Jacques Antoine Watteau, also most often referred to simply as Antoine Watteau, is a French painter who became the founder and famous master in the Rococo style.
Biography of Antoine Watteau
On October 10, 1684, in the town of Valenciennes, a boy was born into the family of the carpenter Watteau, who was named Antoine. His childhood can hardly be called happy, because the future artist had a rather complex character and quite a lot of disagreements with his father, who did not really understand his son's artistic hobbies.
Despite this, an ordinary carpenter, who was Antoine's father, allowed his son to become a student of the urban artist Jacques-Albert-Grerin. This art education allowed the child to acquire the necessary skills to earn an income. However, at the age of eighteen, in 1702, Antoine Watteau left his father's house and went straight to Paris.
Initially, Antoine took a rather difficult and, by the way, not very well-paid job as a copier. The money he earned was barely enough for him to eat.
His life took a sharp turn when, in 1703, the young artist met Claude Gillot. The same saw in Antoine an unusually talented artist and offered him training. From 1708 to 1709, Watteau was a student of Claude Audran, and it was his close contact with these outstanding artists that developed his interest in theater and decorative arts.
Creativity Watteau
Rubens's paintings have had a huge impact on many artists, and Antoine Watteau was no exception. He learned about his work at the Luxembourg Palace. One of the artist's wishes was to visit Rome and, for this, he was able to enter the art academy.
However, Paris brought back its already mature and accomplished artist in 1710. A large number of Antoine's works are devoted to military topics. One of his most outstanding works, The Pilgrimage to the Island of Kieferu, was written in 1717 and earned Watteau the unusual title of Artist of Gallant Festivals.
In 1718, Antoine painted another, which has become no less popular, the painting "Capricious". The action in Watteau's paintings reveals not so direct a plot, but rather a subtle and slightly perceptible poetry that permeates all of his works. This artist became the father of a genre commonly referred to as "gallant festivities."
The painting "Feasts of Love", painted in 1717, like many other paintings by the author, is saturated with a range of emotional shades, this can be caught by looking closely at the landscape background of the painting. Antoine Watteau pioneered the artistic value of fragile and subtle nuances and feelings. For the first time, his art, so to speak, felt the divergence, or discord, between dreams and reality. Very often it is marked with the stamp of melancholic sadness that it evokes.
Already at the end of 1717, the artist fell ill with a fatal, for those times, tuberculosis disease. The disease was also able to penetrate into his paintings. Watteau tried to fight this and specially visited Great Britain at the end of 1719 to change the situation and climate, but this was unsuccessful. He spent his last days in the country house of his good friend and died on July 18, 1721. He will leave about twenty thousand paintings for his descendants.
Interesting facts from the artist's life
Antoine Watteau was quite famous and lived in luxury. He did not value money and easily scattered it. One day a hairdresser dropped in to offer him a beautiful wig made from natural human hair. The artist was amazed: “What a beauty! What naturalness!"
Watteau wanted to pay the hairdresser for his efforts, but he did not take the money, and instead asked for only one or a few sketches, if it was not difficult for Antoine. The artist was happy to draw sketches for him, but after the hairdresser left, he still could not calm down. Watteau believed he had deceived the poor man.
A week later, his friend dropped in to see him. He saw that Antoine, despite all the orders, began to work on a new painting, which he wanted to present to the hairdresser, because he still thought that he had deceived the poor fellow. A friend had to work hard to convince the Artist, but he succeeded.
