Watteau

Your Playlist:

Description

The artist who created the fete galante painting style achieved wide recognition during his lifetime, and yet virtually all of Antoine Watteau's major works are cloaked in mystery, raising unanswered questions as to their origins, provenances, and meanings. Should his Pilgrimage to Cythera be interpreted as an arrival or a departure? Why, and for whom, was the no less innovative Pierrot (or Gilles) brought into being? Is the air of melancholy that envelops typically light-hearted subjects an artifact from Watteau's era, perhaps even a hint of his innermost self, or is it merely a side effect of our modern perspective? These questions and many others are woven into the Rococo master's legacy. To address them the Louvre initiated its Watteau Study Days, documented here in this fascinating film. Viewers are shown highlights from a 48-hour period in which important works were taken down from the walls and out of their frames, then subjected to detailed study by leading art historians.