FIDELITY
By JEAN BAPTISTE GREUZE


FIDELITY
JEAN BAPTISTE GREUZE (1725-1805)
IN THE WALLACE COLLECTION, LONDON

From a strictly critical point of view, the delicacy and grace of Greuze's work is marred by a certain triviality and by the pursuit of mere prettiness. Possibly these very defects contribute to the charm of his paintings and explain in a large measure their enduring popularity with the public. They are delightful in colouring and in their simplicity. One looks and admires, untroubled by any problems of life or of art. A charming head is the dominant characteristic of all these pictures of young girls. There is a family likeness between all of them, and a very similar treatment. The pose varies, the features and colourings vary, but one looks for the common likeness, and for the extra touch of bright colouring (varied in its hue) furnished, for example, by a bow in the hair which challenges the eye agreeably.

It is curious that these pictures which betray the defects of his art so conspicuously should be so well known, and his stronger work be unfamiliar to the English public. The Louvre possesses the best collection of his paintings, including the famous "Severus Reproaching Caracalla," which was judged defective when he submitted it to the Academie Royale, and led him to refrain from exhibiting at the Salon for many years.

Like many another famous painter, Greuze enjoyed his period of popularity, outlived it and died in poverty; and, like theirs also, his fame revived after his death and endures as a lasting testimony to the fickleness of popularity. To-day his work is valued in Europe and America. Most of the provincial museums of France possess their treasured examples of his paintings, and many fine pictures are contained in private collections in England. Greuze is well represented in the National Galleries of England and Scotland, while in the Wallace Collection the British nation enjoys, after the Louvre, the most representative collection of his works in existence.

From the book "Famous Paintings" Volume 2 printed in 1913.

Large files of this public domain print are available at Stock Photos at Songs of Praise
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Online "Name the Painting"









Jean-Baptiste Greuze
biography at Wikipedia

Jean-Baptiste Greuze
pronunciation

Jean-Baptiste Greuze
paintings

Jean-Baptiste Greuze
at Web Museum, Paris

Jean-Baptiste Greuze
paintings at Wikipedia


Famous Paintings in this Series





James Archer
My Great Grandmother


Bashkirtseff
The Meeting


Bouguereau
Charity


John Brett
From the Dorsetshire Cliffs


Arnesby Brown
The River Bank


Joseph Clark
Mother's Darling


John Constable
The Hay-Wain


Jean Baptiste Camille
Corot
The Fisherman's Hut


Jean Baptiste Camille
Corot
A Flood


Leonardo Da Vinci
Monna Lisa


Edouard Detaille
The Dream


Henri Fantin-Latour
Flowers


Thomas Gainsborough
Queen Charlotte


Thomas Gainsborough
The Market Cart


Jean Baptiste Greuze
The Head of a Girl


Jean Baptiste Greuze
Fidelity


James Clark Hook
Home With the Tide


Alfred William Hunt
Windsor Castle


Josef Israels
The Shipwrecked Mariner


B.W. Leader
The Stream in Summer-time


Madame Vigee Le Brun
Portrait of the Artist

Alphonse Legros
A Canal With a Fisherman


Anton Mauve
Watering Horses


J.L.E. Meissonier
The Cavalier


Sir J.E. Millais
Speak! Speak!


Sir J.E. Mallais
My First Sermon


George Morland
The Reckoning


George Morland
The Inside of a Stable


Murillo
The Immaculate Conception
of the Virgin


Alfred Parsons
When Nature Painted
All Things Gay


Ralph Peacock
The Sisters


Rembrandt
Syndics of the
Cloth Merchants' Guild


Guido Reni
"Ecce Homo"


Sir Joshua Reynolds
Portrait of Mrs. Richard Hoare
With Her Infant Son


Briton Riviere
The Temptation
in the Wilderness


Dante Gabriel
Rossetti
Day Dreams


John Singer Sargent
Miss Ellen Terry
as Lady Macbeth


Lady Stanley
(Dorothy Tennant)
His First Offence


Jan Steen
Grace Before Meat


Marcus Stone
On the Road from
Waterloo to Paris


Constant Troyon
Watering Cattle


H.S. Tuke
"All Hands to the Pumps"


Velazquez
King Philip IV. of Spain


S.E. Waller
Sweethearts and Wives


Thomas Webster
The Smile

Index
Famous Paintings Volume 1
Art Gallery

Index
Famous Paintings Volume 2
Art Gallery

Index
Art Appreciation
Lessons