François Boucher
French Rococo painter, draughtsman and etcher
Gustaf Lundberg · via Wikipedia: François Boucher · Public domain
He is famous for saying that nature is "trop verte et mal éclairée" (too green and badly lit).[1] Boucher's work came to epitomise the fashionable French Rococo style.[2] Born on 29 September 1703, François Boucher worked as a court painter, draughtsman, and etcher for the French monarchy.[2]
Quick Facts
- Born
- 29 September 1703
- Birthplace
- Paris, France
- Died
- 30 May 1770
- Field
- Painting
- Movement
- Rococo
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
He then went to work for the engraver Jean-François Cars.[3] Nicolas Boucher, a painter of limited renown, was François Boucher's father and provided his earliest artistic instruction.[3] When Boucher was seventeen, the painter François Lemoyne admired one of his paintings and subsequently took him on as an apprentice, a position that lasted a mere three months.[3] Although Boucher secured the prestigious Grand Prix de Rome for painting in 1720, he delayed his journey to Italy for study by five years because the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture faced monetary difficulties.[4]
After his time in Italy ended, Boucher gained entry to the newly established Académie de peinture et de sculpture in 1731, and by 1734 he had become a member of its faculty.[2] Peter Paul Rubens and Antoine Watteau were among the artists whose work influenced Boucher.[5] Boucher created costumes and stage designs for the theater, and the plots of Charles Simon Favart's comic operas, full of passionate schemes, closely matched Boucher's own artistic approach.[6]
What the cited sources add
The Victoria and Albert Museum account notes that Boucher was briefly apprenticed by the painter François Lemoyne before going to work for the engraver Jean-François Cars.[2] The same source states that the influence of the Italian countryside and 17th century Dutch landscape painters can often be found in Boucher’s early works.[2] The account adds that Boucher’s most original contribution to Rococo painting was his reinvention of the pastoral genre, introducing elegant eroticism into traditional rural innocence.[2] The Victoria and Albert Museum account reports that Boucher once claimed to have produced around 10,000 drawings.[2]
The same source notes that Boucher’s designs were extensively copied and reproduced by decorative artists and printmakers, helping his designs to be disseminated throughout Europe.[2] The account states that Denis Diderot famously wrote of Boucher in his review of the 1761 Salon: "That man is capable of everything—except the truth"[2] A publication from 1873 by Leturcq records that Boucher instructed the gemstone engraver Jacques Guay in drawing.[7][8]
References
- Wikipedia, "François Boucher" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Houssaye, "Boucher et la peinture sous Louis XV", Revue des deux mondes, 1843, p. 70–98 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Hoskin, "Born on this Day: Francois Boucher", Victoria and Albert Museum, September 30, 2014. facts only, no text reused. vam.ac.uk
- Wikipedia, "François Boucher" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Alastair Laing. "Boucher, François." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 16 June 2016 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "François Boucher" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Alastair Laing. "Boucher, François." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 16 June 2016; Levey, Michael. (1993) Painting and sculpture in France 1700–1789. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 164.; Levey, Michael. (1993) Painting and sculpture in France 1700–1789. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 164. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "François Boucher" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Hoskin, "Born on this Day: Francois Boucher", Victoria and Albert Museum, September 30, 2014; Voss, "Francois Boucher's Early Development", The Burlington Magazine, March 1953, p. 82 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "François Boucher" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Kathryn B. Hiesinger, "The Sources of François Boucher's 'Psyche' Tapestries" Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 72 No. 314 (November 1976), pp. 7–23. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "François Boucher" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Martin Ferdinand Quadal – Biography, Interesting Facts, Famous Artworks", Arthive; Leturcq, "Notice sur Jacques Guay, graveur sur pierres fines du roi Louis xv. Documents émanant de Guay, et notes sur les œuvres de gravure en taille-douce et en pierres fines de la marquise de Pompadour", Baur, 1873, p. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Leturcq, "Notice sur Jacques Guay, graveur sur pierres fines du roi Louis xv. Documents émanant de Guay, et notes sur les œuvres de gravure en taille-douce et en pierres fines de la marquise de Pompadour", Baur, 1873, p.. facts only, no text reused. archive.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article François Boucher (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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