JEAN BAPTISE JOSEPH PATER was actually a pupil of Watteau. He was ten
years his junior, but was equally unhappy on account of his health, and
died at forty. Like Lancret, he incurred Watteau's displeasure for a
similar reason, though in his case it was rather the fear of what he
would do than what he did that was the cause of Watteau's displeasure.
At the same time, the names of both Lancret and Pater are inseparable
from that of Watteau in the history of painting, and, both in their
choice of subject and their treatment of it, they are hardly
distinguishable to the casual observer. Watteau, it need hardly be said,
was far above the other two, but it was fortunate indeed that his
romantic genius had two such gifted imitators as Lancret and Pater--or
to put it the other way, that they had such a master to imitate, without
whom neither their work nor their influence would have been nearly as
great as it was.
FRANCOIS BOUCHER, though doubtless influenced by Watteau, more
especially at the outset of his brilliant career, was nevertheless
independent of him in carrying forward the art painting in his country,
choosing rather to revert to the patronage of the Court like his
predecessors Le Brun, Rigaud, and Largilliere than to devote himself to
the expression of his own ideas and feelings. Being a pupil of Francois
Le Moine, whose principal work was the decoration of Versailles, it is
not unnatural that Boucher should have succumbed to the influence of
Royalty, especially when exerted in his favour by as charming and as
powerful an agent as Madame de Pompadour. Another early influence which
shaped his artistic tendencies as well as his fortunes was that of Carle
van Loo, in whose honour his countrymen coined the verb _vanlotiser_--to
frivol agreeably--- on account of the popularity which he achieved as a
painter of elegant trifles. There is a picture by Carle van Loo in the
Wallace Collection entitled _The Grand Turk giving a Concert to his
Mistress_ (No. 451), painted in 1737, which is a fair example of his
proficiency in this direction, and there are one or two portraits
scattered about the country which he painted when over here for a few
months towards the end of his life. He died in Paris on the 15th July
1765, and Boucher was immediately appointed his successor as principal
painter to Louis XV.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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