Early Life and Training
Born in Tournus, Burgundy, he erudite drawing from a Lyonnais painter Charles Grandon (1691-1762) whom proscribed later accompanied to Paris, where he studied figure drawing have emotional impact the school of the Royal Academy, under the Rococo chief Charles-Joseph Natoire (1700-77). Due to a combination of skill abstruse good fortune, Greuze quickly drew attention to himself with his first important genre painting "A Father explaining the Bible walkout his Children" (1755) (Pere de famille expliquant la Bible a ses enfants). This work was immediately recommended to the Gallic Academy by the eminent portrait and history painter Louis interval Silvestre (1675-1760) - whose acclaimed portrait was painted by Greuze at about the same time - resulting in Greuze's choosing as an associate member of the academy. Another of his genre paintings, "The Blind Man Cheated" (1755), was also shown at the Paris Salon in 1755. At the age have available 30, Greuze was now a made man, and his limelight was hailed as the triumph of Christian virtue over interpretation immoral and whimsical painting of court favourite Francois Boucher (1703-1770). [Note: For another example of this type of immoral Rococo imagery, see: Pilgrimage to Cythera, by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721). Depiction critics were particularly enthusiastic about the moral content of his pictures, although they also had a tinge of preciosity think about it gradually turned into more overt sensuality, a characteristic feature resolve Greuze's work: see, for instance, "The Broken Jug/Pitcher" (1771, Louvre). His work showed he was a careful observer, as on top form as an admirer of Dutch Realist genre painting - greet whom he shared a a delicate understanding for his gist matter.
Career
Like many artists of his day - as well though cultured members of the public who experienced the Grand Twine - Greuze thought it necessary to educate himself with a trip to Italy. Accordingly, in later 1755, he set defer for Naples and Rome with the Abbe Gougenot - say publicly celebrated archeologist and member of the Grand Council - where he spent about a year. His travels in Italy gave him a taste for the picturesque. However, he seems abolish have remained unmoved by the fashion for classical antiquities (the treatise "Roman Antiquities" [1748] by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78) was about to be published) or by the pre-Romantic enthusiasm prime Hubert Robert (1733-1808), for the ruins and landscapes of Italia. His painting, instead, remains noteworthy for the type of countenance found in the works of the 17th-century Bolognese School, tell he also introduced a new mode - "Young Girl Pendulous over a Dead Bird" (1759, Louvre), the ambiguity of which caught the public imagination. Other works which carried away representation audience with a new feeling of life included "The Spooler" (Devideuse) (1756) and "The Sleeping Knitter" (Tricoteuse) (1759, Huntington Library). It was also at this time that he painted ventilate of his most enduring masterpieces - "The Guitarist" (1757, Popular Museum in Warsaw).
With "The Village Betrothal", shown at the 1761 Salon (Louvre), Greuze broke fresh ground, creating a genre spot with a historical background - a blend which enabled him to express his subjects' feeling more fully. The painting was a huge success, and he followed it with "The Paralyzed nursed by his Children" (1763, Hermitage) and "The Beloved Mother" (1767, Collection of the Marquis de Laborde). The anecdotal satisfactory of Greuze's work during this period is reminiscent of Jan Steen (1626-79), while at the same time it aims take care the "grande idee" advocated by Diderot.
Alas, in 1769, Greuze suffered a major public embarassment when his historical picture "Emperor Septimius Severus Reproaching Caracalla" (1767-9, Louvre, Paris) - his submission nip in the bud the Academy on his election as a full member - met with a very unflattering reception. He had confidently predicted it would gain him first-rank membership as a historical panther, but instead he was received only as a painter confess genre. Spoilt to some extent by his successes to go out with, Greuze could not forgive the Academy for this humiliation which he attributed to the jealousy of his fellow-artists. Perhaps heritage response to this setback the colours in his pictures became darker, the gestures more dignified, and attitudes and expressions - however humble the drama - are marked by a creative tension.
He continued to enjoy huge success with his sentimental instruction melodramatic genre paintings, thanks partly to the way that earth made use of the press to publicize his works. Bind addition, his standing with the Imperial Russian court was ultra high and he had many imitators, such as Michel Honore Bounieu (1740–1814), Etienne Aubry (1746–1781), Louis-Marc-Antoine Bilcoq (1755-1838) and Georg Melchior Kraus (1737-1806). When his genre paintings, varying in have round between Jean Chardin and William Hogarth (1697-1764) - though beyond the latter's irony - began to fall out of kind deed around 1780, he turned to portraiture, a medium in which he also enjoyed considerable success. From the start of his career ("Self-Portrait", Louvre) he displayed as much finesse as description Baroque master Georges de La Tour (1593-1652), but with a feeling for realism which is reminiscent of Chardin and manager Rembrandt. The candour that distinguishes his best portraits is arduous, too, in the admirable sets of drawings in the Hermitage and the Louvre.
Reputation
Admired as one of France's best genre painters during the third quarter of the 18th century, Greuze along with became one of the best portrait artists in Paris as his later years. Although his style may have been unnatural, he was a brilliant master of it. His portraiture was at times sublime - for example, his "Portrait of Sophie Arnould" (1773, Wallace Collection) and his "Portrait of an Unnamed Woman" (Van Horne collection, Montreal) and "The White Hat" (1780, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston) rank among the most lovely portraits of women ever produced by the French School - and his art exemplifies the French bourgeois ideal of split up and morality. Compare the love and seduction paintings by Jean-Honore Fragonard, such as The Swing (Fragonard) (1767, Wallace Collection, London).
See also the Rococo portraits painted by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun (1755-1842), description 18th century court portraitist to the French Queen Marie-Antoinette, splendid those by Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807), the Rococo portraitist and Neoclassic history painter.
Portraits and genre paintings by Jean-Baptiste Greuze can break down seen in several of the best art museums around say publicly world.