Antoine Watteau - Pleasures of Love - Google Art ProjectFXD

A fête champêtre was a form of

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...

in the 18th century, taking the form of a

garden party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...

. This form of entertainment was particularly practised by the French

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in acco ...

, where in the

Gardens of Versailles The Gardens of Versailles (french: Jardins du château de Versailles ) occupy part of what was once the ''Domaine royal de Versailles'', the royal demesne of the château of Versailles. Situated to the west of the palace, the gardens cover so ...

and elsewhere areas of the park were landscaped with

follies ''Follies'' is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by James Goldman. The plot takes place in a crumbling Broadway theater, now scheduled for demolition, previously home to a musical revue (based on the ''Ziegfeld Fol ...

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings: * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

s and

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

s to accommodate such festivities. The term is a French expression, very literally translating as "party in the fields", meaning a "pastoral festival" or "country feast" and in theory was a simple form of entertainment, perhaps little more than a picnic or informal open air dancing. In practice, especially in the 18th century, the simplicity of the event was often contrived. A fête champêtre was often a very elegant form of entertainment involving on occasions whole

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

s hidden in trees, with guests sometimes in

fancy dress A costume party (American English) or fancy dress party (other varieties of English) is a type of party, common in contemporary Western culture, in which many of the guests are dressed in costume, usually depicting a fictional or stock char ...

. Such events became a popular subject in French 18th-century painting, representing a glamourized aristocratic form of pastoral, with "scenes of well dressed dalliance in a park setting".

In art

Antoine Watteau Jean-Antoine Watteau (, , ; baptised October 10, 1684died July 18, 1721) Alsavailablevia Oxford Art Online (subscription needed). was a French painter and draughtsman whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement, a ...

invented the genre, from around 1710, and is its best exponent, imitated by others such as

Nicolas Lancret Nicolas Lancret (22 January 1690 – 14 September 1743) was a French painter. Born in Paris, he was a brilliant depicter of light comedy which reflected the tastes and manners of French society during the regency of the Duke of Orleans and, late ...

and Jean-Baptiste Pater. In 1717 the French Academy expanded its categories of painting to include what it termed the

fête galante ''Fête galante'' () (courtship party) is a category of painting specially created by the French Academy in 1717 to describe Antoine Watteau's (1684–1721) variations on the theme of the fête champêtre, which featured figures in ball dress o ...

especially for Watteau's

reception piece In art, a reception piece is a work submitted by an artist to an academy for approval as part of the requirements for admission to membership. The piece is normally representative of the artist's work, and the organization's judgement of its skil ...

'' The Embarkation for Cythera'' (

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

). Watteau's examples "have a quality of restraint, of unexpressed melancholy" which is absent in those by others. His paintings often include characters from the '' commedia dell'arte'', a taste he acquired from his master,

Claude Gillot Claude Gillot (April 27, 1673 – May 4, 1722) was a French painter, print-maker and illustrator, best known as the master of Watteau and Lancret. Life Gillot was born in Langres. He was a painter, engraver, book illustrator, metal worker, and ...

. When music is being made, as it often is, ''Concert champêtre'' or ''Pastoral Concert'' may be used as a title. The genre in painting "died a quiet death" in the early 1740s, though arguably living on in the form of

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises main ...

figure groups for the rest of the century.

Other periods

The "Garden of Love" was a genre of medieval subjects in illuminated manuscripts, carved ivory,

tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads ma ...

, and murals. A painting dated to ca. 1509 now usually called ''Le Concert champêtre'' or the '' Pastoral Concert'' was named ''Fête champêtre'' when it entered the collection of the

in 1792. It has been attributed to

Giorgione Giorgione (, , ; born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; 1477–78 or 1473–74 – 17 September 1510) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic quali ...

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

, and

Sebastiano del Piombo Sebastiano del Piombo (; c. 1485 – 21 June 1547) was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance and early Mannerist periods famous as the only major artist of the period to combine the colouring of the Venetian school in which he was trained ...

,Osborne but is now usually given to Titian. The meaning of the continues to be discussed by art historians. The genre of the Merry Company in

Dutch Golden Age painting Dutch Golden Age painting is the painting of the Dutch Golden Age, a period in Dutch history roughly spanning the 17th century, during and after the later part of the Eighty Years' War (1568–1648) for Dutch independence. The new Dutch Republ ...

is normally set indoors, and is more realistic in tone, though in

Flemish Baroque painting Flemish Baroque painting refers to the art produced in the Southern Netherlands during Spanish control in the 16th and 17th centuries. The period roughly begins when the Dutch Republic was split from the Habsburg Spain regions to the south with ...

outdoor groups are often painted. If the company is mixed in gender terms, and expensively dressed, they may be called a "Gallant Company". ''The Garden of Love'' by Rubens (1633,

Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the ...

) is the apotheosis of the type. A mixed group in contemporary dress are outside a palace, accompanied by several

putti A putto (; plural putti ) is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and sometimes winged. Originally limited to profane passions in symbolism,Dempsey, Charles. ''Inventing the Renaissance Putto''. University of ...

. '' Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe'' (''Luncheon on the Grass'') – originally titled ''Le Bain'' (The Bath) – by

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Bo ...

(1862-1863), represents a late variant of the genre.

Notes

References

*Osborne, Harold (ed), ''The Oxford Companion to Art'', 1970, p. 405, OUP, {{DEFAULTSORT:Fete Champetre European court festivities Parties Iconography