François Boucher

Painter, artist

• Born: September 29, 1703
• Place of Birth: Place of birth: Paris, France
• Died: May 30, 1770
• Place of Death: Place of death: Paris, France

Significance: François Boucher was an eighteenth-century French painter whose work was acknowledged by the experts of his time and in demand among the French royalty and nobility. He is generally considered the most influential rococo-style painter and credited with spreading the movement throughout Europe.

Background

François Boucher was born on September 29, 1703, in Paris. He was the son of Nicolas Boucher, a lace maker and minor painter who may have given his son his first art instruction. When Boucher was seventeen, his father apprenticed him to the French rococo painter François Lemoyne, who would go on to be the First Painter to the King. Boucher remained with Lemoyne only a short time before moving on to work and live with etcher Jean-François Cars, who taught the young man the art of engraving.

During this time, Boucher won the Grand Prix de Rome, one of several scholarships awarded by French monarchs that allowed the winner to travel to Italy to study at the French Academy in Rome. However, there was no room for Boucher at the school when he won in 1723, and his travel was postponed. While he waited, Boucher painted and put his engraving skills to use creating a number of etchings for a print compendium entitled Recueil Jullienne. Studying the works of Antoine Watteau that were the basis for the prints in the compendium became part of Boucher’s education in visual imagery.

In 1728, Boucher finally made the long-awaited trip to Rome at his own expense. When his study ended, he returned to France. He was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1731, and in 1734, he was given full membership in the academy after completing Rinaldo and Armida.

Life’s Work

Once Boucher became part of the academy and its faculty, demand for his art increased. King Louis XV commissioned many works for his residences, as did members of the French nobility.

Boucher’s first commissions were for the king, beginning in 1735. A number of these depicted hunting scenes and were intended for the king’s many residences throughout France. Among the more famous of these were two exotic hunt scenes, La Chasse au Tigre and La Chasse au Crocodile. Boucher also became the favorite painter of the king’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour (also known as Jeanne Antoinette Poisson). She became Boucher’s patroness, and he gave her painting lessons and also painted her portrait several times. One of these, Madame de Pompadour, painted in 1756, is considered one of Boucher’s greatest masterpieces.

Some of his famous pieces depict mythological figures, such as Diana after the Bath painted in 1742, the Toilette of Venus painted in 1751, and the Setting of the Sun (1752) and the Rising of the Sun (1753). Others feature rustic pastoral and country life, such as Le Dejeuner painted in 1739 and Pensent-ils au Raisin, which Boucher painted in 1747. Boucher was also known for his portrayals of religious scenes, such as Virgin and Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist and Angels and St. Peter Attempting to Walk on Water painted in 1765 and 1766, respectively. Throughout his diverse and prolific career, Boucher also produced a number of works that became the basis of tapestries, and he was the director for Gobelins manufactory of tapestries from 1755 to 1770.

Boucher also frequently painted nudes and semi-erotic paintings, which earned him criticism for being morally corrupt. Some of these paintings used Boucher’s wife and members of his family as models, bringing further criticism on the artist. However, on the whole, he was celebrated for his work and was recognized with several tributes during his lifetime, culminating with being named the First Painter to the King and director of the Acadamie Royale, both in 1765.

Boucher died in Paris in 1770 at the age of sixty-six.

Impact

In a career spanning five decades, Boucher was prolific and versatile in both subject matter and artistic media. During his lifetime, he completed hundreds of paintings and engravings as well as thousands of drawings that depicted mythology, family life, hunting, religious scenes, and other topics. He is significant with the light, colorful, elegant, and highly ornamental style of rococo art that began in France in the 1720s.

His works continued to be shown in exhibitions into the twenty-first century. For example, in 2024, his paintings appeared in an exhibition at the Wallace Collection in London.

Personal Life

Boucher married Marie-Jeanne Buseau in 1733, when she was seventeen and he was thirty. They had three children: two daughters, one born in 1735 and the other in 1740, and a son born in 1736. It is generally believed that the family depicted in Le Dejeuner is the artist and his family.

Bibliography

"Flora Yukhnovich and François Boucher." Enfilade, 2 July 2024, enfilade18thc.com/2024/07/02/exhibition-flora-yukhnovich-and-francois-boucher/. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.

"François Boucher." The Art Story. 2024, www.theartstory.org/artist/boucher-francois/. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.

"François Boucher." J. Paul Getty Museum, www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/103JVY. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.

"François Boucher (1703–1770)." The Met, October 2003, www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bouc/hd‗bouc.htm. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.

François Boucher, 1703–1770. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1986. Print.

"Genius of the French Rococo: The Drawings of François Boucher (1703–1770) and Boucher’s Mythological Paintings: The Last Great Series Reunited." Kimball Art Museum. 2024, kimbellart.org/exhibition/genius-french-rococo. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.