GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The depiction of female bathers without the framework of an established story became a new feature in French painting in the 1720s. In an idyllic, hilly landscape, a group of sixteen women is assembled around a small pond in front of an elaborate pavilion. The two monumental, naked caryatids set the stage for several naked or semi-naked bathers in the group, some of them protected against the sun by a large red canvas suspended from trees. At least two women attend as servants; others are still dressed. A shell-shaped fountain on the left is crowned by putti playing with a ram. A central group of bathers in white undergarments are lit by particularly bright light, thus creating a solid group. The bodies are arranged for the picture plane to reveal their flesh advantageously. The gaze of the—probably male—viewer is mirrored by three men in the background whose heads can just be made out above the vegetation near the fountain. They add a further titillating story to the scene, but they also reflect the pleasure of the painting’s viewer.
Adapted from
Christoph Martin Vogtherr, "Moving on from Watteau: Jean-Baptiste Pater and the Transformation of the Fête Galante," 81-94, in French Art of the Eigteenth Century: The Michael L. Rosenberg Lecture Series at the Dallas Museum of Art, Heather MacDonald ed. Dallas Museum of Art and the Michael L. Rosenberg Foundation, distributed by Yale University press, New Haven, CT, 2016.
NOTES
former number according to education doc- T43007.30.2
AFTER EDITING, SEND TMS INFO TO BMAC FOR ARCHIVING
Related Object: 29.2004.4 Pater, A Fete Champetre During the Grape Harvest
Checked Piction
Full text of General Description:
The second painting in the Rosenberg Collection depicts a very different and considerably more obvious story (fig. 64). In an idyllic, hilly landscape, a group of sixteen women is assembled around a small pond in front of an elaborate pavilion. Its two monumental, naked caryatids set the stage for several naked or semi-naked bathers in the group, some of them protected against the sun by a large red canvas suspended from trees. At least two women attend as servants; others are still dressed. A shell-shaped fountain on the left is crowned by putti playing with a ram. A central group of bathers in white undergarments are lit by particularly bright light, thus creating a solid group. The bodies are arranged for the picture plane to reveal their flesh advantageously. The gaze of the—probably male—viewer is mirrored by three men in the background whose heads can just be made out above the vegetation near the fountain. They add a further titillating story to the scene, but they also reflect the pleasure of the painting’s viewer.
The depiction of female bathers without the framework of an established story became a new feature in French painting in the 1720s.
Much more than in the companion fête galante painting, Pater here reveals his gift as an effective narrator and illustrator. The artist started exploring illustrations before 1729, when the first engraving of the series of illustrations after Scarron’s Roman comique appeared. He produced fourteen small-scale paintings as models for the engravers, and these can be considered his masterworks (Potsdam, Schloss Sanssouci).28 In each of them, Pater explored the comic content of the scene, along with its full narrative potential. Pater’s activities as an illustrator did not start before 1728, and we must interpret them as growing out of a developing interest in narratives and anecdotal elements, an interest that he had first discovered in the context of his fêtes galantes and probably also in the context of his paintings of bathers.
Pater’s combination of a fête galante with a scene of female bathers patches over a contrast that was only just disappearing in the 1730s. Our eyes might not find it easy to identify any tension in this combination. This is only because we are in the know regarding its further development; we are familiar with Boucher’s imagery and, in particular, shaped by nineteenth-and twentieth-century clichés of rococo art. However, these two pendant works stand for two distinct stages in the development of a new iconography.29 A fragile equilibrium can still be seen in Pater’s fête galante. The harvest in the background clearly indicates the pastoral key of the scene; the young people in front are not assembled for an obvious purpose. Their relationship oscillates between different conceptions of “galant”: between the polished, conversation-driven, light sociability of Watteau and the refined but open eroticism of the developing rococo age. In the painting with the bathers, eroticism has been brought to the forefront and can no longer be overlooked. The painting presents sensory thrills, not an ideal of peaceful sociability. Such a combination of different modes of the “galant”—of the seventeenth-century social understanding and of a later, more obviously erotic meaning—appears regularly in Pater’s work.
Christoph Martin Vogtherr, "Moving on from Watteau: Jean-Baptiste Pater and the Transformation of the Fête Galante," 81-94, in French Art of the Eigteenth Century: The Michael L. Rosenberg Lecture Series at the Dallas Museum of Art, Heather MacDonald ed. Dallas Museum of Art and the Michael L. Rosenberg Foundation, distributed by Yale University press, New Haven, CT, 2016.
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Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin: France (nation): TGN: 1000070
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Historical periods
c. 1730-1733
Individuals
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Lent by the Micheal L. Rosenberg Foundation
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254297994: UMO Moving on from Watteau: Jean-Baptiste Pater and the Transformation of the Fete Galante After the Detah of Antoine Watteau
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- National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC~Read a biography of Jean-Baptiste Pater.
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General Description
The depiction of female bathers without the framework of an established story became a new feature in French painting in the 1720s. In an idyllic, hilly landscape, a group of sixteen women is assembled around a small pond in front of an elaborate pavilion. The two monumental, naked caryatids set the stage for several naked or semi-naked bathers in the group, some of them protected against the sun by a large red canvas suspended from trees. At least two women attend as servants; others are still dressed. A shell-shaped fountain on the left is crowned by putti playing with a ram. A central group of bathers in white undergarments are lit by particularly bright light, thus creating a solid group. The bodies are arranged for the picture plane to reveal their flesh advantageously. The gaze of the—probably male—viewer is mirrored by three men in the background whose heads can just be made out above the vegetation near the fountain. They add a further titillating story to the scene, but they also reflect the pleasure of the painting’s viewer.
Adapted from
Christoph Martin Vogtherr, "Moving on from Watteau: Jean-Baptiste Pater and the Transformation of the Fête Galante," 81-94, in French Art of the Eigteenth Century: The Michael L. Rosenberg Lecture Series at the Dallas Museum of Art, Heather MacDonald ed. Dallas Museum of Art and the Michael L. Rosenberg Foundation, distributed by Yale University press, New Haven, CT, 2016.
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
Notes
former number according to education doc- T43007.30.2
AFTER EDITING, SEND TMS INFO TO BMAC FOR ARCHIVING
Related Object: 29.2004.4 Pater, A Fete Champetre During the Grape Harvest
Checked Piction
Full text of General Description:
The second painting in the Rosenberg Collection depicts a very different and considerably more obvious story (fig. 64). In an idyllic, hilly landscape, a group of sixteen women is assembled around a small pond in front of an elaborate pavilion. Its two monumental, naked caryatids set the stage for several naked or semi-naked bathers in the group, some of them protected against the sun by a large red canvas suspended from trees. At least two women attend as servants; others are still dressed. A shell-shaped fountain on the left is crowned by putti playing with a ram. A central group of bathers in white undergarments are lit by particularly bright light, thus creating a solid group. The bodies are arranged for the picture plane to reveal their flesh advantageously. The gaze of the—probably male—viewer is mirrored by three men in the background whose heads can just be made out above the vegetation near the fountain. They add a further titillating story to the scene, but they also reflect the pleasure of the painting’s viewer.
The depiction of female bathers without the framework of an established story became a new feature in French painting in the 1720s.
Much more than in the companion fête galante painting, Pater here reveals his gift as an effective narrator and illustrator. The artist started exploring illustrations before 1729, when the first engraving of the series of illustrations after Scarron’s Roman comique appeared. He produced fourteen small-scale paintings as models for the engravers, and these can be considered his masterworks (Potsdam, Schloss Sanssouci).28 In each of them, Pater explored the comic content of the scene, along with its full narrative potential. Pater’s activities as an illustrator did not start before 1728, and we must interpret them as growing out of a developing interest in narratives and anecdotal elements, an interest that he had first discovered in the context of his fêtes galantes and probably also in the context of his paintings of bathers.
Pater’s combination of a fête galante with a scene of female bathers patches over a contrast that was only just disappearing in the 1730s. Our eyes might not find it easy to identify any tension in this combination. This is only because we are in the know regarding its further development; we are familiar with Boucher’s imagery and, in particular, shaped by nineteenth-and twentieth-century clichés of rococo art. However, these two pendant works stand for two distinct stages in the development of a new iconography.29 A fragile equilibrium can still be seen in Pater’s fête galante. The harvest in the background clearly indicates the pastoral key of the scene; the young people in front are not assembled for an obvious purpose. Their relationship oscillates between different conceptions of “galant”: between the polished, conversation-driven, light sociability of Watteau and the refined but open eroticism of the developing rococo age. In the painting with the bathers, eroticism has been brought to the forefront and can no longer be overlooked. The painting presents sensory thrills, not an ideal of peaceful sociability. Such a combination of different modes of the “galant”—of the seventeenth-century social understanding and of a later, more obviously erotic meaning—appears regularly in Pater’s work.
Christoph Martin Vogtherr, "Moving on from Watteau: Jean-Baptiste Pater and the Transformation of the Fête Galante," 81-94, in French Art of the Eigteenth Century: The Michael L. Rosenberg Lecture Series at the Dallas Museum of Art, Heather MacDonald ed. Dallas Museum of Art and the Michael L. Rosenberg Foundation, distributed by Yale University press, New Haven, CT, 2016.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin: France (nation): TGN: 1000070
Process/materials
Historical periods
c. 1730-1733
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
Lent by the Micheal L. Rosenberg Foundation
AUDIO ASSETS
254297994: UMO Moving on from Watteau: Jean-Baptiste Pater and the Transformation of the Fete Galante After the Detah of Antoine Watteau
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