The Quiet Mastery of Jean-Siméon Chardin

The 18th-century French artist created a beguiling oeuvre of portraits, still lifes and genre scenes

  • By Phyllis Tuchman
  • Smithsonian magazine, June 2000, Subscribe
 

 

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    Denis Diderot called him "an old sorcerer from whom age has not yet stolen his magic wand." Catherine the Great owned at least five of the artist's paintings. By the 1750s, the artist was known throughout Europe, his works in the collections of countless monarchs and dignitaries. And yet, he had never ventured very far from his birthplace on the Left Bank of Paris.

    His name was Jean-Siméon Chardin, born to a cabinetmaker who specialized in billiard tables, and trained to be a historical painter. What he became, instead, was a master of still lifes and genre scenes, painting with great sensitivity the familiar objects and settings of domestic life.

    Now, for only the second time since the artist's death in 1779, a major exhibition of Chardin's work has been launched. The current show, which opened in Paris, traveled to Düsseldorf and London before opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on June 27.

    In the many genre paintings represented, writes author Phyllis Tuchman, "scullery maids, cooks and washerwomen return from market, draw water, peel turnips.... Children, rather than pursuing their studies, take games from drawers, blow bubbles, build houses of cards and spin tops." According to the Met's director, Philippe de Montebello, "Part of the poetry in Chardin is the silence of his pictures. He captures and holds the moment for eternity."

    Much has been said about the painter's use of light and his use of color. For Chardin's part, he apparently had only this to say about how he did what he did: "One uses colors," he is said to have commented, "but one paints with feeling."


    Denis Diderot called him "an old sorcerer from whom age has not yet stolen his magic wand." Catherine the Great owned at least five of the artist's paintings. By the 1750s, the artist was known throughout Europe, his works in the collections of countless monarchs and dignitaries. And yet, he had never ventured very far from his birthplace on the Left Bank of Paris.

    His name was Jean-Siméon Chardin, born to a cabinetmaker who specialized in billiard tables, and trained to be a historical painter. What he became, instead, was a master of still lifes and genre scenes, painting with great sensitivity the familiar objects and settings of domestic life.

    Now, for only the second time since the artist's death in 1779, a major exhibition of Chardin's work has been launched. The current show, which opened in Paris, traveled to Düsseldorf and London before opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on June 27.

    In the many genre paintings represented, writes author Phyllis Tuchman, "scullery maids, cooks and washerwomen return from market, draw water, peel turnips.... Children, rather than pursuing their studies, take games from drawers, blow bubbles, build houses of cards and spin tops." According to the Met's director, Philippe de Montebello, "Part of the poetry in Chardin is the silence of his pictures. He captures and holds the moment for eternity."

    Much has been said about the painter's use of light and his use of color. For Chardin's part, he apparently had only this to say about how he did what he did: "One uses colors," he is said to have commented, "but one paints with feeling."

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