Children at Play in the Open by Nicolas Lancret

Children at Play in the Open 1705 - 1743

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painting, oil-paint

gouache

water colours

fantasy art

painting

oil-paint

landscape

figuration

genre-painting

rococo

Dimensions 27 cm (height) x 32.5 cm (width) (Netto)

Editor: Nicolas Lancret's "Children at Play in the Open," painted sometime between 1705 and 1743, is like a fleeting memory of childhood games. The way the figures blend into the landscape creates a hazy, almost dreamlike quality. What do you see in this piece? Curator: Oh, I adore how Lancret captures that feeling of carefree abandon. The Rococo style really shines here – it's all about elegance and playful fantasy. Look at how the light dances across their silk dresses! It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what game they are enacting. Is it a chase? Are they re-enacting a stageplay? What does the music add? Editor: The flute does add a theatrical air. It is quite striking how staged yet unscripted their encounter seems. Curator: Exactly! Lancret specialized in these 'fêtes galantes' – fashionable entertainments in idealized landscapes. He took Watteau's themes and ran with them, grounding the fantasy in an earthy perspective with characters from everyday life that might well invite participation. Are they inviting us to participate in their spectacle, perhaps? It speaks to me about childhood innocence. A fleeting time when pleasure is easily acquired and performed in natural ways. Editor: That connection between artifice and reality is fascinating. I guess I hadn't considered the invitation to observe – or to participate, perhaps! It makes you wonder what parts of life, and how much direction we can bring to them... Curator: Precisely! These artworks act like mirrors that show our ability to construct ourselves within an environment that remains open for creation. So in essence the players are really we. It's the perfect opportunity to play with what and how it means something and us. Editor: This piece opened new ideas of playful discovery! I learned the painting has multiple doors and they were left for me to decide where I was going. Curator: And hopefully, that perspective now makes the whole experience of "Children at Play in the Open" so much more vibrant!

Comments

statensmuseumforkunst over 1 year ago

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The beginning of the 18th century saw the introduction of a new genre within French painting, fêtes galantes or "elegant parties", which feigned to depict the aristocracy and their ritualised social gatherings, pastimes, and courting. Several later painters adopted elements from the genre but combined it with more rustic settings and characters, thereby creating more everyday-like scenes. A depiction of children playing At first glance, Lancret’s depiction of children playing looks like an everyday scene, but it also holds allusions to the codified diversions of the upper classes. The children are well-dressed, and the fragment of architecture to the right suggests that they are frolicking in one of those parks that were often the settings of the aforementioned elegant parties. The picture also contains traces of the subtle erotic allusions typical of the genre in the game played by the four girls with the adolescent boy in their midst. The girls playing, the boy trying to conquer The objective of the game is for the person in the middle to conquer a place from one of the four opponents in the four corners. Here, the boy’s attempts at making his first conquest are frustrated by the girls’ teasing gestures and secret signs. The younger children in the background are still too young to play the game and are having the rules explained to them by a slightly older boy.