We recently covered a few things in class that are extremely significant, the Rococo period style and the fete galante category. If you take one thing away from this, take away the knowledge that Rococo is just that, a style, and fete galante is a category. The artistic style of one period always has a profound affect on its stylistic successor. To this extent the Rococo style was influenced by the Baroque. However, there exist differences. Mainly, the Rococo style, which was initially developed in the decorative arts, is lighter than the Baroque, both in content and color, and consists of more curves and naturalistic patters. Therefore, a Baroque painting may picture the emotional crucifixion of Christ, strongly representative of the Counter Reformation, which has a dark background with a spotlight-like source of light that can not necessarily be seen. The content and the lighting create a dramatic and exuberant scene. On the other hand, a Rococo painting may simple feature naked classical figures, representative of the return to humanism and expansion on the classical emphasis seen in the Renaissance, painted in overwhelming light of a very cheerful scene in which there are no distinct lines, but rather blurs between objects. Rococo is a style.
To explain fete gallant, one needs to understand the French Royal Academy. Louis the XIV established the French Royal academy, essentially an art school for painting and sculpting, in which there is a definite hierarchy of painting forms. That is, history paintings, portraits, and historiated landscapes were seen by the academy as higher works of art, where as plain landscapes, still lifes and genre paintings were looked upon as lesser art. The members of the Academy, therefore, created pieces in one of the three higher categories. However, Jean-Antoine Watteau was accepted into the academy even though his paintings did not fit into any of the higher categories. In effect, the Academy created an additional category specifically for Watteau’s art. This category was known as fete galante, which translates to something like elegant entertainment. This category is similar to a genre painting in that it does not incorporate history or even necessarily specific people, but different when compared to Dutch genre painting that focus on depictions of every day life, where as a fete galante painting may extend beyond reality, often incorporating mystic beings, such as cherubs. In conclusion, the Rococo period has a distinct a style, fete galante is a category of painting created for a Rococo painter.
Jean-Antoine Watteau, The Pilgrimage to Cythera, 1717.
In addition to the permanent collection, there are a few special exhibitions that I would also recommend seeing. There are two photography exhibitions: Where We Live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection and the more intimate Public Faces/Private Spaces: Recent Acquisitions. There is a collection of recent Gerhard Richter paintings; and a selection of Baroque period drawings by Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591–1666), Guercino: Mind to Paper. In the Research Institute Exhibition Gallery, A Tumultuous Assembly, an excellent collection of the visual poems of the Italian Futurists. (photo above right: Tiny in Halloween Costume Blowing Bubble, Seattle, Mary Ellen Mark, 1983)
