Alexander Benois and the Artistic Heritage of France of the 18th Century

Abstract

The article discusses the influence of the works of Charles-Nicolas Cochin, Jean-Michel Moreau the Younger, Jacques Rigaut, Antoine Watteau, and Edmé Bouchardon on the work of Alexander Benois. A formal and stylistic analysis reveals that the engravings and Bouchardon’s sculpture “Eros” served as iconographic and artistic sources for Benois’ works “Louis 14th. Feeding fish,” “Versailles. At Curtius,” “The Marquise’s Bath,” “To Rest,” and illustrations for Pushkin’s story “The Queen of Spades.” Images of characters of the Italian comedy in paintings of Antoine Watteau shaped similar images in Benois’ works (“Italian Comedy. A Love Note,” “Winter Dream”). Based on a complex method that combines formal and stylistic observations with an analysis of data from the artist’s memories, his diaries, and works on the history of European art, the author concludes that Benois turned to engravings from the works of Watteau. His experience to repeat the painting style of this master in gouaches “Chinese Pavilion. The jealous” remains unique. The article first addressed the issue of the influence of the art of the Impressionists and William Turner. Based on this method, the author concludes that the paintings of the Impressionists and Turner influenced the embodiment of the image of Versailles park in Benois’ work at the same time as the eighteenth century French engravings (“Rain in Versailles,” “Apollo Fountain in Versailles”). Benois’ passion for Turner’s art was influenced by the work of John Ruskin’s “Modern painters,” and Richard Muther’s “Geschichne der Malerei im XIX. Jahrhunderte,” to the special attention of Benois to the genre of landscape.