Jean-Antoine Watteau

Early life and training Jean-Antoine Watteau was born in October 1684 in Valenciennes, once an important town in the County of Hainaut which became sequently part of the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands until its secession to France following the Franco-Dutch War. He was the second of four sons born to Jean-Philippe Watteau (1660–1720) and Michelle Lardenois (1653–1727), and was presumed to be of Walloon descent. The Watteaus were a quite well-to-do family, although Jean-Philippe, a roofer in second generation, was said to be given to brawling. Showing an early interest in painting, Jean-Antoine may have been apprenticed to Jacques-Albert Gérin, a local painter, and his first artistic subjects were charlatans selling quack remedies on the streets of Valenciennes. In Gillot's studio, Watteau became acquainted with the characters of the commedia dell'arte (which moved onto the théâtre de la foire following the Comédie-Italienne's departure in 1697), a favorite subject of Gillot's that would become one of Watteau's lifelong passions. this sign for the shop in Paris of the paintings dealer Edme François Gersaint is effectively the final curtain of Watteau's theatre. It has been compared with Las Meninas as a meditation on art and illusion.

Watteau alarmed his friends by a carelessness about his future and financial security, as if foreseeing he would not live for long. In fact he had been sickly and physically fragile since childhood. In 1720, he travelled to London, England, to consult Dr. Richard Mead, one of the most fashionable physicians of his time and an admirer of Watteau's work. However, London's damp and smoky air offset any benefits of Dr. Mead's wholesome food and medicines. Watteau returned to France, spending six months with Gersaint, and then spent his last few months on the estate of his patron, Abbé Haranger, where he died in 1721, perhaps from tuberculous laryngitis, at the age of 36. The Abbé said Watteau was semi-conscious and mute during his final days, clutching a paint brush and painting imaginary paintings in the air.

His nephew, Louis Joseph Watteau, son of Antoine's brother Noël Joseph Watteau (1689–1756), and grand nephew, François-Louis-Joseph Watteau, son of Louis, followed Antoine into painting.

Critical assessment and legacy

Little known during his lifetime beyond a small circle of his devotees, Watteau "was mentioned but seldom in contemporary art criticism and then usually reprovingly". Sir Michael Levey once noted that Watteau "created, unwittingly, the concept of the individualistic artist loyal to himself, and himself alone". If his immediate followers, Lancret and Pater, would depict the unabashed frillery of aristocratic romantic pursuits, Watteau in a few masterpieces anticipates an art about art, the world of art as seen through the eyes of an artist. In contrast to the Rococo whimsicality and licentiousness cultivated by Boucher and Fragonard in the later part of Louis XV's reign, Watteau's theatrical panache is usually tinged with a note of sympathy, wistfulness, and sadness at the transience of love and other earthly delights. Famously, the Victorian essayist Walter Pater wrote of Watteau: "He was always a seeker after something in the world, that is there in no satisfying measure, or not at all."

Watteau was a prolific draftsman. His drawings, typically executed in trois crayons technique, were collected and admired even by those, such as count de Caylus or Gersaint, who found fault with his paintings. A revived vogue for Watteau began in England during the British Regency, and was later encapsulated by the Goncourt brothers in France (Edmond de Goncourt having published a in 1875) and the World of Art union in Russia.

In 1984 Watteau societies were created in Paris, by Jean Ferré, and London, by Dr. Selby Whittingham. A major exhibition in Paris, Washington and Berlin commemorated the 1984 tercentenary of his birth. Since 2000 a Watteau centre has been established at Valenciennes by Professor Chris Rauseo. A catalogue raisonné of Watteau's drawings has been compiled by Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat, replacing the one by Sir Karl Parker and Jacques Mathey; similar projects on his paintings are undertaken by Alan Wintermute and Martin Eidelberg, respectively.

From September 22–November 29, 2009, the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibited Watteau, Music, and Theater in honor of Director Emeritus Philippe de Montebello. The exhibit displayed Watteau's paintings and drawings of the opera-ballet and theater, as well as musical instruments and porcelains. A catalog accompanied the exhibit.

From July 12, 2016 to October 2, 2016, the Frick Collection exhibited Watteau's Soldiers: Scenes of Military Life in Eighteenth-Century France. The exhibit shows Watteau's focus “on the most prosaic aspects of war — marches, halts, and encampments. The resulting works show the quiet moments between the fighting, when soldiers could rest and daydream, smoke pipes and play cards.” The catalog was written by Aaron Wile

From November 23, 2021–February 20, 2022, The J. Paul Getty Museum exhibited The Surprise: Watteau in the J. Paul Getty Museum, marking the 300th anniversary of Watteau's death and celebrating the Getty's acquisition of The Surprise.

From 16 October 2024–3 February 2025, the Louvre exhibited A new look at Watteau An actor with no lines: Pierrot, known as Gilles. The exhibit examined Gilles and the painting's influence on other artists. A catalog, Pierrot, dit Le Gilles, de Watteau. Un comédien sans réplique, by Guillaume Faroult (in French) accompanied the exhibit.

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