Arte: Chardin

WHAT KIND OF WORLD IS DEPICTED IN CHARDIN’S FIGURE PAINTINGS?
EXAMINE OBJECTS AND PARTICULARLY THE ACTIVITY OF THE FIGURES IN ORDER TO SHOW IN YOUR ESSAY HOW THESE DETAILS HELP TO CREATE THE OVERALL ATMOSPHERE.

INTRODUCTION
Rococo style was born in France at the beginning of the 18th century. It was characterized by the sense of “theatrical” and idealistic scenes, usually related toaristocracy and leisure. Chardin, instead, did not follow these topics.
His early still life paintings remind art works from Northern painters from 17th century, such as Claesz Heda. Chardin was very interested in how these painters represented simple objects in a very detailed approach, and how little details such as smoke coming out from candles or smoking pipes made these paintings not to be ‘still’life anymore. For example, in The Smoker’s Case, a small red dot appears in the smoking pipe showing that is burning. These scenes capture the time, they represent more than still life. He adopted these details and used them in his own particular way for his still life and figure paintings.
Furthermore, he was highly influenced by his life experience than the influence of his renowned tutors,such as Van Loo, Pierre Jacques Caze or Nicolas Coypel .Even though Chardin was surrounded by Rococo paintings, while he was working in the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris since 1743, he did not choose to paint the same scenes in the Rococo style and was more attracted by day-to-day activities and the beauty of simple objects and scenes.
This study of Chardin’s figure paintingswill look at the different activities and figures in the context of Paris in 18th century and Chardin’s personal life, which will be essential to understand his figure paintings. Different scenes will be discussed in relation to the characteristics of Chardin’s paintings and one in particular, The Attentive Nurse, will be examined in detail.

CHARDIN’S FIGURE PAINTINGS
As Dr Lisa Wade noted, stilllife painter was the lowest category within the Academy. These painters were not considered as prestigious as history painters because they ‘only’ represented the reality, the world they could see. They did not need as developed imagination as history painters, in order to tell stories through painting in a narrative way. Therefore, history painters had very good reputation. For that reason,Chardin made the decision of going further than being only an “animals and fruit” painter and start painting genre scenes. As the connoisseur and art collector of the 18th century Pierre-Jean Mariette wrote, Chardin’s decision for a change in his paintings was made to avoid to”tire” his viewers with the same type of still life scenes. He decided that painting figures will make his career moresuccessful. Rosenberg pointed out that this was not the only reason. Chardin’s financial situation was not good.
Most of the figures that Chardin painted are working class or middle class, he never represented aristocracy as Rococo aimed. Also, the colourful and passionate expression of figures in the tangled landscapes of Rococo had no place in Chardin’s paintings. Scenes take place in interiors andthey are usually austere in decoration, which denotes a lack of ostentation and opulence, typical in aristocratic houses. A good example to compare could be Chardin’s Saying Grace and Boucher’s Dejeuner. The first one shows the pure values of good manners with educated and quiet middle-class figures while the latter depicts more disquiet figures of a high-class family in a typical Rococo-styleroom, with tall mirrors, twisted candlesticks and flamboyant clocks.
The activity of the figures in Chardin’s paintings expresses a modest life-style and certain rationality regarding the point of view in which life is seen. In other words, it enhances the enjoyment of the household ambience. This can be shown in paintings such as Domestic Pleasures, where a middle-class woman is enjoying the...