Watteau

Recently I went to see two exhibitions on the 18th century artist Watteau.

I find looking at old masters helps me to deconstruct creative work and get to the essential meaning or message conveyed by an image and the techniques which transmit that meaning.

The first exhibition was at the Royal Academy in Piccadilly and was of Watteau's drawings.  These were incredible from a technical point of view.  Especially the economy of line with which he captured a particular scene.

You got the sense that he was collecting characters that he would later use in his paintings.  He took the everyday elements of his society (comedians, soldiers, shopkeepers) and integrated them into his own personal weltanschauung (which is what all artists should aim to do).  The fact that Watteau's weltanschauung was the frivolous fete galante shows you how dedicated he was to the mechanism of high art, irrespective of the purpose to which it was put (and in any case, you could argue advertising is just a form of depoliticised propaganda).

The second Watteau exhibition I went to was at the Wallace Collection in Manchester Square.  In an upper gallery about ten of Watteau's fete galante paintings were on show.  Looking at these canvasses you immediately saw the way in which he built huge elaborate scenes from innumerable tiny detailed studies.

I liked the double-meaning of A halt during the chase.

More: http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibitions/watteau/ and http://www.wallacecollection.org/collections/exhibition/90