Jean-Siméon Chardin

Jean-Siméon Chardin's paintings give ordinary objects and household activity a concentrated visual presence within eighteenth-century French art. Vessels, food, and fabrics are arranged through subtle relations of color, light, and painted texture rather than elaborate narrative. His admission to the Royal Academy in 1728 as a painter of animals and fruit recognized a practice centered initially on still life. Domestic scenes such as The Governess bring related attention to education, work, and the relationships among figures. In The House of Cards, a boy's absorbed handling of a small construction directs attention to concentration and the balance of the cards, with the surrounding table and drawer giving the action a precise setting. He returned increasingly to still life after his main period of domestic figure painting. Late portraits in pastel extend his study of surfaces and expression into a different material, using colored strokes to describe faces and dress.