Francois Boucher - A Successful Artist in Life and Death

It's hard being an artist. It has been hard to be an artist since the beginning of time. There is the artistic temperament and idiosyncrasies that can often run counter to mainstream behavior. There is style preferences and talent levels that can run counter to what is popular at the time. There are so many artists who, in their time, were not considered great, but many years after their death were hailed as genius. Many artists are skilled at creating, but when it comes to business and marketing, they fall short. This is often why many artists die without a penny to their name, and why the concept of the starving artist has become so prevalent in our culture. Many artists have been able to figure out how to survive during their lives. One such artist is a French artist, François Boucher. He was able to market his many talents and skills into an artistic smorgasbord that made him an influential and integral part of the Rococo style. The Rococo taste was first enjoyed by members of the court who began to decorate their homes in a light, delicate, sensual manner using pastels, patterns of shells, flowers and vines, and soft curves. The word Rococo comes from the French word rocaille, which stands for rock and shell garden ornamentation. Not only did the painters turn from grand, dark opulence to light plays of soft color and shape, but they also left some of the heavy religious imagery behind for more current portraits, daily life images, and sensual mythological scenes. The Rococo taste is fun and sexy and light, a happier tune to sing for artists of the time. Boucher was so prolific and worked in virtually every medium in every genre. He found wide reproduction of his creations in print form. His adept skills at marketing his work found him desired for all manner of decorative arts, from porcelain, textiles, marquetry, and tapestry. Boucher was so talented creatively, and at broadcasting his talents, he is said to be the most celebrated decorative artist of the 18th century. Francois Boucher was born September 29th, 1703 in Paris. His father was a lace designer named Nicolas Boucher. A gift for the arts may have been in his blood. At only 17, Nicolas Boucher set up an apprenticeship for his son, which only lasted about three months, as he chose to work for the engraver Jean-Francois Kars. This is the beginning of Francois Boucher's key to success. He learned to use his artistic talents in many forms. He wasn't just a painter. He was an engraver, a designer, a pattern maker, ceramicist, costumer, set designer, and printmaker. By dabbling his artistic fingers into so many trades, Boucher was able to build a foundation of love for his craft and a foundation of financial fortitude to come. He began his career engraving the works of Jean-Antoine Watteau, and was employed as a printmaker and book illustrator. By the time he was 20, he won the very elite prize of the Grand Prix de Rome, an art scholarship for French artists to study in Rome at the expense of the state. Boucher took his opportunity to study in Italy four years later when he returned to France in 1731. His education and talent had landed him a gig as a historic painter at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris. Three years later, he was hired full-time and became a faculty member. In 1749, he began privately teaching engraving and drawing to Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV. François Boucher excelled during this time and advanced from professor to rector of the Academy, and by 1756 was head of the Royal Bobolin Factory. Boucher had been designing cartoons for the Beauvau tapestry manufacturing, and his designs had a significant impact on European decorative arts from tapestry to porcelain. Along with his painting, Boucher also designed theater costumes and sets for comic operas. He was heavily commissioned to add rococo splendor to stage sets and luxurious homes of royalty. He was renowned for his sensual yet seemingly innocent mythological scenes, all of this activity centering on the opera and royal palaces of Versailles and Fontainebleau. Cemented his reputation and many of his designs were engraved and reproduced onto porcelain and biscuit ware at French factories and dispersed around Europe. His tapestries became very popular and were in homes of royalty as well as wealthy French. In 1765, he received the great honor of being announced to be premier pote de roi, first painter of the king. The impact that Boucher had on rococo period of decorative arts was huge. Not only in France, but throughout Europe as well. Boucher made some three dozen plates that he etched himself and many printmakers of that time made good money reproducing his drawings and paintings. There were about 1,500 known prints of Boucher's works around today, as well as pictures that have gone on to iPhone covers and stamps. Boucher's work is still very popular today as it was in the past. He did many porcelain works and engravings that have lasted throughout centuries and are still being put on eBay for top dollar. His porcelain sculptures were reminiscent, romantic, mini miniature boxes for makeup and jewelry are still easy to find these days. He was also responsible for adapting Chinese figures to rococo taste and developing the fashion of chinois, which became very popular during the rococo period. Francois Boucher found his sweet spot as a painter and was known for voluptuous women and images evoking classical pastoral themes bathed in an idyllic glow. He painted women and images evoking classical pastoral themes bathed in an idyllic glow. He painted several portraits of Madame de Pompadour, his famous patroness who was a big fan of his and was also associated with rococo. Her portraits are tranquil and heavenly, yet there is a sense of sensuality and passion that is distinctly Boucher. His landscapes, depictions of nature, and mythological scenes are faintly to obviously erotic, amorous, and idyllic. There is a playfulness and lightheartedness to his designs that are very different than traditional epic scenes of lore and landscape. One of my favorite aspects of Boucher's contribution to rococo painting was his original depiction of the pastoral, a form of idealized landscape that exuded erotica and sentimental love using sweet shepherds playing with silk-clad shepherdesses, a smattering of delicate animals and heavenly skies. I long to be in these paintings. His use of soft feathery pinks and blues and angelic golden light was probably built from his belief that the natural world was trop vert et molle et clair, too green and badly lit. He was capable of painting the straightforward and typical scenes in portraits when appropriate, but he excelled when times called for enchantment, titillation, imagination, and frolic. Boucher's paintings and drawings embodied a shimmering world of gilded mirrors, perfumes, and powders, and a sense of innocent sexuality. Towards the end of Francois Boucher's career, his choice of high-toned palette with many shades of pinks and blues that had been the backbone of the rococo style began to fall out of favor as the neoclassicist movement came on. He was also shunned for his erotic tendencies and questionable moral fiber. Despite the slight backlash at the end of his life, he was considered more than any other artist the formulator of the rococo style and its widespread dissemination throughout Europe. When he died, the Concord Brothers, authors of the time, were quoted saying, Boucher is one of those men who represent the taste of a century, who express, personify, and embody it. He is also an artist who knew how to survive doing what he loved. He is an inspiration. His dedication to creation and his business savvy exemplify a well-rounded person who wouldn't stop doing what he loved to make money. He figured out a way to make money doing what he loved.