French Art from Watteau to Prud'hon Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ...of those brilliant insects that can be seen dead, but with all their colours still fresh, in the golden light of a piece of amber. 'This picture, "L'Embarquement pour Cythere," is the most marvellous of all Watteau's marvellous accomplishments. Yet the whole mind of the artist is not in it.' Elsewhere we are invited to go with them to 'that "He Enchantee," wherein, on the grass beside a still and gleaming lake, losing itself beneath trees pierced by the arrows of the setting sun, are seated men and women, their eyes resting upon PLATE XXXIII. Noces.... yean Antoine Watteau. The Soane Museum. the snow-capped mountains on the other shore, where the immense plain and boundless space are only broken by mirages of the subdued light of gloaming-tide. 'This picture lives in the memory, not as the mere remembrance of a picture, but far more vividly, like the fleeting recollection of a description of an enchanted isle read of in some work of fiction.' But we must pass on. In the same La Caze collection hangs the 'Jupiter and Antiope, ' a work totally different in style from that which we have been examining, so unlike Watteau, indeed, that did we not know it to be his we might easily overlook it. Another dissimilar example, and one quite exceptional in its nature, is 'Gilles, ' a life-size portrait of a man in the dress of a clown in the Italian Comedy. This is extolled by French critics very highly. It may be compared with Gainsborough's 'Blue Boy, ' both pictures showing what can be done, by a masterly brush, with great masses of colour in representing outdoor life. In the case of this awkward-looking figure of the Italian comedian the whole dress is white, but not pure white. It is a tour de force, and as such excites our admiration if it leaves ...