The Age of Watteau Chardin and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting

About this book

This inviting book offers the first comprehensive survey of French genre painting of the eighteenth century from Watteaus ftes galantes to Boillys paintings of modern Parisian life. Showcasing 113 works the book illustrates the variety and the vitality of genre painting throughout the period. Leading English German French and American scholars shed light on the development of genre painting its interpretation its collectors and its enormous appeal. Here are gathered together masterpieces by such eminent artists as Watteau Lancret de Troy Chardin Boucher Greuze Fragonard Robert and Boilly. The wide range of their featured works encompasses military scenes theatrical subjects hunt pictures pastorals domestic life moral pictures fishwife subjects paintings for the boudoir and panoramas of the Enlightenment in landscapes and townscapes. Each work is thoroughly catalogued and an appendix lists all genre paintings shown in the eighteenth-century Salons.