François Boucher, Veronese, Rembrandt, & Joshua Reynolds

The following essay is copyright © Joseph Kopta 2005. It cannot be republished or distributed in any way, without written permission from the author.

The Frick Collection

When comparing The Arts and Sciences by François Boucher and the Allegory of Wisdom and Strength and Allegory of Virtue and Vice by Veronese, we are able to see the affirmed influences the Baroque Italian had on the French Rococo master. We are also able to see the different effects of the formal qualities, which render the Boucher a personal encounter and the Veronese paintings grand, eternal, and ubiquitous.
The Boucher is a series of eight panels originally installed in the private quarters of Madame du Pompadour, the concubine of Louis XV and the great patroness of the arts. The paintings depict allegories of the arts and sciences, manifested in the forms of children performing and exploring their specific domain. For instance, Horticulture is represented by two children picking flowers. Each panel is adorned by a pastoral motif, significant because this helps to turn the paintings into a therapeutic device for Pompadour (and Mary Frick, when the panels were installed in New York.) In fact, that seems to be the crux of the entire installation: the subject and execution is light and airy, rendered in mostly pastel colors and framed by a smooth white border. The allegory of arts and sciences itself is taken lightly; one would never expect Veronese to represent Wisdom, Strength, Virtue or Vice in the form of children. From this we can conclude that Pompadour, who commissioned the work, and Frick, who purchased it, was looking for escape in the world Boucher created, and both wanted to literally surround themselves in this delightful allegory.

The Veronese paintings, by contrast, are lofty. These paintings, like the Boucher, are allegories for Strength, Wisdom, Virtue and Vice, but treated in entirely different ways. From the start, Veronese has chosen allegories that are, say, less trivial and more stoic than Arts and Sciences; while only the elite are able to appreciate these themes, Strength, Wisdom, Virtue and Vice are classless, as they stem both from antiquity and Biblical sources. The figures portraying the themes are grown, idealized adults. The background is hardly pastoral, and the overall painting has much less to do with the landscape than with the dominating figures interacting with each other. The colors are vibrant, and a strong chiaroscuro creates a great sense of drama. Veronese, in these paintings, is speaking to that which lives forever as much as Boucher is painting the playful. Veronese is painting what is eternal in us.

It is ironic that the function of painting switches when we compare portraiture from the 17th and 18th centuries. Portraiture from the 17th century becomes more personal, and that from the 18th century is more of a statement about and individual’s perpetuity.
Rembrandt van Rijn’s Self-Portrait is a champion of the individual. We see in this painting Rembrandt, a man sitting, contemplating himself. His flesh emerges out of the darkness; extreme chiaroscuro is used, and the light of his face is seen as a relationship to the dark background. It is evident why Rembrandt was a master of describing form, for he used value in such an intelligent way. This may be seen as a metaphor, that out of darkness the individual emerges. We see here not a lofty image of a ruler declaring his power, but a picture of a painter, contemplating his existence. The painting, therefore, is intensely personal and psychological.
In the neighboring library at the Frick Collection is a painting of Lady Taylor by the 18th century British painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Where Rembrandt is personal, Lady Taylor is light, insubstantial, and superficial. This was not a negative circumstance in the time, however: her painting served as a bench-marker in the structure of her society, and measured her elite status. In fact, Lady Taylor hid any personality in her appearance by using heavy makeup, a common practice for both men and women, which renders her complexion light and pastel-colored. In the background, we see a pastoral scene, which is a reference to the escape Lady Taylor might have wanted to find herself in.