The Long Reach of Art

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Les Plaisirs du Bal ca. 1715-17 Jean-Antoine Watteau

Inspiration travels through time from art work to art work, often reinterpreted into the culture of a new time, perhaps for different purposes and sometimes even reworked into different mediums from the original.

For example, the poetic paintings of French artist Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) depicted idyllic outdoor parties of the nobility called “fêtes galantes.” One of the most famous of these was his Les Plaisirs du Bal (shown above).

The fête galante genre was coined by the French Academy in 1717 specifically to describe Watteau’s paintings “on the theme of the fête champêtre (garden or rustic party), which featured figures in ball dress or masquerade costumes disporting themselves amorously in parkland settings”. (Wikipedia)

One hundred fifty-two years later, these sophisticated pastorals (particularly Watteau’s Les Plaisirs du Bal) are said to have been the inspiration, in turn, for French poet, Pau…