Jean Antoine Watteau

One of Europe’s greatest painters, Jean-Antoine Watteau was a pivotal figure in the development of Rococo art in France and across the continent. Watteau was born in 1684 in Valenciennes, a garrison town in Flanders that had been ceded to France only six years earlier. Details of his initial artistic training are unclear, but Watteau left Flanders for Paris in the early 1700s, where he first lived in a community of Franco-Flemish artisans and was employed in the mass production of copies of devotional paintings. Born in Valenciennes, France, Watteau initially trained under local painters before moving to Paris, where he found work in the workshop of the renowned decorator Claude Gillot. This experience influenced his interest in theatrical scenes and the commedia dell'arte, themes that would become central to his work.

Around 1705, Watteau found a job in the workshop of Claude Gillot, an inventive artist known for his satirical works and scenes inspired by the commedia dell’arte. Through Gillot, Watteau was introduced to Claude Audran II, the master of ornament dubbed as the ‘arbiter of the French arabesque’. Under these two major influences, Watteau developed his mature style, depicting theatrical scenes and subject matter based on the highly decorative arabesque that dominated interior design of the time.

Watteau’s career truly blossomed when he invented a unique genre of paintings, which he coined the fête galante. These paintings are filled with allusions to other artists, other eras and other countries, yet it combines and reshapes its elements into a singular image of flickering brushwork, dazzling colour and unforgettable strangeness. An exceptional example of Watteau’s fête galante painting is La Surprise: A couple embracing while figure dressed as Messetin tunes a guitar, which sold at Christie’s London for £12,361,250 — a world auction record for the artist.

Watteau had a highly unusual, improvisational method of composing his paintings. He maintained bound books that held his drawings, most of them sketches in chalk of figures that he posed in costume, a few nudes, occasional landscapes, and copies of Old Master drawings and paintings — mostly after Titian, Veronese and Rubens. The latter was Watteau’s favourite source of inspiration. Having selected several figure studies that he found appropriate, he then reproduced them in oil paint on canvases or panels where he had already executed a landscape background. He adjusted the figural groups to harmonise with the landscape setting, and frequently altered or even painted out complete figures as he perfected his final composition. He seems rarely to have followed a compositional plan.

Jean-Antoine Watteau was also noted for his masterful draughtsmanship. His drawings, often executed in red chalk, are highly prized for their spontaneity and expressiveness. These sketches not only served as preparatory studies for his paintings but also carried great artistic and aesthetic values. His drawing style was fluid and lively, capturing the fleeting moments and gestures of his subjects with remarkable finesse.

Watteau died in 1721 at the age of 36. Despite a relatively short career, his influence on the arts, from painting to decorative arts, costume, theatre and music, was amongst the most significant in the 18th century. This unique blend of realism and fantasy set the tone for the Rococo period, influencing subsequent generations of artists including J.M.W. Turner.