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François Boucher

Paintings

Cupid as a prisoner

Breakfast


The painter in his studio , self-portrait


Diana as huntress


Diana in the Bath


Diana bathing , detail : head of Diana


The Bridge


The milliner


The mill


head of a Woman


Birth of Venus

Jupiter and Callisto


Landscape with the brother Lucas


Landscape with cherry picker


Odalisque


Odalisque , detail


Portrait of Madame de Pompadour


Portrait of Madame de Pompadour

Madame de Pompadour


Portrait of Marie -Jeanne Buseau


Portrait of the artist's daughter, Oval


Portrait of Louis Philippe Joseph


Portrait of the Swedish ambassador C. G. Tessin


Portrait of a Lady with Muff


Reclining Girl , detail ( Mademoiselle O'Murphy )

Louise O'Murphy


Sunrise


Sunset


Toilet of Venus


Triumph of Venus


Triumph of Venus , detail


Venus consoling Cupid

Apollo Revealing his Divinity before the Shepherdess Isse

Pan and Syrinx

Rape of Europa

Vulcan Presenting Venus with Arms for Aeneas

Drawings

Architectural capriccio with the mill of Quiquengrogne at Cgarenton

Aurora and Cephalus


Chinoiserie with family scene


The Judgment of Paris


The waterfalls of Tivoli


Angel heads in clouds


Group of Figures


River Landscape


Woman in profile , going to the right


Woman seen from behind with fan


Rural landscape with bridge


Nymphs and river gods


Sleeping Diana


Seated Female Nude


Study of a cock


Violin player

François Boucher (29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture. He also painted several portraits of his illustrious patroness, Madame de Pompadour.

Biography

Born in Paris, the son of a lace designer Nicolas Boucher, François Boucher (pronounced frahn-swah bōō-shay) was perhaps the most celebrated decorative artist of the 18th century, with most of his work reflecting the Rococo style. At the young age of 17, Boucher was apprenticed by his father to François Lemoyne, but after only three months he went to work for the engraver Jean-François Cars. Within three years Boucher had already won the elite Grand Prix de Rome, although he did not take up the consequential opportunity to study in Italy until four years later. On his return from studying in Italy in 1731, he was admitted to the Académie de peinture et de sculpture as a historical painter, and became a faculty member in 1734.
Portrait of Marie-Jeanne Buzeau (1716-1796) by Alexander Roslin (exhibited at the Salon of 1761).
Munich, Nymphenburg Palace
In 1733 François Boucher married her and had three children.

His career accelerated from this point, as he advanced from professor to Rector of the Academy, becoming head of the Royal Gobelins Manufactory in 1755 and finally Premier Peintre du Roi (First Painter of the King) in 1765.

Reflecting inspiration gained from the artists Watteau and Rubens, Boucher's early work celebrates the idyllic and tranquil, portraying nature and landscape with great élan. However, his art typically forgoes traditional rural innocence to portray scenes with a definitive style of eroticism, and his mythological scenes are passionate and intimately amorous rather than traditionally epic. Marquise de Pompadour (mistress of King Louis XV), whose name became synonymous with Rococo art, was a great fan of Boucher's, and it is particularly in his portraits of her that this style is clearly exemplified.

Paintings such as The Breakfast of 1739, a family scene, also show Boucher as a master of the genre scene, as he regularly used his own wife and family as models. These intimate family scenes are, however, in contrast to the 'licentious' style, as seen in his Odalisque portraits. The dark-haired version of the Odalisque portraits prompted claims by Diderot that Boucher was "prostituting his own wife", and the Blonde Odalisque was a portrait that illustrated the extramarital relationships of the King. Boucher gained lasting notoriety through such private commissions for wealthy collectors and, after the ever-moral Diderot expressed his disapproval, his reputation came under increasing critical attack during the last of his creative years.

Along with his painting, Boucher also designed theatre costumes and sets, and the ardent intrigues of the comic operas of Favart (1710–1792) closely parallel his own style of painting. Tapestry design was also a concern. For the Beauvais tapestry workshops he first designed a series of Fêtes italiennes ("Italian festivals") in 1736, which proved to be very successful and often rewoven over the years, and then, commissioned in 1737, a suite of the story of Cupid and Psyche.[1] During two decades' involvement with the Beauvais tapestry workshops Boucher produced designs for six series of hangings in all. Only his appointment in 1755 as director of the rival Gobelins terminated the association. He was also called upon for designs for court festivities organized by that section of the King's household called the Menus plaisirs du Roi and for the opera and for royal châteaux Versailles, Fontainebleau and Choisy. His designs for all of the aforementioned augmented his earlier reputation, resulting in many engravings from his work and even reproduction of his designs on porcelain and biscuit-ware at the Vincennes and Sèvres factories.

The neoclassicist Jacques-Louis David began his painting instruction under Boucher.

Boucher is famous for saying that nature is "trop verte et mal éclairée" (too green and badly lit)[2].

Francois Boucher died on 30 May 1770 in Paris. His name, along with that of his patron Madame de Pompadour, had become synonymous with the French Rococo style, leading the Goncourt brothers to write: "Boucher is one of those men who represent the taste of a century, who express, personify and embody it."

Works include
Portrait of Madame de Pompadour, Wallace Collection

* Halt at the Spring (1765) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston[1]
* Return From Market (1767) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [2]
* Arabesques, vases etc. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [3]
* Diana and Callisto (c. 1760) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [4]
* Figures chinoises Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [5]
* Four Amorini in a Cloud (1760) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [6]
* Landscape with Watermill (1750s) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [7]
* Nymphs and river gods (Pirene mourning her son) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [8]
* Reclining Female Nude (1763) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [9]
* Shepherd Boy Playing Bagpipes (1754) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [10]
* Shepherdess and Child (1765-7) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [11]
* Young Woman with Flowers in Her Hair Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [12]
* Young Woman with Two Amorini (c. 1768) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston [13]
* Web Gallery of Art
* Rinaldo and Armida (Louvre Museum)
* The Rest on the Flight to Egypt
* Diana Resting after her Bath
* Portrait of Marie-Louise O'Murphy (Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne)
* Autumn
* Putti with Birds (L'Amour Oiseleur), ca. 1731-33 Honolulu Academy of Arts
* The Visit of Venus to Vulcan
* Christ and John the Baptist as Children
* Pastorale
* Naiads and Triton
* Triumph of Venus
* Venus Consoling Love or The Bath of Venus National Gallery of Art [14]
* Exchange of Produce / Gifts
* Cupid a Captive

References

1. ^ Kathryn B. Hiesinger, "The Sources of François Boucher's 'Psyche' Tapestries" Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 72 No. 314 (November 1976), pp. 7-23.
2. ^ Houssaye, Arsène (1843). "Boucher et la peinture sous Louis XV"". Revue des deux mondes n. s. 3: 70–98. p. 86 (citing a letter to Nicolas Lancret).

Further reading

* Hyde, Melissa Lee. (2006). Making up the Rococo : François Boucher and His Critics. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute.
* Hyde, Melisssa and Mark Ledbury. (2006). Rethinking Boucher : Issues & Debates. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute.
* Bolton, Roy. (2004). A Brief History of Painting. 2000BC - AD2000. London, UK : Robinson.

 

From Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

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