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Introduction to the painting content

“The Boat on the Isle of Cité” is an oil painting created in 1717 by the French painter Jean-Antoine Huadeau. The subject matter in the painting was taken from an opera at that time, depicting a group of noble men and women who dreamed of a carefree love paradise.

Painting content

Sitai Island is a beautiful island in Greek mythology where love and poetic gods play, and where Venus, the legendary god of love, lives. Huaduo depicts the scenes of noble men and women preparing to set off for a visit there. Since it is a world of pleasure, the painter takes the blue sea as the background, and looks at the vast smoke and waves in the distance, which makes people spread out the fantasy wings of longing for this kind of environment.

The painting depicts the three sisters, each with their lover, preparing to take a boat to the Isle of Sit, seeking paradise and eternal love. The painter divides the figures into groups, and in the close-up are three sisters and their lovers, who are in pairs ready to accompany the lovers who have left.

The painter carefully conceived this plot. The men and women sitting in the front began to gradually lead the audience’s attention to a group of couples who were getting up, starting slowly, and then leaving in violation of regulations. The whole picture formed a flowing time curve, causing the movement of The contrast between the figures and the serene and silent landscape.

The composition here is a seductive mirage, and the nature depicted is poetic. The golden rays of the sun shone on the earth, and these noble couples were waiting to board the colorful boats covered with flowers one by one. The bright sunlight clearly shows the flirtatious movements of these drunken aristocratic men and women, even though the figures are on a smaller scale throughout the painting. The sails waiting in the distance further awakened the theme of this painting.

After Huaduo’s painting was completed, it was handed over to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which awarded him the honor of being a member. This painting truly reflected the life taste and psychological requirements of the court nobles at that time, and was praised by the upper class, and Huaduo also won the nickname of “Merry Painter”.

Due to the success of the painting “The Boat on the Isle of Cité”, Hua Duo was accepted as an academician by the French Academy of Arts on August 28, 1717. Since then, his reputation has grown. He was overwhelmed by the people who wanted to paint, and his life had been greatly improved, but he still painted diligently. Around the beginning of 1716, he finally had a small house that Siroi had provided for him, and he could feel at ease with his painting. This painting belongs to the one completed in 1717, the size is 129 × 194 cm, and it is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

Creative background

The artistic age of Jean-Antoine Huadot (1684-1721) was the age of the French transition from Louis XIV to Louis XV, the regency period. During this period, due to France’s incentive policies for industry, commerce and culture, the capitalist economy developed rapidly; literature and art also flourished and prospered. Famous European playwrights such as Corneille, Racine, Molière, La Fontaine, etc. were all influential figures in the French literary world at that time.

They advocate classicism, but not strict rational norms. Especially in the era of Louis XV, there was a fashionable trend in art called “Rococo style”, which gradually replaced the symmetrical Baroque style popular in the Poussin period. The Rococo style has invaded almost all areas of the spiritual life of the court nobility, whether it is painting, sculpture, or palace decoration, furniture and clothing, all of which are based on this Rococo style. This is the background of the painter Huaduo’s era.

The meaning of the word “Rococo” is “shell shape”, which is derived from the French rocaille, which is also called “Louis XV style” because it belongs to the artistic style of Louis XV. The biggest feature of this decorative style is that no matter the interior wall decoration of the building, or the pattern decorations on the furniture, picture frames and utensils, etc., all have the characteristics of slenderness, lightness, gorgeousness and richness, and the arc is C or S shape, or Use a swirl shape.

In painting, we strive for luxurious and soft colors. The theme of painting is the pursuit of love. In order to make the image as rich and sensual as possible, we use the most acceptable Greek and Roman mythology. This is the result of the pursuit of luxury and pleasure by the feudal nobles of the French court in the 18th century, and the inevitable product of the combination of wealth and power. In terms of the origin of this artistic tendency, we must also use appropriate brush and ink to explain its direct relationship with the export of porcelain and lacquerware to Europe in the Qing Dynasty.