In the background of this “hunting tapestry,” from the Lowry Memorial Gift, is illustrated the story of Diana and Acteon; the rash huntsman is turned into a stag by the outraged Goddess. In its design the tapestry is more Renaissance in feeling than Baroque, but the crowded ordinance of the composition betrays its late date. The carving on the chest below shows various typical motives of the Jacobean style.
Chest, Oak. English, XVII Century
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ART
Art of the XVIII century differs radically from that of the preceding century. It is graceful, elegant and coquettish rather than ponderous, majestic and passionate. Forgotten is the fervent piety of the Counter-Reformation and the oppressive grandeur of le Roi Soleil. Life is joyful, to be lived in luxurious boudoirs, exquisite in refinement of decoration, or in pretty gardens where Nature, properly disguised, welcomes aristocratic shepherds and shepherdesses to her pastoral delights.
The changed political and social conditions of the XVIII century had their immediate effect in the world of art. Except in England—relatively democratic as compared with France and other continental countries—art was almost exclusively aristocratic, and mirrored the self-indulgent interests of fashionable patrons. Even in England, where Hogarth moralized for the bourgeoisie, and the sturdy lineaments of the commoner were portrayed by a Reynolds or Gainsborough no less frequently, and truthfully, than the high-bred mien of a great nobleman, artistic concessions to the Third Estate were distinctly limited. It was in courtly France, soon to be racked by social revolution, that the epicurean art of the XVIII century was most at home. When we name Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, Clodion, Houdon, we sum up, perhaps, all that is most characteristic of painting and sculpture in XVIII century art. The portrait painters of England contribute to the century the meed of their greatness; Italy gains lustre through Tiepolo; Spain through Goya; but it is to France that we turn to experience in its completeness the spirit of the Rococo.
In the “century of little things” the minor arts attained an exceptional importance. Artisans ranked as artists, and justly. Among the distinguished artists of the XVIII century must be included such great craftsmen as Chippendale, Sheraton, Hepplewhite, Oeben, Riesener, Gouthiere, and Caffieri—to make but a brief selection from among the numerous English and French cabinet-makers, metal chasers, and other craftsmen of the period. The productions of these celebrated artisans were rightly looked upon as works of creative art of a high order, and the makers were accorded the patronage and protection of royalty and nobility.
In technical perfection the XVIII century crafts have never been surpassed. But too great proficiency led sometimes to artistic disaster, as we may note in tapestries imitating the difficulties of inappropriate pictorial models, or in the florid carving sometimes indulged in by the cabinet-makers—even the celebrated Chippendale, if the truth be told. These occasional deviations from the path of artistic rectitude must not mislead us, however, from a just appreciation of the extraordinary merits of XVIII century decorative art.