant scenes of social interaction in the 1790s. In explaining the thesis of the show, the curators noted that,

In eighteenth-century France, the term peinture de genre (genre painting) suggested any type of painting that was not history painting. Depicting serious themes drawn from history, literature, or the Bible, history painting had been considered the highest aspiration of the artist since this theory was developed during the Renaissance some three hundred years earlier. . . . Thus the official hierarchy of subject matter categorizd as "genre" other types of painting—such as landscapes, still lifes, hunting scenes, portraits, or even scenes from daily life. However, in modern times (and thus in our exhibition) the definition of genre painting has narrowed and now designates scenes of daily life, be they real or imaginary (exhibition brochure, 1).

Although the exhibition aimed to explore the varieties of subject matter in eighteenth-century French painting, outside the realm of history painting officially sanctioned by the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, the curators' goal was also to bring together the best paintings by the major artists of the period, i.e., Watteau, Chardin, Boucher, Greuze, and Fragonard, along with...

pdf

Share