Mrs. Duchamp

a-l-ancien-regime:

Jean Antoine Watteau

Pierrot Content

ca. 1712

Oil on canvas. 35 x 31 cm

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

This painting, a fête galante, recalls scenes from the Commedia dell’arte, a world to which Watteau was introduced in Paris by his master, Claude Guillot. Enveloped in a magical atmosphere, Pierrot sits at the centre of the composition, flanked by two men and two women, one of whom is playing the guitar. Like many seventeenth-century Italian landscapes, the scene is set in the corner of a garden; a statue of Pan can be discerned among the thick surrounding foliage. From an engraving made by Jeurat in 1728, we know that Watteau designed the painting with a horizontal format—it was cropped in the nineteenth century—and that he included two figures, Mezzetin or Scaramouche and Harlequin, peeping out at the group from among the trees. These figures and other details are no longer visible owing to defects in technique that have darkened this area of the canvas.

a-l-ancien-regime:

The Italian Comedians, Antoine Watteau, about 1720. Oil on canvas, 50 3/4 x 36 3/4 in. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012.5

Characters from Italy’s improvisational comedy tradition greet us in full costume: rakish Scaramouche in his cape, sentimental Mezzetin holding his guitar, scrappy Harlequin peeking from the shadows, recognizable by his dark mask and diamond-patterned costume. Watteau loved to paint performers from the outdoor variety shows of his day, which featured singing, dancing, acrobatics, and the occasional satire on current scandals. Highbrow it was not, though the actors were as brilliant at roles, props, and artifice as any French aristocrat.

What holds your eye in this painting isn’t the costumes or the poses, but the central figure, Pierrot. Known as a buffoonish misfit and butt of vulgar jokes, here the clown is sympathetic, even vulnerable—head bared to skullcap, hand in pocket. He stands for our raw inspection in a way Watteau’s wealthy subjects, preoccupied with their own pleasures, never do.

lacma:

Children of the Plumed Serpent closes July 1 - not much time left!

Children of the Plumed Serpent: The Legacy of Quetzalcoatl in Ancient Mexico | LACMA

Finger Ring Depicting Xipe Totec, 1000-1500, Mexico, Oaxaca,  probably Mixtec, National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, Heye Foundations

caravaggista:

arthistorygoose:

This portrait will never stop being funny to me. The smug expression, the poor monster, the muscular thighs…

~

Toussaint Dubreuil

Henry IV, as Hercules Vanquishing the Lernaean Hydra, c.1600

Hah! Look at how pleased this Hercules is with himself. Yeah, I just killed this monster. 

(Source: arthistorygoose)

caravaggista:

arthistorygoose:

This portrait will never stop being funny to me. The smug expression, the poor monster, the muscular thighs…

~

Toussaint Dubreuil

Henry IV, as Hercules Vanquishing the Lernaean Hydra, c.1600

Hah! Look at how pleased this Hercules is with himself. Yeah, I just killed this monster. 

(Source: arthistorygoose)

a-r-t-history:

Petrus Christus, A Goldsmith in His Shop, Possibly Saint Eligius, 1449, oil on oak panel (via The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

cavetocanvas:

Piero della Francesca, Polyptych of St Augustine: St Augustine, c. 1465

centuriespast:

Unknown (Native North American, Mississippian, Missouri), Repoussé Plaque, c. 1200-1400.

Kemper Art Museum

archives-dada:

Marcel Duchamp, Chocolate Grinder (No. 2), 1914, Oil, graphite, and thread on canvas
25 3/4 x 21 3/8 inches (65.4 x 54.3 cm)

© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duchamp