But the end was near, and Watteau, realising it, proceeded to set his house in order and to make amends for his shortcomings of friendship and of temper, the importance of which the dying man magnified. He sent for his townsman and pupil, Pater, asked forgivenessfor having in the past retarded his advancement through fear of rivalry, and made ample amends by giving Pater daily instruction and revealing to him his intimate knowledge of his craft. Pater said, after Watteau's death, that this was "the only fruitful teaching he had ever received." His townsman no doubt brought back to the dying painter thoughts of home. Ever hopeful, like all consumptives, he was sure that a change of air would cure him!
PLATE IV.—THE EMBARKMENT FOR CYTHERA
(In the Louvre, Paris)
In 1717 Watteau finished, after a long delay, his pièce de reception for the Academy, the famous first study for "The Embarkment for Cythera." This picture was painted in seven days, and elaborated, but hardly improved, in the Potsdam version. Behold these ethereal and butterfly pilgrims of love preparing lackadaisically to be wafted in the ship with the rose-coloured sail to the abode of Venus. On those lovely shores they will find no continuing city. Watteau knows that.
He instructed Gersaint to sell everything, and to make preparations for the journey home. He made the journey home, but not to Valenciennes. He died suddenly in Gersaint's arms on July 18, 1721.
He was artist to the end. "Take away that crucifix," he said to the priest; "it pains me. How could an artist dare to treat my Master so shockingly." It is said that one of the last remarks of this sensitive, ill-balanced, disease-stricken man of genius was to beg the Abbé Haranger to forgive him for having used his face and figure for his picture of "Gilles."
So at the age of thirty-seven he escaped finally from reality—that reality which his art had always avoided so delightfully and so convincingly.