art in the service of absolutism: “the sun king” ruled for over 72 years

HYACINTHE RIGAUD (French, 1659-1743) Louis XIV (1638 – 1715), 1701. Oil on canvas, approx. 9’ 2” x 6’ 3”. Louvre, Paris.

Art in the service ofAbsolutism: “The Sun King”Ruled for over 72 years

Aerial view of palace at Versailles, France, begun 1669, and a portion of the gardens and surrounding area.

Plan of the park, palace, and town of Versailles, France, (after a seventeenth-century engraving).

JULES HARDOUIN-MANSART and CHARLES LE BRUN, Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors), palace of Versailles, Versailles, France, ca. 1680.

Making nature into art – Gardens of Versailles

Rococo

In architecture, last of the great pre-modern period styles. Ornament supercedes structure

GERMAIN BOFFRAND (French Rococo architect, 1667-1754) Salon de la Princesse, with painting by CHARLES-JOSEPH NATOIRE and sculpture by J. B. LEMOINE, Hôtel de Soubise, Paris, France, 1737–1740.

Decoration by Francois Boucher (1703-1770) Pastorale, oil on canvas, Salon de la Princesse, Hotel de Soubise, Paris, 1736-9

FRANÇOIS DE CUVILLIÉS, Hall of Mirrors, the Amalienburg, Nymphenburg Palace park, Munich, Germany, early 18th century. A hunting lodge for Maria Amalia, Archduchess of Austria, the wife of Charles VII, Bavarian Rococo

FRANÇOIS DE CUVILLIÉS, Detail of the Hall of Mirrors, the Amalienburg, showing silver decorative elements in floral and hunting motifs

Bedroom, The Amalienburg, Munich, Bavarian Rococo, with detail of ornamental ceiling narratives in stucco and fresco.

Exterior, The Amalienburg, Munich

A soup tureen on view in 2008 exhibition, “Rococo: The Continuing Curve, 1730-2008,” at the Cooper Hewitt, National Design Museum. Made entirely of silver, it takes the form of a giant clamshell. On the fluted lid are the ingredients for a stew.

Created between 1735 and 1740 by craftsmen under the direction of Juste-Aurèle Meissonier (1695-1750) a French goldsmith, sculptor, painter, architect, and furniture designer, Dessinateur de la chambre et du cabinet du roi; the post of designer for Louis VX

ANTOINE WATTEAU (Flemish-French, 1684-1721: 37 years) L’Indifférent (The Nonchalant Man), ca. 1716. Oil on canvas, approx. 10” x 7”. Louvre, Paris. “Rubéniste” A fashionable man of leisure playing castanetes at a Fête Galante

ANTOINE WATTEAU, L’Indifférent (The Nonchalant Man), ca. 1716 / Rococo.

HYACINTHE RIGAUD (French) Louis XIV, 1701 / Baroque

ANTOINE WATTEAU, Return from Cythera, 1717–1719. Oil on canvas, approx. 4’ 3” x 6’ 4”. Louvre, Paris. Also known as the Pilgrimage to Cythera.

(left) Peter Paul Rubens, The Arrival of Marie de Medici in France, 1622-25. Baroque (right) Antoine Watteau, Return from Cythera, 1717-19. Rococo

Rubens (Baroque) was a primary influence on Watteau (Rococo).

FRANÇOIS BOUCHER (French Rococo painter and decorative artist, 1703-1770), Cupid a Captive, 1754. Oil on canvas, approx. 5’ 6” x 2’ 10”. The Wallace Collection, London.

For Boucher, the natural world was "too green and badly lit.”

FRANÇOIS BOUCHER, Madame de Pompadour, circa 1750The famous mistress of King Louis XV of France.

Sèvres Porcelain Manufactory, painting attributed to Charles-Nicolas Dodin, porcelain worker, French, Sèvres, about 1760, soft-paste porcelain, polychrome enamel decoration, gilding. Chinese figures on the sides, copied by Dodin from Chinese woodcuts of about 1700. Chinoiseries

JEAN-HONORÉ FRAGONARD (French, 1732-1806), The Swing, 1766. Oil on canvas, approx. 2’ 11” x 2’ 8”. The Wallace Collection, London.An “intrigue” picture

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Secret Meeting, from The Progress of Love series, 1771-3, oil on canvas, 10’5” x 8’, Frick Collection, New York

Enlightenment18th century French Philosophes – the power of the pen

Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet,1694-1778) – attacked both stateand church of the “old regime.”

Denis Diderot (1713-1784) created the first encyclopedia to promote democratizationof knowledge.

Pin making, illustration from Diderot’s Encyclopédie (1762), engraving

JOSEPH WRIGHT OF DERBY (English painter, 1734-1797), A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery (in which a lamp is put in place of the sun), ca. 1763–1765. Oil on canvas, 4’ 10” x 6’ 8”. Derby Museums and Art Gallery, Derby, Derbyshire, England. EMPIRICISM – ENLIGHTENMENT SCIENCE AND REASON

A small orrery fromthe mid-18th century. Solar system conceived as a giant clock

ABRAHAM DARBY III (English, 1750-1789) and THOMAS F. PRITCHARD (English, 1723-1777), iron bridge at Coalbrookdale, England (first cast-iron bridge), 1776–1779. 100’ span.

JEAN-BAPTISTE CHARDIN (French, 1699-1779), Grace at Table, 1740. Oil on canvas, 1’ 7” x 1’ 3”. Louvre, Paris. Urban (Parisian) middle class interior.

(left) Jean-Baptiste Chardin, Saying Grace, 1740. Oil on canvas (right) Bernard Lépicié, engraving after Chardin’s Saying Grace, 1744. Who were the buyers for these works? Why is there a caption under the print?

JEAN-BAPTISTE-SIMÉON CHARDIN (French, 1699-1779), Grace at Table, 1740. Oil on canvas, 1’ 7” x 1’ 3”.

FRANÇOIS BOUCHER (French, 1703-1770), Cupid a Captive, 1754. Oil on canvas, approx. 5’ 6” x 2’ 10”.

William Hogarth (English, 1697-1764), Breakfast Scene, from Marriage à la Mode, ca. 1745. Oil on canvas, approx. 2’ 4” x 3’. National Gallery, London. Social Satire – artist as moralist. English Rococo

William Hogarth (English, 1697-1764), The Death of the Countess, from The Marriage-a-la-mode series, 1743-5, oil and engraving . Series was painted to be reproduced and sold to a large middle-class audience.

Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Filial Piety (The paralytic) 1763, oil on canvas, 43X57”, The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

JEAN-BAPTISTE GREUZE (French, 1725- 1805), The Village Bride, 1761. Oil on canvas, 3’ x 3’ 10 1/2”. Louvre, Paris. Rousseau’s exaltation of the peasant’s simple life. Bourgeois (middle class) patronage

Gabriele Jacques de Saint Aubin (French 1724-1780) Salon of 1767, pen and ink, watercolor, and gouache

Sir Joshua Reynolds (English, 1723-1792), Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse, 1789. Oil on canvas, 7’11” X 4’ 10,” Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.

Michelangelo, Prophet Isaiah,Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican. Inspiration for Reynolds