CLASS NOTES: Seduction in Boucher's pastoral paintings (Sexing the Canvas: Art and Gender)

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Notes on video lecture:

Seduction in Boucher's pastoral paintings

Sexing the Canvas: Art and Gender

Jeanette Hoorn, The University of Melbourne

Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on February 12, 2017 (go to class or lectures)

Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

canvas, bones, dangerous, Mannlich, conventions, Lemuel, painting, golden, pendant, women, landscape, vagina, XV, refined, coiffed, Basket, touch, oral, love, together, Diderot, literature, Rococo, comic, downfall, sexual, Favare, flute, pantomime, degenerate, kissed, Pompadour, crude, veins, 1748, occupation, nobility

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Boucher's pastoral paintings

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a pair

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two works that were created to be displayed

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hung on either side of a medallion portrait by John Baptist of Louis XV

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both the paintings and the medallion sculpture are from

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the height of King Louis 's time as king

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the epitomize aspects of 18th century French art

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defined by its lightness of , sense of beauty, its eroticism and connections with themes of love

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Louis XV was known as Louis XV The Well Loved

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not just by his people but by

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Madame de

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he had several mistresses, she was the favorite

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single most important female patron of the arts in France

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her favorite painter was Francois Boucher

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first painter of the king

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director of the academy of French Painting and Sculpture

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group of artists

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during the time of Louis XIV came together to establish the rules of and sculpture and how artists should be trained

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Boucher plays with

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a part of art

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relied on skilled users

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had learned how to decode painting in connection with their ideals of sociability and behavior

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pastoral paintings

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finished in 1748

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closely connected to pastoral and plays

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plays in the 18th century did not only take play in official theaters

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also in private theaters of the

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worked with Favart

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reformed the opera

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took the bawdy and ribald performances of sexuality in , and connected them with refined codes of sociability that appealed to the nobility

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with the idea that the more refined audiences would start coming back to the theater

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and Boucher grew up near each other

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by the 1740s they were collaborating

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Boucher came up with the ideas which he painted which then Favart then turned into plays and performances

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Boucher also did costume design and scenic backdrops for pastoral plays

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many plays derived from a tradition of pastoral literature that goes back to the 17th century

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a salon culture dominated by women and the tastes of women going back to Louis XIV

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by Louis XV, women set many of the standards of taste

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visual arts

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literature

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performances

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in the discourse of behavior

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pastoral plays

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no dialogue

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familiar songs in the background telling what people were doing

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set in a age somewhere in a landscape

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usually a simple love story between a shepherdess and a shepherd

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gives her a lesson

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girl asleep, young man who delivers a basket of flowers from the shepherd

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Favart's wife was often the main lead

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but not always as the shepherdess but the shepherd

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quite different from many other eras

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Portrait: Leçon de flute

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these are not real shepherds and shepherdesses that work in the fields

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but idealized

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wander around the with their sheep and think about nothing but love

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the sheep are always perfectly

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the shepherdess is not engaged with her sheep

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she is learning a lesson from her shepherd who is attempting to woo her

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next to them a fountain of

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connection with aristocratic way of life

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the nobility defined themselves by not working

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by the mid 18th century, they also had no real military function anymore

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they spent a large amount of their time pursuing leisure which was their primary

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one aspect of that leisure was the pursuit of love

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a highly codified way of wooing a woman

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the crudeness of sexuality is turned into something that is highly refined and coded

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at the foot of the woman is a crown of flowers

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one meaning is that she gives this to her lover when he wins her heart

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also an erotic meaning of the

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the flute

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a reference to the male penis

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her being taught to play it is a reference to her being taught to perform sex

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not understood by everyone but only those in a small elite circle

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Boucher's conventions on gender

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male figure is seated above the female figure

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, student of Boucher

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had students make many drawings which Boucher signed and sold them off

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Boucher corrected the way students were painting the female body

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the female body should be painted as if it had hardly any at all

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the idea is that they're curved, soft lines

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nothing that's hard or breaks the eye in a way as it moves around the

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female has a porcelain white color

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male figure has more of a sun- look, more flesh tones

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The Mysterious (1748)

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female and male are different along the customary markings

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the man is not the shepherd but the rustic delivering the basket

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man is very masculine

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ripples and

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fleshy and physicality that we don't see with the shepherd

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he is character

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Boucher was often criticized when pastoral scenes were shown in salons

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the way these coded meanings were understood, was a kind of pastoral versions of themselves, i.e. the upper echelons of society

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when they were shown at general salons they were criticized and seen as

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where art exhibitions take place every two years in Paris

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the perfumes of the fish mongers wife mixed with the perfumes with the ladies of the court

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showing sexuality as having any consequences

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you can learn to play a flute, but there is no suggestion that that can lead to any sort of moral

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the male didn't look masculine enough

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less friendly critics

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Denis

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founding member of the encyclopedia

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didn't like Boucher's work

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thought it was moral

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in a later salon, Diderot, says, "when am I going to be rid of these pastorals"

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women would come and linger in front of these painters and would not understand that there was a price to be paid for this kind of activity

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it was a misinterpretation of signs and symbols meant for certain class of society

Vocabulary:

coif, v. to style or arrange someone's hair ⇒ "When analyzing Boucher's painting Leçon de flute, one must remember that these are not real shepherds and shepherdesses who work in the fields, but idealized shepherds and shepherdesses who wander around the landscape all day with their sheep and think about nothing but love, and therefore the sheep which gather around them in the paintings are always perfectly coiffed."

People:

Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764)

A member of the French court and was the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to 1751

took charge of the king's schedule and was a valued aide and advisor, despite her frail health and many political enemies
secured titles of nobility for herself and her relatives, and built a network of clients and supporters
she was particularly careful not to alienate the Queen, Marie Leszczyńska
she was a major patron of architecture and decorative arts
was a patron of the philosophes of the Enlightenment
contemporary opinion supported by artwork from the time considered her to be beautiful, with her small mouth and oval face enlivened by her wit
her husband was soon infatuated with her and she was celebrated in the fashionable world of Paris
she founded her own salon, at Étiolles, and was joined by many philosophes, among them Voltaire.
in February 1745, she was invited to a royal masked ball at the Palace of Versailles
by March, she was the king's mistress, installed at Versailles in an apartment directly above his
by May, the official separation between her and her husband was pronounced
on 14 September, she was formally introduced to the court by the king's cousin, the Princess de Conti, and she quickly mastered the highly mannered court etiquette
she and Louis XV ended their sexual relationship after 1750, but remained intimate friends
Louis XV was devoted to her until her death from tuberculosis in 1764 at the age of forty-two
Voltaire wrote of her death: "I am very sad at the death of Madame de Pompadour. I was indebted to her and I mourn her out of gratitude. It seems absurd that while an ancient pen-pusher, hardly able to walk, should still be alive, a beautiful woman, in the midst of a splendid career, should die at the age of forty-two."

François Boucher (1703-1770)

French painter, draughtsman and etcher who worked in the Rococo style, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes

perhaps the most celebrated painter and decorative artist of the 18th century
painted several portraits of his patroness, Madame de Pompadour
a native of Paris, Boucher was the son of a lesser known painter Nicolas Boucher
at his death, along with that of his patron Madame de Pompadour, had become synonymous with the French Rococo style
"Boucher is one of those men who represent the taste of a century, who express, personify and embody it."

Spelling Corrections:

eschelons ⇒ echelons

porcelin ⇒ porcelain

pasturals ⇒ pastorals

Ideas and Concepts:

François Boucher's conventions of gender in painting, via tonight's Sexing the Canvas class: "Christian Mannlich, a student of Boucher, tells us that Boucher often corrected the way his students painted the female body. He told them that the female body should be painted as if it hardly had any bones at all. The idea is that female bodies are curved and have soft lines. Nothing that's hard or breaks the eye in any way should interfere as the eyes moves around the canvas."