New York Review of Books
Colin B. Bailey writes about Fragonard: The Fantasy Figures recently on view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Bailey writes that the show "[celebrates] the thirty-seven-year-old Fragonard as a practitioner of 'pure painting'—an action painter avant la lettre. His rainbow palette is 'parrot colored'—to use a term that was applied to Renoir in
Painting Perceptions
John Goodrich visits Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection and shares his observations about Watteau's striking formalism. Goodrich writes: "Superficially, Watteau is all fanciful froth – charming subject matter, feathery modeling, a light, darting touch. But what distinguishes Watteau are his extraordinary and comprehensive intuitions about formal rhythms — in this case,
New York Sun Arts
Xico Greenwald reviews Watteau’s Soldiers: Scenes of Military Life in Eighteenth-Century France at The Frick Collection, New York, on view through October 2, 2016. Greenwald writes: "The paintings gathered here might have been integral to Watteau’s artistic development. Perhaps these early experiments composing figures outdoors sparked the idea for fête galante scenes, with wounded soldiers
In Watteau’s world, more than in any other painter’s, figure to canvas is as actor to stage.