Jean Antoine Watteau

French Rococo painter, printmaker & draftsman. born 1684 - died 18 July 1721.

WATTEAU, ANTOINE (1684-1721), French painter, was born in Valenciennes, of humble Flemish origin. Comte de Caylus, his staunch friend of later years, and his first biographer, refers to Watteau's father as a hard man, strongly disinclined to accede to his son's wish to become a painter; but other accounts show him in a kinder light as a poor, struggling man, a tiler by trade, who secured for his son the best possible education. Certain it is that at the age of fourteen Watteau was placed with Gerin, a mediocre Valenciennes painter, with whom he remained until 1702. It is to be assumed that he learnt far more from the study of Ostade's and Teniers's paintings in his native town than from his first master's teaching. Not only in subject-matter, but in tbeir general tonality, his earliest works, like La Vraie Gaiete (True Cheerfulness), which was in the collection of Sir Charles Tennant, suggest this influence. Gerin died in 1702, and Watteau, almost penniless, went to Paris, where he found employment with the scene-painter Metayer. Things, however, went badly with his new master, and Watteau, broken down in health and on the verge of starvation, was forced to work in a kind of factory where devotional pictures were turned out in wholesale fashion. Three francs a week and meagre food were his reward; but his talent soon enabled him to paint the St Nicolas, the copying of which was allotted to him, without having to refer to the original. Meanwhile he spent his rare leisure hours and the evenings in serious study, sketching and drawing his impressions of types and scenes. His drawings attracted the attention of Claude Gillot, an artist imbued with the spirit of the Renaissance, who after having successfully tried himself in the mythological and historical genre, was just at that time devoting himself to the characters and incidents of the Italian comedy. Gillot took Watteau as pupil and assistant, but the young man made such rapid progress that he soon equalled and excelled his master, whose jealousy led to a quarrel, as a result of which Watteau, and with him his fellow-student and later pupil, Lancret, severed his connection with Gillot and entered about 1708 the studio of Claude Audran, a famous decorative painter who was at that time keeper of the collections at the Luxembourg Palace. From him Watteau acquired his knowledge of decorative art and ornamental design, the garland-like composition which he applied to the designing of screens, fans and wall panels. At the same time he became deeply imbued with the spirit of Rubens and Paolo Veronese, whose works he had daily before him at the palace; and he continued to work from nature and to collect material for his formal garden backgrounds among the fountains and statues and stately avenues of the Luxembourg gardens. His chinoiseries and singeries date probably from the years during which he worked with Audran. Perhaps as a recreation from the routine of ornamental design, Watteau painted at this time The Departing Regiment, the first picture in his second and more personal manner, in which the touch reveals the influence of Rubens's technique, and the first of a long series of camp pictures. He showed the painting to Audran, who, probably afraid of losing so talented and useful an assistant, made light of it, and advised him not to waste his time and gifts on such subjects. Watteau, suspicious of his master's motives, determined to leave him, advancing as excuse his desire to return to Valenciennes. He found a purchaser, at the modest price of 60 livres, in Sirois, the father-in-law of his later friend and patron Gersaint, and was thus enabled to return to the home of his childhood. In Valenciennes he painted a number of the small camp-pieces, notably the Camp-Fire, which was again bought by Sirois, the price this time being raised to 200 livres; this is now in the collection of Mr W. A. Coats in Glasgow. Two small pictures of the same type are at the Hermitage in St Petersburg.