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It is not always possible to trace the personal feelings and motives lying behind the artist's fictions; for the suffering soul covers its pains with subtle disguises; yet even when we do not know them, we can divine them. We are certain, for example, that Watteau's gay pictured visions were the projection and confession of his own disappointed dreams.
It is said to have been a commission from his friends M. and Mme. de Julienne, in whose shooting-box at Saint Maur, between the woods of Vincennes and the river, he went to repose from time to time. NICHOLAS LANCRET was only by six years Watteau's junior, so that he can hardly be considered as a pupil or even a disciple, but only as an imitator of Watteau.
MIMBU. Here are splendid trees, like those in Watteau's pictures, on the top of the banks, their foliage drooping over cottages. These are very neatly built on teak-wood legs.
At any rate there is enough in the figures to prevent any sickly prettiness, although I think if you removed the figures the landscape would not be tolerable. But the followers of Watteau seized upon the prettiness and gradually got out of touch with the character, and if you compare Boucher's heads, particularly his men's heads, with Watteau's you may see how much has been lost.
There is 'une recolte magnifique' this year, and the people have but one thought 'the gathering in; the country presents to us a picture not like Watteau's 'fêtes galantes, but rather that of an English harvest-home.
Among old Watteau's work-people came his son, "the genius," my father's godson and namesake, a dark-haired youth, whose large, unquiet eyes seemed perpetually wandering to the various drawings which lie exposed here. My father will have it that he is a genius indeed, and a painter born.
Only, methinks 'tis a pity to incorporate so much of his work, of himself, with objects of use, which must perish by use, or disappear, like our own old furniture, with mere change of fashion. July 1714. On the last day of Antony Watteau's visit we made a party to Cambrai.
Only your academic, colourless painter lacks personal style and always paints like somebody he is not. Watteau's art is peculiarly personal. Its peculiarity apart from its brilliancy and vivacity is, as Mauclair remarks, "the contrast of cheerful colour and morbid expression."
Gainsborough did not make his gentlemen plead that was his fault; but Watteau's ladies put their fans to their lips so archly, asking the pleading lover if he believes all he says, knowing well that his vows are only part of the gracious entertainment. But why did not the great designer of St.
Yesterevening I walked in these gardens with a sculptor; together we pondered Carpeau's fountain, and, after admiring Fremiet's horses, we went to Watteau's statue, appropriately placed in a dell, among greenswards like those he loved to paint. At this moment my meditation was broken.
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