François Boucher

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François Boucher. Portrait painting by the Swedish painter Gustaf Lundberg from 1741

François Boucher (born September 29, 1703 in Paris ; † May 30, 1770 ibid) was a French painter , draftsman , engraver and decorator of the French Rococo , whose gallant world he depicted in lascivious, mythological, allegorical and erotic motifs. He was court painter to Louis XV. and favorite of the Marquise de Pompadour .

Life

François Boucher was born as the son of the draftsman for furniture and decorations Nicolas Boucher and his wife Elisabeth Lemesle. He learned from François Lemoyne and Jean Cars in 1720 . He was influenced by Titian , Veronese and Tintoretto . In 1723 the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture awarded him their first prize, the Grand Prix de Rome , which enabled him to spend four years in Italy. In 1731 Boucher was accepted at the Royal Academy as a history painter with the painting Rinaldo and Armida . In 1733 he married Jeanne Buseau. From 1734 he was for the French royal house of Louis XV. active. Boucher became a favorite of the king's maitresse, the influential Marquise de Pompadour , to whom he also gave painting lessons. He was the decorator of the opera and, after the death of Jean-Baptiste Oudry in 1755, took over his position as artistic director of the Manufacture royale des tapisseries in Beauvais. From 1742 he was the king's court painter and around 1765 he became the king's first court painter ( peintre du roi ). In 1761 he became rector of the royal academy.

plant

Boucher perfected a technique for making facsimiles from colored chalk paintings. At this time, pictures became known through copies in copper engravings . His drawings and etchings, including book illustrations ( Molière 1734 edition) show his virtuosity.

Boucher painted mainly for aristocratic customers. His pictures are spread all over Europe. In keeping with the gallantry of the time, Boucher devoted himself to grace and grace. His favorite subject alongside pastorals , the naked female body, he treated with a sensitive abundance and nuance that is unprecedented in the history of painting. In his paintings, often pastoral landscapes, mythological representations and portraits, there are light, virtuously painted shades of color, similar to Tiepolo, e.g. B. at Diana in the bath . The reason for what is probably Boucher's best-known work, the full-length portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour, was the appointment of the queen's lady-in-waiting. It shows the marquise in a casual posture on a chaise longue in a boudoir , in an environment of things of luxury and culture. Boucher shows all his skills in rendering fabrics and depicting still lifes . As a master of decorative arts (in paintings, ceiling paintings , interior decorations, designs for the tapestry manufacture in Béauvais, for opera stage sets and designs for the porcelain manufacture in Sèvre ), he shaped the style at the court of Louis XV for decades . His paintings were found in royal courts across Europe. They resemble the motifs of Antoine Watteau , whom he admired. He worked hard, painted a large number of pictures (the popularity rose with the distribution) and already brought it to a regular production, as an industrial spirit already announced itself in him. He maintained a studio with students who often finished his work, repeated excerpts in different contexts and often made copies of his pictures (so-called "handwritten replicas") for various clients, such as in the case of Marie-Louise O'Murphy . As the official royal painter, Boucher was heavily criticized by Diderot and the encyclopedists . He was accused, especially during the revolution, of portraying an easy-going and frivolous 18th century. It was not until the end of the 19th century that he was again valued as a great painter. His most famous students were Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Jacques-Louis David . He was friends with Claude-Henri Watelet , whom he often visited in his Moulin Joly gardens , as he was with Hubert Robert . After his death, around 16,000 objects from his personal possessions were sold, including 700 chinoiseries .

His pictures hang in Munich's Alte Pinakothek , in Charlottenburg Palace in Berlin, in the Louvre , the St. Petersburg Hermitage and in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne.

reception

Boucher was a brilliant draftsman who mastered a variety of techniques and was a master of the decorative arts. In addition to landscape painting , historical and mythological motifs were the subject of his painting. It may be that his last creative period is controversial. Alongside Watteau , he deserves a major place in French painting of the 18th century, whose essence he embodied like no other. He influenced all decorative art in the time of Louis XV. The students of classicism and especially Diderot turned against him . The monograph by G. Brunel and the exhibition New York, Detroit, Paris (1986/87) made it possible to assess the importance of the painter.

Selection of works paintings

  • Cupid as a prisoner , 1754, London, Wallace Collection
  • The Breakfast , 1739, Paris, Musée du Louvre
  • The Angler , 1759, Hamburg, Kunsthalle
  • The painter in his studio , self-portrait, around 1720, Paris, Musée du Louvre
  • Diana in the Bath , 1742, Paris, Musée du Louvre
  • The bridge , 1751, Paris, Musée du Louvre
  • The secret message 1767, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum
  • The Milliner , 1746, Stockholm, National Museum
  • The Mill , 1751, Paris, Musée du Louvre
  • Woman's head , around 1750, St. Petersburg, Hermitage
  • Birth and Death of Adonis, 1733, Lisbon, Museu António Medeiros e Almeida
  • Birth of Venus , around 1750, London, Wallace Collection
  • Shepherd's Landscape with a River , 1741, Munich Alte Pinakothek
  • Jupiter and Callisto , 1744, Moscow, Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts
  • Rural idyll , 1730, Munich Alte Pinakothek
  • Landscape with the Brother Lucas , around 1750, St. Petersburg, Hermitage
  • Landscape with a cherry picker , 1768, London, Kenwood House
  • Odalisque , around 1740, Paris, Musée du Louvre
  • Portrait of Madame de Pompadour , around 1750, Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland
  • Portrait of Madame de Pompadour , 1759, London, Wallace Collection
  • Portrait of Madame de Pompadour , 1758, Munich, Alte Pinakothek
  • Portrait of Marie-Jeanne Buseau , around 1733, New York, Frick Collection
  • Portrait of a Lady with a Muff , around 1750, Paris, Musée du Louvre
  • Rast am Brunnen , 1730, Munich Alte Pinakothek
  • Resting Girl ( Mademoiselle O'Murphy ), 1752, Munich, Alte Pinakothek
  • Rinaldo and Almida , 1734, Paris, Musee du Louvre
  • Sunrise , 1748, London, Wallace Collection
  • Toilet of Venus , 1751, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Triumph of Venus , 1740, Stockholm, National Museum
  • Venus Comforts Cupid , 1751, Washington (DC), National Gallery of Art
Illustrations

  • Rest at the fountain , 1730

  • Self-portrait in the studio, around 1730/35

  • Pastoral

  • Diana after bathing , 1742

  • Autumn (detail)

  • Jupiter and Callisto , 1744

  • Portrait of Madame de Pompadour , around 1750

  • The toilet of Venus

  • Resting girl , 1751

  • Engraving by MS Carmona after Boucher's portrait of Alexander “Suedois” Roslin , 1761

  • SA de la Franc-Maconnerie Bordelaise share, designed around 1878 based on a template by François Boucher

literature

  • A. Reichel: François Boucher. Berlin 1948.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Johannes Jahn , Stefanie Lieb : Dictionary of Art (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 165). 13th, completely revised and expanded edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-520-16513-8 , p. 112.
  2. ↑ Family genealogy
  3. ^ The " Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud " in Cologne noted for his picture Resting Girl (Marie-Louise O'Murphy) : "The first pin-up girl".
  4. ↑ a b Kindler's Malereilexikon. Kindlerverlag Zurich, Volume I: Terms and registers. Zurich 1964–1971, p. 484 ff.
  5. ↑ a b Éric Biétry-Rivierre: La Chine féconde de François Boucher - Le Musée des beaux-arts de Besançon montre le goût du peintre du XVIIIe pour l'exotisme . In: Le Figaro . No. 23,412 . Paris November 22, 2019, p. 32 .
  6. ^ Georges Brunel: Boucher François; Trefoil Books, London, 1986, 304 pages, ISBN 0-86294-073-7 .
  7. ^ Editor of the Bavarian State Painting Collection: Alte Pinakothek, Selected Works; Pinakothek-Dumont, Munich / Cologne, 2005, ISBN 3-8321-7592-X , p. 50 ff.
  8. ↑ See also under web links: Zeno artist
  9. ^ Jakob Schmitz: Aufbruch auf Aktien , Düsseldorf 1996, ISBN 3-87881-101-2 , p. 311.

Web links

Commons : François Boucher  - Collection of images, videos and audio files


personal data
SURNAME Boucher, François
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French painter, draftsman, engraver
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1703
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 1770
Place of death Paris