Watteau: Reverie and Realism – The Wallace Collection

French artist Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) is widely
celebrated for his fêtes galantes or wistful scenes of
lovers, actors and musicians idling in bucolic, dreamlike
settings. Yet Watteau’s art was also grounded in an
earthy realism that stemmed from his Flemish origins
and love of drawing directly from the subject.

This major exhibition explores the contradiction that lies
at the heart of Watteau’s vision by presenting his evocative paintings alongside the observational drawings that
informed their making. It will present Watteau both in his historical context and also as a creative figure who
transcended his time in forging a new style of painting that elevated visual and sensory qualities over narrative and
moral content, anticipating later developments such as Impressionism and the Aesthetic movement.

The full repertoire of Watteau’s subjects will be featured in the exhibition. Starting with
his penetrating observations of contemporary life, the exhibition will then look at his fêtes galantes, before focusing
on the artist’s experiments with the nude and his enigmatic landscapes.

The exhibition will also feature X-rays of
some of his paintings to highlight his working process and the layered way in which he developed his compositions.

Find out more here.