Pictures Every Child Should Know / A Selection of the World's Art Masterpieces for Young People

by Mary Schell Hoke Bacon

After that hard apprenticeship, Watteau's condition became slightly better. He had been employed near the Pont Notre Dame, at three francs a week, but now in the studio of a scene painter, Gillot, he did work of coarse effect, very different from that exquisite school of art which he was to bring into being. After Gillot's came the studio of Claude Audran, the conservator of the Luxembourg, and with him Watteau did decorative work. In reality he had no master, learned from nobody, grovelled in poverty, and at first, forced a living from the meanest sources. With this in mind, it remains a wonder that he should paint as no other ever could, scenes of exquisite beauty and grace; scenes of high life, courtiers and great ladies assembled in lovely landscapes, doing elegant and charming things, dressed in unrivalled gowns and costumes. Until Watteau went to the Luxembourg he had seen absolutely nothing of refined or gracious living. He had come from country scenes, and in Paris had lived among workmen and bird-fanciers, flower sellers, hucksters and the like. This is very likely the secret of his peculiar art.

Watteau would have been a wonderful artist under any circumstances, no matter what sort of pictures he had painted; but circumstances gave his imagination a turn toward the exquisite in colourand composition. Doubtless when he first looked down from the palace windows of the Luxembourg and saw gorgeous women and handsome men languishing and coquetting and revelling in a life of ease and beauty, he was transported. He must have thought himself in fairyland, and the impulse to paint, to idealise the loveliness that he saw, must have been greater in him than it would have been in one who had lived so long among such scenes that they had become familiar with them.

After Watteau there were artists who tried to do the kind of work he had done, but no one ever succeeded. Watteau clothed all his shepherdesses in fine silken gowns, with a plait in the back, falling from the shoulders, and to-day we have a fashion known as the "Watteau back"--gowns made with this shoulder-plait. He put filmy laces or softest silks upon his dairy maids, as upon his court ladies, dressing his figures exquisitely, and in the loveliest colours. He had suffered from poverty and from miserable sights, so when he came to paint pictures, he determined to reproduce only the loveliest objects.

At that time French fashions were very unusual, and it was quite the thing for ladies to hold a sort of reception while at their toilet. A description of one of these affairs was written by Madame de Grignon to her daughter: "Nothing can be more delightful than to assist at the toilet of Madame la Duchesse (de Bourgoyne), and to watch her arrange her hair. I was present the other day. She rose at half past twelve, put on her dressing gown, and set to work to eat a méringue. She ate the powder and greased her hair. The whole formed an excellent breakfast and charming coiffure." Watteau has caught the spirit of this strange airy, artificial, incongruous existence. His ladies seem to be eating meringues and powdering their hair and living on a diet of the combination. One hardly knows which is toilet and which is real life in looking at his paintings.

He quarreled with Audran at the Luxembourg, and having sold his first picture, he went back to his Valenciennes home, to see his former acquaintances, no doubt being a little vain of his performance.

After that he painted another picture which sold well enough to keep him from poverty for a time, and on his return to Paris he was warmly greeted by a celebrated and influential artist, Crozat. Watteau tried for a prize, and though his picture came second it had been seen by the Academy committee.

His greatness was acknowledged, and he was immediately admitted to the Academy and granted a pension by the crown, with which he was able to go to Italy, the Mecca of all artists the world over.

From Italy he went to London, but there the fogs and unsuitable climate made his disease much worse and he hurried back to France, where he went to live with a friend who was a picture dealer. It was then that he painted a sign for this friend, Gersaint, a sign so wonderful that it is reckoned in the history of Watteau's paintings.

Soon he grew so sensitive over his illness, that he did not wish to remain near his dearest friends, but one of them, the Abbé Haranger, insisted upon looking after his welfare, and got lodgings for him at Nogent, where he could have country air and peace.

Watteau died very soon after going to Nogent in July, 1721, and he left nine thousand livres to his parents, and his paintings to his best friends, the Abbé, Gersaint, Monsieur Henin, and Monsieur Julienne. He is called the "first French painter" and so he was--though he was Flemish, by birth.