The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (507 page)

watercolour
.

Term that can, in its broadest sense, be applied to any paint bound with a
medium
(generally
gum
arabic) soluble in water. In normal parlance, however, the term ‘watercolour’ generally refers specifically to a type of painting in which the lighter tones are not obtained by adding white pigment but by thinning with water so that the light is given by the paper or other support showing more strongly through the thinner layers of paint. It can thus be distinguished from other kinds of painting, such as
gouache
, that use water as a medium but are opaque. Although there are isolated earlier examples of leading artists making memorable use of watercolour (
Dürer
and van
Dyck
, for example), its chief development took place in 18th-cent. and early 19th-cent. England, particularly in landscape. In the wake of
Impressionism
the capacity of watercolour to achieve spontaneous effects was more widely appreciated and it ceased to be so much of an English speciality. Among the modern artists who have been great exponents of the technique (in their very different ways) are
Cézanne
,
Dufy
,
Grosz
,
Klee
Nolde
, and
Sargent
.

 
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water-glass painting
.

A method of mural painting. The
pigments
are mixed with plain water and painted on the plaster, which is then coated with a solution of water-glass (potassium or sodium silicate). Potassium silicate was first made commercially as a painting
medium
in 1825. When the water-glass dries it leaves a thin film which seals the painting. As water-glass is strongly alkaline it can be used only with certain pigments. Some of the mural paintings in the House of Lords (see
MACLISE
) were executed in it, because it was thought that they would be proof against the damp and dirty atmosphere of London, but they deteriorated within ten years. Afterwards, in the 1880s, Adolf Keim of Munich improved the process, which he called
Mineral-malerei
, ‘mineral painting’. The Victorian name for it was ‘stereochromy’.

 
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(1905–85)
. English art historian. In a highly distinguished career he was director of the National Galleries of Scotland (1949–52), director of the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham (1952–70), and the holder of many other prestigious posts in Britain and the USA. His publications were centred on two main areas, British painting of the 18th cent. and Italian
Baroque
painting, his chief books being
Baroque Painting in Rome
(1937, revised edn. 1976),
Painting in Britain
1530–1790 (1953 and several revised edns.),
Italian Baroque Painting
(1962), a monograph on
Gainsborough
(1958), and two on
Reynolds
(1941 and 1973),
The Dictionary of British 18th-Century Painters
(1981), and
The Dictionary of British 16th- and 17th-Century Painters
(published posthumously 1988). He wore his great erudition lightly and was one of the most entertaining writers among art historians.

 
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(1849–1917).
English painter. Early in his career he painted Greek and Roman subjects, but in the 1880s he turned to literary themes, painted in a distinctive, dreamily romantic style. In approach he was influenced by the
Pre-Raphaelites
, but his handling of paint is quite different from theirs—rich and sensuous. His work includes such classic Victorian anthology pieces as
The Lady of Shalott
(Tate Gallery, London, 1888) and
Hylas and the Nymphs
(City Art Gallery, Manchester, 1896).

 
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(1684–1721)
. The greatest French painter of his period and one of the key figures of
Rococo
art. He was born at Valenciennes, which had passed to France from the Spanish Netherlands only six years before his birth, and he was regarded by contemporaries as a Flemish painter. There are indeed strong links with Flanders in his art, but it also has a sophistication that is quintessentially French. He moved to Paris in about 1702 and
c.
1703–7 he worked with
Gillot
, who stimulated his interest in theatrical costume and scenes from daily life. Soon afterwards he joined Claude
Audran
, Keeper of the Luxembourg Palace, and thus had access to
Rubens's
Marie de Médicis
paintings, which were of enormous influence on him, even though Rubens's robustness was far removed from the fragile delicacy that characterized Watteau's art. Rubens was one of the prime inspirations for the type of picture with which Watteau is most associated—the
fête galante
(see
FÊTE CHAMPÊTRE
), in which exquisitely dressed young people idle away their time in a dreamy, romantic, pastoral setting. The tradition of lovers in a parkland setting goes back via
Giorgione
to the medieval type known as the Garden of Love, but Watteau was the first painter to make the theme his own, and his individuality was recognized by his contemporaries. In 1717 he submitted a characteristic work,
The Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera
(Louvre, Paris; a slightly later variant is in Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin), as his reception piece to the Academy, and owing to the difficulty of fitting him into recognized categories was received as a ‘peintre de fêtes galantes’, a title created expressly for him. He was, indeed, a highly independent artist, who did not readily submit to the will of patrons or officialdom, and the novelty and freshness of his work delivered French painting from the yoke of Italianate academicism, creating a truly ‘Parisian’ outlook that endured until the
Neoclassicism
of
David
. Watteau's world is a highly artificial one (apart from scenes of love he took his themes mainly from the theatre), but underlying the frivolity is a feeling of melancholy, reflecting the certain knowledge that all the pleasures of the flesh are transient. This poetic gravity distinguishes him from his imitators, and parallels are often drawn between Watteau's own life and character and the content of his paintings. He was notorious for his irritable and restless temperament and died early of tuberculosis, and it is felt that the constant reminder of his own mortality that his illness entailed ‘infected’ his pictures with a melancholic mood. In 1719 he travelled to London, almost certainly to consult the celebrated physician Dr Richard Mead , but the hard English winter worsened his condition. His early death came when he may have been making a new departure in his art, for his last important work combines something of the straightforward naturalism of his early pictures in the Flemish tradition with the exquisite sensitivity of his
fêtes galantes
: it is a shop sign painted for the picture dealer Edmé Gersaint and known as
L'Enseigne de Gersaint
(Staatliche Mus., Berlin, 1721).
Watteau was careless in matters of material technique and many of his paintings are in consequence in a poor state of preservation. A complete picture of his genius depends all the more, then, on his numerous superb drawings, many of them scintillating studies from the life. He collected his drawings into large bound volumes and used these books as a reference source for his paintings (the same figure often appears in more than one picture). In spite of his difficult temperament, Watteau had many loyal friends and supporters who recognized his genius, and although his reputation suffered with the Revolution and the growth of Neoclassicism, he always had distinguished admirers. It is perhaps as a colourist that he has had the most profound influence. His method of juxtaposing flecks of colour on the canvas was carried further by
Delacroix
and later reduced to a science by
Seurat
and the
Neo-Impressionists
. Watteau's principal, but much inferior, followers were
Lancret
and
Pater
. He also had a nephew and a greatnephew (father and son) who worked more-or-less in his manner. They are both known as ‘Watteau de Lille’ after their main place of work—
Louis-Joseph Watteau
(1731–98) and
François-Louis-Joseph Watteau
(1758–1823).