work of the month


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Pastorale: The Vegetable Vendor

FranÆois Boucher, 1735
Oil on Canvas, 95"x 67"
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., 71.504

FranÆois Boucher was the premiere artist of the French rococo style and enjoyed the patronage of the Duc du Richelieu, Madame de Pompadour, and Louis XV. The son of an artist, Boucher trained with the painter FranÆois Lemoyne, honed his skills in producing engravings of Jean-Antoine Watteau's work, and won the Grand Prix of the French Acad¹mie Royale in 1723, when he was only 20 years old. A trip to Italy from 1728-1731 introduced him to the bucolic scenes of Castiglione, as well as the work of Rubens and Michelangelo.

Receiving his first royal commission in 1735, Boucher's star began to rise. He became the principal designer of sets and costumes for the Paris Op¹ra, a designer for the tapestry works at Beauvais and the porcelain factory at Sœvres, and later became director of the royal tapestry factory at the Gobelins. Appointed Director of the Acad¹mie Royale in 1765, Boucher also received the title of First Painter to the King that same year.

The Chrysler Museum of Art's The Vegetable Vendor was originally one of a pair of paintings that may have graced the salon of Louis XV's First Gentleman of the Bedchamber, the Duc du Richelieu. The companion piece, Peasant Boy Fishing, is now at the Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

A 19th-century art historian once remarked upon "that idyllic world invented by Boucher for the use of the 18th century." In Boucher's world, "the sheep are shampooed, the shepherdesses are tight-laced with rows of ribbons, and their complexions quite without that weather-beaten look, while the shepherds look like ballet dancers. But it is all irresistibly seductive, and the lie is much more agreeable than the truth." Even today, many viewers often dismiss the rococo period of French art as hopelessly false and decadent. But art is always a product of its time, and while Boucher's impossibly blue skies and pink-cheeked peasants may ring hollow when compared with the realities of 18th century France, they are less false than they may seem.

On first looking at Boucher's Le Retour du March¹, (known in English as The Vegetable Vendor), take a few moments to assess the scene. What is happening here? What is the relationship between the characters? How have they come to be in this place?

If your mind concocts a romantic tale of secret trysts and bucolic simplicity, then you may not be as far removed from the 18th-century aristocratic mindset as you might think. For many, the reign of Louis XV and his mistress Madame de Pompadour was a relief from the heavy grandeur and oppressive formality of Louis XIV's Versailles. Art, literature, and the performing arts became lighter, more ornamental, and more fantastical. Writers produced literary pastorals, populated with romantic shepherds, blushing shepherdesses and impeccably groomed sheep. On stage at the Th¹¹tre de Foire in Paris, similar characters frolicked against backdrops of ravishing, yet impossible scenery in spectacular fÁtes galantes. Boucher himself was the set and costume designer for the Paris Op¹ra, so it is no surprise that this piece has the feel of a theatrical scene frozen in time against a lavish painted backdrop. To the aristocracy who viewed it, it would have seemed very familiar, and very much a part of their world. Taken within this context, Boucher's work is less a picture of an idealized rural paradise and more of a depiction of the 18th-century French theatre and the playfulness of court life.

Like the aristocracy, who attended such performances and commissioned such works, Boucher's paintings celebrated youth, beauty and sensuality. In them there is a total denial of death, sin, gloom and despair. Look more closely now at the painting. Every item in the work has been carefully placed there to convey a message. What is the meaning of the trade going on here? What is the relationship between the boy and girl? Why have the vegetables and animals been placed as they have?

An enthusiast of Dutch genre art, Boucher was well-versed in the symbolism that accompanied those scenes of everyday life. In The Vegetable Vendor, Boucher makes use of this secret language, as the parsnips and cabbages may represent human genitalia. However there is no sense of moral judgment here. The overt sexuality expressed in the symbolic trade of parsnips and cabbage between boy and girl is here more a statement of fact rather than a warning of impending sin. Likewise, there is no hint of eternal damnation in the imagery of dead animals (symbolizing a loss of virginity), nor is there even a flicker of vanitas (a meditation on mortality). How could there be in a society where many aristocrats removed themselves from the household of a dying family member because death was unpleasant, and noblemen counted it a feather in their cap to have their wife sharing the king's bed? The sentiment of this painting is, therefore, very straightforward and honest, taken within this context.

The popularity of Boucher's art lasted only a short time after his death in 1770. The French Revolution sought to rid France of the decadence of the tottering ancien r¹gime - the very world illustrated by Boucher, the First Painter to the King. Denounced by critics (including Boucher's contemporary Diderot) for its frivolity and dishonesty, Boucher's art has received little attention from art historians. Yet Boucher's work - such as the Chrysler's The Vegetable Vendor - gives the viewer an honest glimpse into a world long gone.

- Anna Holloway

RESOURCES

Harrison, Jefferson C., The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections. Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum of Art, 1991.

Harrison, Jefferson C., French Paintings from The Chrysler Museum. Norfolk: The Chrysler Museum of Art, 1986.

Laing, Alastair with J. Patrice Marandel and Pierre Rosenberg, ed. FranÆois Boucher: 1703-1770. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986.

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