Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Eighteenth-Century French Taste (Images)

Anicet-Charles-Gabriel Lemonnier
Reading of Voltaire's Orphelin de la Chine in the Salon of Mme. Geoffrin in 1755
1812
oil on canvas
Châteaux de Malmaison

François Boucher
The Birth of Venus
ca. 1765
oil on canvas
Detroit Institute of Arts

François Boucher
Diana after the Hunt
1745
oil on canvas
Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris

François Boucher
Diana after the Hunt (detail)
1745
oil on canvas
Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Pierrot
1718
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Pierrot (detail)
1718
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Jean-Antoine Watteau
Pierrot (detail)
1718
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Presumed Portrait of Louis-François Prault
as Personification of Inspiration

ca. 1760-70
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Presumed Portrait of Louis-François Prault
as Personification of Inspiration
 (detail)
ca. 1760-70
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Jacques-Louis David
Portrait of Pierre Sériziat
1795
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

The Constructed Space

Meanwhile surely there must be something to say,
Maybe not suitable but at least happy
In a sense here between us two whoever
We are. Anyhow here we are and never
Before have we two faced each other who face
Each other now across this abstract scene
Stretching between us. This is a public place
Achieved against subjective odds and then
Mainly an obstacle to what I mean. 

It is like that, remember. It is like that
Very often at the beginning till we are met
By some intention risen up out of nothing.
And even then we know what we are saying
Only when it is said and fixed and dead.
Or maybe, surely, of course we never know
What we have said, what lonely meanings are read
Into the space we make. And yet I say
This silence here for in it I might hear you.

I say this silence or, better, construct this space
So that somehow something may move across
The caught habits of language to you and me. 
From where we are it is not us we see
And times are hastening yet, disguise is mortal.
The times continually disclose our home.
Here in the present tense disguise is mortal. 
The trying times are hastening. Yet here I am
More truly now this abstract act become.

– W.S. Graham (1958)

François-Hubert Drouais
Portrait of sculptor Robert le Lorrain
1730
oil on canvas
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
Portrait of Madame Adélaïde
(daughter of Louis XV)
ca. 1787
oil on canvas
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of the Duchess of Beaufort
ca. 1730
oil on canvas
Musée Cognacq-Jay, Paris

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of painter Jean-Baptiste Forest
before 1704
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Le Chevalier de Chateaubourg
(Charles-Joseph de la Celle)
Portrait of Prince Anton Radziwill
1797
gouache on ivory
Musée du Louvre