Watteau finally success and an ending

Once again the jealousy of a senior threatened Watteau's progress. Watteau showed his master a realistic painting of soldiers on the march, and Audran, who naturally did not want to lose so talented an assistant, advised him not to paint realistic pictures lest he should lose his skill as a decorator. But Watteau, determined to devote himself to original work, was now diplomat enough to avoid a quarrel, and wanting to leave Audran courteously, informed him that he must return to Valenciennes to visit his family.
At Valenciennes the young artist continued his studies of nature and contemporary life, and he painted a series of military pictures illustrating camp-life, marches, and outpost duty. 


Camp fire

But after staying there long enough to justify his visit, he returned to Paris, where he was now getting to be well known.



At this time his great aspiration was to win the Prix de Rome and to visit Italy, and with this object he competed in 1709, the subject set by the Academy being " David granting Abigail Nabal's Pardon." The prize, however, was won by a student named Grison, Watteau being placed second and thus losing his opportunity of visiting Rome.



Still eager to study in Italy, and still hopeful that the Academy might help him to accomplish his desire, Watteau three years later contrived to get two of his military pictures hung in a room through which Academicians were in the habit of passing. Several admired the "vigorous coulouring" and a certain harmony which made them appear the work of an old master," and one Academician, de la Fosse, made inquiries as to the painter. It was then discovered that this young painter, already twenty-nine, was so modest that all he wanted from the Academy was its influence with the King that he might receive a small grant to enable him to study in Italy.

Attracted by his talent and modesty, de la Fosse sought an interview with Watteau which had the most surprising results. With a rare generosity the Academician told the young man that he had no need to seek instruction in Italy, that he undervalued his own ability, and the Academicians believed he was already capable of doing them honour ; in short, he had only to take the proper steps to be accepted a member of their society. The young artist did as he was told, and was immediately received as a member of the French Academy.
In all the long history of the Academy of France only one incident similar to this has been recorded, for Chardin was invited under similar circumstances. That a young artist, without friends or fortune, who had failed to win the Prix de Rome and humbly begged for help in his studies, should spontaneously be elected an Academician, is a miracle in the history of all academies. This event was the turning-point in Watteau's career, and henceforward his fame was assured and he was able to earn his living in comfort.
It was on August 28, 1717, that Watteau was finally admitted to the Academy. All successful candidates are required to deposit a diploma work after their election, and it was for this purpose that Watteau eventually painted his famous masterpiece, " L'Embarquement pour Cythere" which is now in the Louvre.

The Embarkation for Cythera

The Embarkation for Cythera (Detail)

In this poetically conceived picture, which shows a crowd of gallant youths and fair maidens about to embark for the legendary isle of perfect love, Watteau revealed a science of colour harmony which was one hundred and fifty years ahead of his day. He had already excited the admiration of his contemporaries by a method of painting which was as successful as it was original. He would cover his canvas copiously and, to all appearance, vaguely with a thick layer of pigment, and on this he would proceed, so to speak, to chisel out his detail. Figures, sky, and landscape background were then built up by a series of minute touches, which gave his pictures a peculiarly vibrating and scintillating effect. His division of tones and his wonderful orchestration of complementary colours make Watteau a forerunner of the prismatic colouring of the more scientific painters of the nineteenth century.
Unfortunately he was not destined to enjoy long the fame and fortune which now awaited him. The privation and hardship of his early manhood had undermined his always frail constitution and left him a prey to pulmonary tuberculosis or a similar progressive systemic disease.
As if he knew the end was approaching, he worked feverishly during his last years. For a time he lived with a wealthy collector named Crozat, for whose dining-room he painted a set of " The Four Seasons." Though very comfortable at Crozat^'s house, which was filled with precious things and with paintings and drawings by old masters he admired, a desire for more complete independence led Watteau to leave it and live with his friend Vleughels, who afterwards became Principal of the Academy at Rome. In 1718 he left Vleughels, and shut himself up in a small apartment alone with his dreams and his illness, displaying then that craving for solitude which is said to be one of the symptoms of tuberculosis. Later, somebody having spoken well of England, he suddenly had an almost morbid longing to cross the Channel.

In 1719 he came to London, where he painted and had some success, till the climate made him ill and unable to work. He returned to France more exhausted and weaker in health than he had ever been before, but slightly recovered during a six months' stay with his friend, the art-dealer Gersaint, for whom he painted a sign, an exquisitely finished interior with figures, in the short space of eight mornings—he was still so weak that he could only paint half the day.

L'Enseigne de Gersaint

Then, hoping that he might recover his strength in the country, he moved to a house at Nogent which had been lent to him, but there his health rapidly declined and he gave himself up to religion, his last picture being a Crucifixion for the curate of the parish. Still pathetically hopeful that change of air might do him good, he begged his friend Gersaint to make arrangements for him to journey to Valenciennes. But while waiting for strength to move to his native town the end came, and on July 18, 1721, he died suddenly in Gersaint's arms. He was only thirty-seven years old.

The real generosity of Watteau's nature is well illustrated by a touching incident during the last months of his life. His pupil, Jean Pater (1696-1736), had offended him, as Lancret had also done, by imitating his own style and subjects too closely, and in a fit of ill-temper he dismissed him from his studio. But during his last illness Watteau remembered how he had suffered in his youth from the jealousy of his seniors, and he reproached himself with having been unjust as well as unkind to Pater. He besought his friend Gersaint to persuade Pater to return to him, and when the latter arrived the dying man spent a month giving Pater all the help and guidance that he could in order to atone for his former injustice.

The painting "Qu'ay­je fait, assassins maudits"
Which translates as "Whatever I build, assassins destroy" is very appropriate in regard to the cleaning and so called restoration of Watteau's works.

More on the controversial business of restoration and cleaning of art in a future Blog

The Luxembourg Palace

The Luxembourg Palace

His stay with Audran had a profound influence on the art of Watteau. There were no gardens of the Luxembourg in those days, and the park attached to the royal palace was full of wild and natural beauty which appealed to the young artist, and drew forth his powers as a landscape-painter. It was here that he discovered and learnt to paint those clumps of trees which form the background to the figures of his idylls and pastorals.

Inspired thus by the externals of the palace, Watteau was also profoundly moved by what was within, the picture-gallery containing the series of great paintings by Rubens which illustrated the life of Marie de' Medici.



The Felicity of the Regency of Marie de' Medici this is the final painting in the cycle.



Watteau viewed these spirited paintings again and again ; he copied them with zest, and became so saturated with Rubens that eventually he was able to deflect his fellow-countrymen from Italian ideals and revivify French painting with the vigorous realism of Rubens. His worship of the great Fleming, to whom he felt himself related by ties of race as well as artistic sympathy, never degenerated into servile imitation. Camille Mauclair a French critic said " by means of a gradually widening realism," Watteau " arrived at the point of preserving in his small canvases all Rubens' admirable breadth, while achieving a masterly originality of grouping." A superb example of Watteau's powers in this respect is his " Lady at her Toilet " in the Wallace Collection.

Lady at her Toilet

Watteau experimented with glazes that have darkened with time, unfortunately the cleaning attempt conducted by the Wallace Collection means that this painting once thought of as the most beautiful ever painted by Watteau now looks grubby and neglected, indeed a sorry sight.

The Young Watteau

Antoine Watteau although thought of as essentially and characteristically French, he was born in 1683 at Valenciennes, near the Franco-Flemish frontier only six years after it ceased to be part of Flanders thus giving him primarily a Flemish heritage.
It was this weakling, whose frail form was prematurely ravaged by consumption, who some say founded the greatest and strongest of all the modern schools of painting.
His father, a plowman and carpenter, was in poor circumstances, and the boy is said to have had an unhappy childhood. Watteau senior bore the reputation of being a hard man, and wanted his son to become a tiler and hewer like himself so when young Antoine obtained permission to work in the studio of a local artist called Guerin, who was painter to the municipality of Valenciennes, the father refused to pay the expenses of his son's education.
After the death of Guerin in 1702, Antoine Watteau, then aged nineteen, ran away to Paris with a scene-painter called Metayer. But when they had arrived in Paris, this man soon abandoned his young companion when he had no more work to give him, and henceforward Watteau, already in delicate health and disowned by his father, was alone in Paris, without money, clothes, or resources of any kind. In desperate poverty he at last found employment in a wretched workshop where cheap religious pictures were produced by the dozen, to be retailed by country shopkeepers. Nowadays printing has saved artists from this kind of drudgery, but in the early eighteenth century even the lowest-priced coloured card had to be done by hand. What was required of Watteau and his fellow-labourers was rapidity of execution in making copies of popular subjects, and for this work he was payed a small pittance and one daily meal of soup !
Yet even in this miserable trade Watteau managed to distinguish himself, and was entrusted with the reproduction of a " St. Nicholas " that was in great demand. One day the mistress of the workshop forgot to give Watteau the " St. Nicholas " to copy, and remembering her oversight later in the day, she climbed up to Watteau's attic to scold him for idling. After she had worked herself up into a passion, Watteau amazed her by showing her his day's work, a perfect St. Nicholas, which he had completely finished from memory.


St. Nicholas

 Through all this period of drudgery and semi-starvation, Watteau never despaired, and snatched every opportunity to improve his art, drawing from Nature at night and during his rare holidays and leisure moments. Then by a happy chance he made the acquaintance of the decorative artist Claude Gillot, who, after seeing Watteau's drawings, invited the young man to live with him.
Rescued from his miserable factory, Watteau worked with enthusiasm at the ornamental painting of his new friend, who was then chiefly engaged in representing scenes from Italian comedy.

Claude Gillot scene from “Master Andrews’s Tomb”

Watteau, who in his poverty and ill-health worshiped elegance and all the graces of life, soon rivaled and surpassed his tutor in painting slim Harlequins, simple Pierrots, dainty Columbines, and other well-defined characters of Italian comedy ; and it may be that Gillot grew jealous of his protege. After a period of warm friendship, the two artists parted on bad terms, and though Watteau in after-life never ceased to praise Gillot's pictures, he kept silent about the man, and would never answer when questioned about the breach between them. Gillot, on the other hand, tacitly acknowledged his pupil's superiority, for some time after the quarrel he abandoned painting and devoted himself to etching.
When Watteau left Gillot, his fellow-assistant, Nicolas Lancret (1690- 1743), who afterwards became his pupil, left with him, and both young men found employment with Claude Audran, a painter of ornaments, who was also a guardian of the Luxembourg Palace.

 Nicolas Lancret, The Luncheon Party.