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Antoine Watteau biography

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  • NAME: Jean Antoine Watteau
  • OCCUPATION: Painter
  • BIRTH DATE: October 10, 1684
  • DEATH DATE: July 18, 1721
  • PLACE OF BIRTH: Valenciennes, France
  • PLACE OF DEATH: Nogent-sur-Marne, France
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French painter Antoine Watteau's work embraced the artifice of the theatre, particularly the commedia dell'arte and ballet. His works typified the Rococo style.

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Antoine Watteau was born Oct. 10, 1684, in Valenciennes, France. At 18 he moved to Paris, where he worked for a theatrical scenery painter, and much of Watteau's work consequently embraced the artifice of the theater. His works typified the Rococo style. The greatest was inducted into the academy in 1717. The academicians welcomed him as a painter of the fêtes galantes genre.

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(born Oct. 10, 1684, Valenciennes, France—died July 18, 1721, Nogent-sur-Marne) French painter. Son of a roof tiler in Valenciennes, he was apprenticed to a local artist. At 18 he moved to Paris, where he worked for a series of painters; one of them was a theatrical scenery painter, and much of Watteau's work consequently embraced the artifice of the theatre, particularly the commedia dell'arte and the ballet. His works typified the lyrically charming and graceful Rococo style. The greatest, his Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera, depicts pilgrims setting out for (or departing from) the mythic island of love and was his presentation piece when he was inducted into the academy in 1717. The academicians, unable to fit him into any of the recognized categories, welcomed him as a painter of ftes galantes (“elegant festivities”), an important new genre to which countless later Rococo pictures belong.

Copyright © 1994-2011 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. For more information visit Britannica.com

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