Pair of gallant scenes

18th century, French School Pair of gallant scenes (2) Oil on panel, 24 x 19 cm With frame, 44 x 36 cm This pair of works, attributable to the artistic context of 18th-century France, celebrates the theme of courtly love and sensual pleasure, typical of Rococo painting: in fact, two courtship scenes are represented that closely follow the parameters of ancient court rituals. The atmosphere of festivity and amusement that transpires from the two canvases perfectly reflects the carefree and refined lifestyle of the aristocracy gravitating around the main European courts in the 18th century. The attention to detail, such as precious fabrics, jewels, and extremely valuable ornaments, underlines the luxury and refinement of court life, in line with the taste and aesthetics of French Rococo. The two works in question fully fall within the pictorial genre, purely eighteenth-century, of the gallant scene. This current was radically opposed to the imposing and solemn classicism of the previous century, and wanted to communicate an undeniable sense of voluptuousness, frivolity, and inevitable decadence, in a sort of lost paradise. By now, the nobility, almost totally deprived of the power that belonged firmly to them until the seventeenth century, with its lavish parties tried in vain to demonstrate its apparent wealth in these paintings, voice of the spirit of the time. This current of painting, which, around the middle of the century enjoyed immense fortune, was swept away by the events that followed the French Revolution. In these two small gallant scenes we strongly perceive the influence of the activity of the key figures of 18th-century art in France, Watteau and Boucher. Jean-Antoine Watteau was one of the initiators of the Rococo style in French territory, with his scenes of gallant parties and his marvelous bucolic landscapes populated by mythical characters or by a courtly audience that loves life and its pleasures madly. Influenced by Rubens and the works of the early eighteenth century of the flourishing Venetian school, with particular reference to Tiepolo's production, the French artist prefers the use of a colorful, expressive and vibrant palette, as well as the use of sharp, fast brushstrokes. Close to the teachings of Watteau is also François Boucher, who has dedicated himself more to the perfection of perspective, learned from the Baroque masters, and to the search for a lively colorism, borrowed from the models, perceived as absolutely illustrious, of Rubens and Correggio. The courtly and gallant scenes of the French artist have a bucolic and pastoral air, which seems to be perceptible also in these two paintings, a mirror of the French artistic climate of the second half of the eighteenth century.