Slightly Surprising

Boucher's work is mostly associated with light and sensual European romanticism.

So the two darker Asian images below are slightly surprising as coming from his hand . . . except that these are 'sketches' for tapestries, undoubtedly destined for the palace walls of light and sensual European romantics.

François Boucher — Audience with Emperor of China — 1742

François Boucher — La Pêche chinoise — 1742

Sensual and Erotic

François Boucher is my favorite Rococo artist, though there's a lot of his more sentimental mawkish work I don't care for. What I do like is along the line of his mythological oeuvre, which is a sensual and erotic reverie (more or less a definition of Rococo).

'Rococo' originally was a term of insult, invented by a student of the Neo-Classical artist Jacque-Louis David. It described art which was as florid and busy as the shells and rocks used to line the walls of grottos. It was synonymous with feminized erotic titillation. Yeah, so?

The term is now used without being quite so judgmental.

François Boucher — The Triumph of Venus — 1740

Triumph of Venus — detail

François Boucher — a study of Putti in Clouds

Since he's gotta have 'em in there, Boucher's putti are nice enough. But, to me, the concept of putti is off-putting (yeah, my idea of a pun). I can just imagine them whizzing around through the air, um, whizzing yellow rain, making them as bad or worse than pigeons.