FRENCH PAINTING IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
The degree of excellence which the fine arts had reached in the period which culminated in the seventeenth century might incline one to conclude that the following century was of little moment in the his tory of the arts. Such a conclusion, however, would be erroneous. In Spain, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands there was undoubtedly an art-declension after the brilliant epoch illustrated by Velasquez and Murillo, Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Raphael, Darer and Holbein, and Rembrandt and Rubens. But elsewhere art flourished, and in England especially a new and brilliant school was developed, while toward the close of the century France exhibited exceptional art .activity, leading up to the magnificent school of the present century. In comparing these periods we find the most marked contrast in the choice of subject. The prominent feature of the Renaissance was the ecclesiastical character it assumed. The decoration of convents and cathedrals and the power of the Church made religion the leading topic selected by the artists for the triumphs of their genius.
But the force of modern ideas gave another direction to the artist's pencil and graver. Subjects purely secular became the fashion; human nature, as represented by genre, assumed greater importance; landscape, hitherto confined to a few, received the attention of the schools; and the increasing archaeological knowledge of the world led to a more scholarly and precise rendering of historical subjects. Thus, while some precious qualities ceased to demand the attention of the artist, new beauties were studied and portrayed, and the knowledge of the world kept pace with its search for pleasure as exemplified in the movement of the fine arts.
Neil Coypel is an artist of the French school of painting who bridges over the transition period between the Renaissance and the eighteenth century. He was born at Paris in 1628 and died there in 1707. His style was modelled on that of Bernini, and his most notable works were seen in the decoration of the royal palaces of France.
Nicholas Largilliere may be assigned a similar position chronologically, born in Paris in 1656 and dying there in 1746. He is noted chiefly for his
portraits of royal personages; among his sitters were Louis XIV., and Charles II. and James II. of England.
Hyacinthe Rigali, a French painter of considerable celebrity and merit, was born at Perpignan in 1659 and died probably at Paris in 1743. He 171 was one of the most prominent portrait-painters of that period. His coloring was chaste and his style bold, while he exhibited much ability in seizing traits of character imparting an air of nobility to his models. lie also executed a number of historical compositions drawn from sacred subjects, of which a engraved by I)revet, is of especial merit. Rigaud became a member of the Academy of Paris in 1700.
Anhiine 11",,lteau is one of the most brilliant painters who illustrated French art in the eighteenth century. Ile was the son of a poor thatcher of Valenciennes, where he was born in 1684, dying in 172t. In this short life of thirty-seven years, of which twenty were passed in the pursuit of art at Paris, he produced many delightful works that will give pleasure to many for ages. His paintings were generally of cabinet-size. He selected genre subjects in which the extravagant fashions of the time were proini nem features. But, while the stilted manners and costume of that period were not such as a painter of human nature would be supposed to select, 'Watteau gave his compositions such exquisite color and such sly touches of humor, such truth to life, that he is entitled to a high rank among the genre-painters of Europe.
Jean Rap/isle van Loa, who was born at Aix, in Provence, in 1684, and died in 1745, was a painter of some merit in decoration and por traiture. • Jean Rap/isle Oudry, who was born at Paris in 1686 and died at Beau vais in 1755, was in high repute at one time for his hunting-scenes. His compositions show a patient study of animals, but lack all indication of the vivifying genius which enabled Franz Snyders (1579-1657) and Jan Weenix (164o-1719) to give such lustre to this class of painting in the previous century.