Antoine Watteau
Pilgrimage to Cythera — inventor of the fete galante
The melancholy poet of pleasure. His fetes galantes — aristocrats in silk flirting in parkland settings — invented the Rococo sensibility and a new genre of painting. Beneath the shimmer lies an aching awareness of time passing. Dead of tuberculosis at 36.
Key works
- Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera1717— The painting that invented a genreLouvre, Paris / Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin
- Pierrot (Gilles)~1719— The clown isolated — sadness in satinLouvre, Paris