Garden Entertainments, 18th century

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Country Dance
ca. 1706-1710
oil on canvas
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Jean-Baptiste Pater
Picking Roses
ca. 1730
oil on panel
private collection

"Watteau died young, but the overtones, the fragrance, of his unconventional art were imitated by several skillful painters. Jean-Baptiste Pater (1695-1736) is considered Watteau's sole disciple, since he briefly worked under the master. Pater was fully conversant with the resources of the fête galante genre, yet managed to render it stereotypical." 

– from André Chastel's French Art, translated by Deke Dusinberre (Flammarion, 1996)

Jean-Antoine Watteau
An Embarrassing Proposal
ca. 1716
oil on canvas
Hermitage

Jean-Baptiste Pater
Musicians
ca. 1730
oil on panel
private collection

Jean-Antoine Watteau
The Perspective
ca. 1715
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Fêtes vénitiennes
1719
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

Jean-Baptiste Pater
On the Terrace
ca. 1730-35
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Thomas Gainsborough
Conversation in a Park
ca. 1740
oil on canvas
Louvre

François Boucher
Summer Pastoral
1749
oil on canvas
Wallace Collection, London

Alexandre Paul Joseph Veron
Elegant Party in Park
late 18th century
oil on canvas
private collection

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Harlequin and Columbine
1716-18
oil on panel
Wallace Collection, London

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Italian Commedians
ca. 1720
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Gilles and his Family
1716
oil on panel
Wallace Collection, London

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Actors of the Comédie française
1712
oil on panel
Hermitage

Monumental Polaroids

My daughter's commitment to making regular Mabel Polaroids has now maintained its steady course without interruption for five years. It has weathered the very disappearance of Polaroid film itself, which still existed when this project started. This present group covered a remarkable clutch of big events pressed into a remarkably short time – which included 1) the End of Preschool, 2) the Fifth Birthday, and 3) the Start of Kindergarten.

Polaroids accumulate, one per week, in a special box on a special shelf at Mabel's house. When six or eight or ten of them are ready, I put them into a special envelope and carry them home with me. Then I scan them and crop them and shove them up on Spencer Alley so that all the wise people who love to look at pictures of Mabel will be able to see them, and also so that my daughter can download the scans. I make high resolution scans in case either one of us wants to make paper prints, but usually we don't do that since we have the paper originals. Which I have to make a special effort to remember to return to the special box on the special shelf at Mabel's house after I have finished scanning them. My daughter uses one Polaroid (but not in any particular order) for the Monday post every week on Pippa's Cabinet, her own highly organized blog, which stands in such stark contrast to the randomness of mine. On Pippa's Cabinet each Polaroid comes with a lively story or two about the enthralling child. There will surely be future manifestations of these same Polaroids – perhaps not even imagined yet – as they become yearly more remote and more treasured and more venerable.

Hippalektryon

Hippalektryon
c. 530-520 BC

Glazed terracotta drinking vessels in classical Greece often featured a little round picture at the bottom of the cup that would be revealed after the contents had been swallowed. Above, a youth shown astride a fantastical combination of horse and rooster called Hippalektryon. Below, the mythic Gorgoneion.

Gorgoneion
c. 520 BC

Curators at the Metropolitan Museum confess that many of the glazed images are even today – after centuries of cumulative research – only partially understood. The maenad immediately below appears to be releasing a bird as part of a ritual, yet no source in surviving literature mentions any connection between maenads and birds. The kylix decorated with this particular maenad was also 'shaved' in antiquity, meaning that the outer rim of pottery was removed to leave only a round image on a base, transforming an object of use into an object of art with no use other than contemplation.

Maenad with Bird (shaved)
c. 510-500 BC

 

Maenad with Bird (shaved)
c. 520-500 BC

Young athletes below, paired with elders acting as coaches or trainers.

Athlete
c. 460-450 BC

Athlete
c. 480 BC

A theme which segues into depictions of men and youths engaging in ritualized intimacies –

Seated Poet
c. 490-480 BC

Man Offering Money to Youth
c. 480-470 BC

Symposium
c. 430 BC

Finally, the inevitable glorification of the Greek soldier – 1) clad in armor, 2) sounding war trumpet, and 3) with horse.

Contemplative Warrior 
c. 500 BC

Sounding Battle Trumpet
500 BC

Soldier with Horse
c. 510-500 BC

Small Scenes

Eos Pursuing Tithonos
c. 460 BC

Staff photographers at the Metropolitan Museum in New York spend their days pursuing the most revealing angles to allow viewing of the small scenes from myth and life represented on the sloping external curves of the kylix, the wide shallow two-handled drinking-vessel of classical Greece.

Athletes
510 BC

Amazonomachy
c. 540 BC

Youths & Horses
c. 510-500 BC

Men & Youths
c. 480-470 BC

Stylized Eyes with Dancers
c. 520-510 BC

Youths
490 BC

Symposium
500 BC

Symposium
c. 480-470 BC

Symposium
c. 480 BC

Symposium
c. 500 BC

Youths
c. 480-470 BC

Special Merchandise

The tempting retail offers above all derive from the overabundance of a single page toward the back of a thick humor book called Tales of the San Francisco Cacaphony Society. Most of the humor involves putting on costumes and inventing mildly illegal outdoor activities for cheerful group participation.  

Children of 1956

Dress Up and Let's Have a Party / written and illustrated by Remy Charlip, 1956.

I've never seen this same exact layout in a children's book before. Pictures and captions are justified left and right. The center of each double-page opening remains (dynamically) blank.

Images here