I said in the article "The Evolution of Byzantine Art to Baroque and Rococo Art, the Essence is the Decline of the Old Feudal Aristocracy": From Byzantine art, to Baroque art, to Rococo art, the essence is the decline and decline of the old feudal aristocracy. Byzantine art represented the glorious era of the old nobility, the emergence of Baroque art meant that the old aristocracy began to decline, and Rococo art was the last afterglow of the old nobility.
Byzantine art is full of grandeur, asceticism, sacredness, and even in Baroque art there is grandeur and majesty, but to Rococo art is completely ostentatious, deliberate, luxurious, extravagant, hedonistic, exaggerated, flashy, and gorgeous. From the aesthetic taste, it can be seen that the decline of the old aristocracy has been unstoppable, and finally only the ostentatious aristocratic life remains, drunken gold fans, night and night songs, indulging in carnal greed.
If the Flemish school and Rubens represent the pinnacle of Baroque painting, then Huato and Yayan represent the pinnacle of Rococo painting.
Huato and Yayan paintings
Jean-Antoine Watteau was one of the most influential painters in Europe in the 18th century, and he admired Rubens the most, but he was different from Rubens. His paintings mostly reflect the scenes of aristocratic life, depicting aristocratic men and women who are drunk and dreaming of death, and the picture is full of the infinite entanglement of the aristocratic hedonistic world.
But unlike other Rococo artists, Joathor still has a realist sensibility in it. Although his paintings depict scenes of the luxurious life of the court nobles, we can feel the traces of sorrow and sorrow on the faces of the old nobles from his pictures and the expressions of the old nobles, and the infinite sorrow and confusion in the joyful pictures. His paintings are a true portrayal of the world of the decline of the nobility at that time, reflecting the decline of the old aristocracy.
The term "feast painting" is used specifically to describe Huato's paintings, depicting romantic gatherings in which aristocratic men and women play and flirt with beautiful music in beautiful gardens. The representative work of Yayan painting is "Zhoufa West Moss Island".
《Zhoufa West Moss Island》
"Zhoufa West Moss Island" is Huato's immortal masterpiece, created in 1710. It took him two years to complete the work. Depicts a group of aristocratic men and women, dreaming of having a carefree love paradise. In front of their line of sight is a couple still embracing, with a statue of Venus on the right side and Cupid, the son of Venus, next to it.
The painting earned Joato the title of academician of the Royal French Academy of Painting and Sculpture. At the same time, "Yayan painting" was officially incorporated into the new theme of academic painting.
"Gerson's Shop"
This is Watteau's last masterpiece of Feast painting. The four walls of the painting shop are hung with works by famous artists, and upper-class aristocratic men and women who are accustomed to seeking pleasure and pursuing luxury flock to it. A fashionable girl steps into the store, her gorgeous skirt and small high heels breaking the horizon of the picture, and her boyfriend is greeting her with a little foxtrot gesture.
"Mezitan"
In this painting, the improvised actor plays his own guitar, and there is no audience in the painting, only the marble statue of the marble woman in the background standing there, ignoring his enthusiastic confession. A sense of loneliness arises.
"Jill"
Jill is a later work by Joato. In this painting, the clown seems to be desperately trying to suppress the feeling of wanting to cry, his clothes are loose and crumbling, the sleeves of his clothes are very long, showing his sense of powerlessness, there is an audience member riding a donkey like a marble statue laughing, and several actors ignore the clown's feelings and only immerse themselves in the things they care about, which further strengthens the joker's sadness.
This is exactly the expression of the old nobility who is powerless in the face of decline, and Huato uses the last work for the final demise of the old nobility, and a new era is coming.
Creative background
In france in the 18th century, although large-scale industrialization, urbanization, and modernization had not yet begun, with the age of great navigation, the expansion of overseas colonies, the Enlightenment, and the partial industrialization, urbanization, and modernization, a large number of newly wealthy bourgeoisie began to rise, and they continued to erode the interests of the old aristocracy with the wealth in their hands, and the old aristocracy was in constant decline. In the face of this situation, the old aristocracy wants to change, but it is powerless, so the politics become more and more corrupt, and the old aristocracy begins to sink, pursuing a lifestyle of extravagance and pleasure, and can enjoy a day is a day, they sing songs night after night, paper drunk gold fans, indulge in sex and desire, drunken dreams and death.
The new rich bourgeoisie, though a rising star, was not strong enough to stand up to the old aristocracy. The new rich bourgeoisie completely defeated the old aristocracy not until the July Revolution of the 19th century. So at this time, in order to preserve their strength, the new rich bourgeoisie had to marry the old aristocracy.
Thus some of the new wealthy bourgeoisie also began to imitate the way of life of the old aristocracy. They flaunted their wealth, hoping to use it to show off their social status, as close as possible to the identity of the old nobility. They enjoy themselves, they use their wealth for splurge and pleasure to satisfy their own desires.
In this atmosphere, in order to meet the needs of the old aristocracy and some of the new wealthy bourgeoisie for the hedonistic life of sound and color dogs and horses, paper drunk gold fans, Rococo art was born.
Rococo painting pays attention to fun, flesh, bright and dazzling colors, especially the bold expression of sexual desire. Rococo painters depicted idealized scenes of court life, more boldly depicting the affairs of aristocratic society.