French Eighteenth Century Painting

French Eighteenth Century Painting

This review of the 1896 Royal Academy winter exhibition at Burlington House notes that the Old Masters on display lack their usual importance, since the Venetian school is barely traceable and the great Seventeenth Century Dutch and Flemish masters, including Rembrandt, Rubens, Hobbema, Snyders, De Hooch and Nicholas Maas, are wholly absent. The Third Gallery offers an uneven selection of large canvases, redeemed by one exceptional Claude, one faultless Vandyke, and one superb Velasquez, while the English First Room, though less striking than usual, still contains a late Turner, an early Cotman, a lively Hogarth conversation piece, and a capable William Dobson portrait. The Second Room is devoted to the French of two periods, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century, between which the writer finds no true continuity, unlike the unbroken English line from Richard Wilson to Turner or from Reynolds to Etty and James Ward. The essay then turns chiefly to the French Eighteenth Century masters themselves. Watteau is represented by Dulwich's "Ball under a Colonnade," showing a minuet danced under an arcade above a garden, with gay groups to either side, in faultless condition and with colouring inherited from the Venetians. Beside it hangs Pater's "The Pleasure Barge," lent by Mr. Alfred de Rothschild, recalling Watteau's late reconciliation with his once-estranged pupil, to whom he imparted his secrets of art; the work is judged dexterous but an echo of its master's spirit rather than an independent voice. Lord Rosebery's portrait of Robespierre by Jean Baptiste Greuze is called sound and perhaps slightly flattering. Mr. Clementi Smith's small Greuze, "À Vous," shows three friendly figures and a passing glass; neither Greuze departs into the artist's more familiar seductive manner. Lady Wallace's small Fragonard, properly titled "Lettre d'Amour," captures a woman's impulsive, love-struck writing, reflecting Fragonard's birth and half-Italian landscape sympathies; her larger Fragonard, "L'Escarpolette," is absent. Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild's life-size Madame de Pompadour, reclining in sky blue and rose, is deemed a clever, gay tour de force lacking restfulness. Two Prud'hons from Hertford House follow: the nude boy "Le Zéphyr," indebted to Correggio, and "The Triumph of Bonaparte," showing Napoleon amid female figures and Cupids in a triumphal car, owing much to Greek influence. Finally, Ingres's "Odalisque," an Oriental nude sketch, shows unusually better colour than draughtsmanship, with awkward curves in the arms and trunk, prompting regret that he is not instead represented by "The Apotheosis of Homer" or "The Source."

By Frederick Wedmore · First published 1899 · Genre: Art Criticism, Art History, Exhibition Review · 1,871 words

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There is plenty of variety in the Exhibition which the Academy proffers to the Londoner this winter; and that was desirable -- we may almost say, necessary -- for the Old Masters proper -- such of them as are shown -- have not nearly the attractiveness and importance that have been customary. This, under the circumstances, is scarcely to be wondered at, for while of the Venetian painting there is but the most doubtful or the scantiest trace, the great Dutch and Flemish Masters of the Seventeenth Century are altogether unrepresented. Rembrandt and Rubens, Hobbema and Snyders, De Hooch and Nicholas Maas, are as if they were not. The Second Room, in which they are wont to be gathered together, makes not a sign of them; and the Third or Great Gallery contains a not quite happy or well-balanced representation of the masters of the larger canvas, although we note already one exceptional Claude, one faultless Vandyke, and one superb Velasquez. Even the First Room, which is exclusively English, is not so attractive as it has sometimes been; though here and there a late Turner or an early Cotman, a Hogarth ‘conversation piece,' vivacious and sterling, or a William Dobson portrait, honest at least and capable, asserts unmistakably the hand of a master. Much of the interest is concentrated upon the newer occupants of the Second Room. Most of them are clever, but many hopelessly incompatible.

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art criticism · exhibition review · French painting · eighteenth century · Rococo · Watteau · Fragonard · Greuze · Prud'hon · Ingres · Old Masters · portraiture

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