Events from the year 1751 in art.
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Boucher, Madame de Pompadour
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Unknown sculptor, Venus, 4th century B.C.E.
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The 48 Laws of Power (Animated)
Transcription
SPEAKER 1: We're looking at Francois Boucher's The Marquise de Pompadour. SPEAKER 2: So and I have to, before we go into this, just say that I don't really like rococo paintings, but I really like this one. There's something really beautiful about it. SPEAKER 1: So what is it? SPEAKER 2: I'm taken in by the pink ruffles, and the lace, and the cameo on her wrist, and the pouf that she's using to powder herself, and the flowers on the bottom, and the pink of her cheeks, and the blue bow in her hair, and the little pink at the end of the brush that she's using to put on her blush. I mean, it's just really yummy. SPEAKER 1: OK, so let's talk about those things for just a moment, because they really do catch the eye. The lace and the pink ribbons have a kind of almost architectural quality to them that's really extraordinary. SPEAKER 2: Yeah, they have a kind of real volume to them. SPEAKER 1: They have volume and structure. And you can feel the weight and the stiffness of the fabric. And the pouf is the opposite of that. And there's tremendous focus, of course, on the cameo on her wrist, because it's a portrait of her lover. SPEAKER 2: King Louis the XV. SPEAKER 1: That's right, of France. But then contrast that with the rendering of her face, of her head, which is sort of impossibly soft and sort of re-formed. Look at the size of the eyes in comparison to the size of the mouth. She's become a child. SPEAKER 2: That's true. I hadn't thought of that. SPEAKER 1: It's almost as if we're looking at Japanese cartoons. What are those called? SPEAKER 2: Anime. I mean, it's certainly not about her personality, and who she was, and her humanity in any real way. SPEAKER 1: No, it's her persona, right? SPEAKER 2: Yes, it's her persona. And that's, to me, that's what the whole painting is about. It's just about artifice. It's like the artifice of the French court in the 18th Century, in the rococo period. It's about the artifice of the clothing, of the makeup. It's just about surface. SPEAKER 1: It's true. But this is a very intimate kind of surface, isn't it? And so-- SPEAKER 2: Well, that it's the king's lover-- in that way? SPEAKER 1: Yeah, and also just the sense of proximity. We feel-- SPEAKER 2: That's true. We're very close to her. SPEAKER 1: Yeah, we feel as if we can reach out. SPEAKER 2: We're her best friend, and she's about to share an intimate secret. SPEAKER 1: That's exactly right. But then her eye rises up across her wrist, over the portrait of her lover, across her breast, up to her neck. And then finally we get to her face, which seems sort of almost remote. SPEAKER 2: The first thing that I noticed was all of those accessories of artifice. And then I looked at her face. I read the label. OK, this is the mistress to Louis XV. And then I thought, who is this woman? I looked at her face for clues. And I didn't get anything. SPEAKER 1: Yeah, the sense of clarity with which the artifice, as you put it, is painted against the softness and the indeterminacy of her individuality is, I think, clearest in the collar. Look how incredibly crisp, almost frozen, that collar is, and then look at the softness. But there is this wild sense of indeterminacy and mystery, I think.
Events
- September 13 – The Kalvária Banská Štiavnica in the Kingdom of Hungary is completed
- Edme-François Gersaint's Catalogue raisonné de toutes les piėces qui forment l'oeuvre de Rembrandt, the first catalogue raisonné of a single artist's graphic work, is published posthumously in Paris
- Charles-Joseph Natoire is appointed director of the French Academy in Rome
- Giovanni Paolo Pannini restarts work on the Trevi Fountain after the death of Nicola Salvi
Works
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- François Boucher – Toilette of Venus
- Canaletto – London: The Thames from Somerset House Terrace towards the City and London: The Thames from Somerset House Terrace towards Westminster (pair, c. 1750–51)
- Maurice Quentin de La Tour – Self-portrait (pastels)
- William Hogarth engraves the prints Gin Lane, Beer Street and The Four Stages of Cruelty[1]
- Pietro Longhi – The Rhinoceros
- Andrea Soldi – Louis-François Roubiliac
- Charles-André Vanloo paints portraits
Births
- January 7 – François Dumont, French painter of portrait miniatures (died 1831)
- January 31 – Jean François Carteaux, French painter and army commander (died 1813)
- February 18 – Adolf Ulrik Wertmüller, Swedish painter (died 1811)
- April 1 – Joseph Lange, Austrian actor and amateur painter (died 1831)
- May 11 – Ralph Earl, American Loyalist painter (died 1801)
- May 25 (bapt.) – John Raphael Smith, English painter and mezzotint engraver (died 1812)
- June 5 – Georg Haas, Danish engraver (died 1817)
- July 4
- Giuseppe Ceracchi, Italian-born portrait sculpture and republican (guillotined 1801)
- Heneage Finch, 4th Earl of Aylesford, British peer, politician and artist (died 1812)
- August 2 – Nicolas-Marie Gatteaux, French medal engraver (died 1832)
- September 13 – Hendrik Kobell, Dutch landscape and marine painter, etcher, draftsman and watercolorist (died 1799)
- October 6 – John Webber, English landscape artist (died 1793)
- December 8 – Heinrich Füger, German portrait and historical painter (died 1818)
- December 20 – Daniël Dupré, Dutch engraver, painter, draftsman, and watercolorist (died 1817)
- December 31 – Johann Baptist von Lampi the Elder, Austrian historical and portrait painter (died 1830)
- date unknown
- George Brookshaw, English painter and illustrator (died 1823)
- William Hamilton, English painter (died 1801)
- Anna Maria Mengs, German portrait painter in pastel and miniature (died 1792)
- Thomas Sheraton, English furniture designer (died 1806)
- John Keyse Sherwin, English engraver and painter (died 1790)
- Henry Tresham, Irish-born painter of large-scale history paintings (died 1814)
Deaths
- January 6 - Carl Marcus Tuscher, German-born Danish polymath, portrait painter, printmaker, architect, and decorator (born 1705)
- January 29 – Jacob van Schuppen, Austrian painter (born 1670)
- March 8 – Jan František Händl, Czech Roman Catholic priest and baroque painter (born 1691)
- August 1 – Helena Arnell, one of the first Finnish painters and few female artists (born 1697)
- September 21 – Annibale Albani, Italian Cardinal and art collector (born 1682)
- date unknown
- Francesco Andreini, Italian painter (born 1697)
- Jean Charles Flipart, French engraver (born 1682)
- Giovanni Domenico Lombardi, Italian painter in Lucca (born 1682)
- Michele Rocca, Italian painter who practised in Rome (born 1671)
References
- ^ Palmer, Alan; Palmer, Veronica (1992). The Chronology of British History. London: Century Ltd. pp. 220–221. ISBN 0-7126-5616-2.
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