Let us return for a moment to "The Ball under a Colonnade" at Dulwich, which from its own inherent charm and from its position in that quiet and reposeful gallery may fitly serve as an introduction to the art of Watteau. Take a chair—they permit it at Dulwich—and seat yourself before it. The picture has suffered, alas! somewhat from Time, which has almost obliterated the fairy-like fountain. But how charming the picture is still; how gracious and debonair are the two dancing figures; how fascinating the broken colour in the woman's green-striped, rose skirt and in the man's blue butterfly dress. There are seventy-three figures in the small canvas, 1 ft. 7¾ in. by 2 ft. ¼ in. You can almost hear the musicians playing, the fall of water from the fading fountain, the rustle of leaves, and the ripple of laughter. Think of the painters, dead and gone, who have loved this "Ball under a Colonnade." Constable was one of them. He was not afraid to praise a picture when he liked it. Listen to this—Constable's criticism of a copy that Leslie had made of Watteau's "Ball." He asked Constable what he thought of the copy, and the great man answered:—
"Your copy looks colder than the original, which seems as if painted in honey—so mellow, so tender, so soft, and so delicious; so I trust yours will be; but be satisfied if you but touch the hem of his garment, for this inscrutable and exquisite thing would vulgarise even Rubens and Paul Veronese."
The amount of work done by Watteau, accused by his friend De Caylus of idleness, was enormous. A chronological list is almost impossible, because many of his works are lost or were destroyed during the Revolution.
Watteau painted anything and everything, during his connection with Gillot and Audran, from pictures to powder-boxes, never considering that his art was too high and lofty for the embellishment of any object suitable for painting upon. His work may be divided into three classes: first manner—Italian Comedy and decorative work; second—Military Scenes; third and finest manner—The Pastorals.
As a boy he produced some military pictures, and he reverted to them while with Audran. It is difficult to place chronologically any given subject, for while we may arbitrarily classify a picture as belonging to one period or another, his Italian Comedy scenes, belonging to the first period, persisted to the end.
With the exception of his boyish endeavours, inspired by Teniers before he visited Paris, his first manner was almost entirely decorative, and included paintings on screens, coach panels, and furniture. The military pictures belong to a short period dating from his success in selling them to Sirois and their approval by the Academy. They are few in number—thirteen only were engraved.
The year 1712 was the beginning of his recognition and the end of poverty. Between this date and 1716 he produced his marvellous nudes. Of all Watteau's pictures the nudes seem undoubtedly to have been painted from Nature and not from drawings. They are too true to life, too well observed. All his other pictures, even the greatest of his Pastorals, have the air of being imagined. His drawings were his documents, and these, like the nudes, were of course made direct from Nature. The fantasy of his pictures is founded on fact, but it is fantasy which sees only what it wishes to see—the rhythmic line, the rainbow colour, the happy melancholy.
The year 1716 was big with significance to Watteau; he awoke in his own land—dream-land of his Pastorals. Then he began to live, and there were before him but five short years of life. He never again left this land of fantasy—except when, on his return from London, he painted "Gersaint's Sign," that model of modishness and grace, painted in eight mornings, representing Gersaint's shop where élégantes buy masterpieces from shop-keepers as elegant as themselves. This picture, which is now in the possession of the German Emperor, has for some mysterious reason been divided into two portions.
In 1717, as I have related, he finished after a long delay his pièce de reception for the Academy, the famous first study for the "Embarkment for Cythera." What can be said of this picture, or of the more finished replica at Potsdam, that has not already been said a score of times? It is referred to and described in the Prologue to this book as one of his significant pictures. It moves in a rhythm of life, of love, of colour; rose reds, golden yellows, faint purples, greys of every gamut, meeting and melting—one perfect whole, and over all is a lingering regret of "I know not what." This picture was painted in seven days, and elaborated, but hardly improved, in the Potsdam version.
Turn from this consummate work to his early "La Vraie Gaieté," inspired by Teniers, which in essence is the same picture as "The Ball under a Colonnade" at Dulwich, and even the "Amusements Champêtres" and the "Champs Elysées" at Hertford House. The clothes are changed, the handling has become lighter and more accomplished—that is all. The observer, that saturnine, detached, cynical figure, who appears in so many of Watteau's pictures, is already present in "La Vraie Gaieté." 'This solitary figure is, as I have already said, the symbol of Watteau himself, ever aloof, ever contemptuous, even when sharing in the scenic world of Watteau, where life, if not really true, is certainly not false. His people are lotus-eaters, who are come to a land where it is always afternoon, where "the charmed sunset lingered low adown in the red west ... and many a winding vale and meadow, set with slender galingale." A mild melancholy possesses the inhabitants of this dream-world, for they are happy and yet a little sad, musing on what can never be. Through this dream-world "L'Indifférent" trips lightly, typical of Watteau, rainbow-hued, mercurial, his indifference assumed, not troubling to conceal the sad thoughtfulness that lurks in his expression. We do not believe in his snapping fingers and his jaunty air. What colour are his beautiful garments? Rosy white, greeny white, lavendar white with rose red knots, and rose red mantle lined with bluebell blue, white frills falling over the sensitive hands, his butterfly decorations rustling as he passes—"L'Indifférent." The technique of the picture, in its modern chromatic use of colour, is marvellous. The hues of the rainbow meander through it all. Who can describe Watteau's colour or his fashion of trickling on the paint, as fascinating in its way as the method of Frans Hals, whose seduction is "the way he paints," not what he paints? Hals, the great master of character, frank, open, plebeian, is akin in technique to Watteau. What æsthetic joy these masters of technique give us as we study the manipulation of their paint. Hals flicks on his ruffles frankly, joyously—brutally. Watteau, seemingly just for joy in the colour, trickles—there is no other word for it—one luscious colour over another, like liquid jewels embedded in gold. One may stand for hours at Hertford House in front of any of his pictures and quite forget the subject in delight of the workmanship.