![Guitar Player (ca. 1757) “Oil on canvas, 62 x 48 cm” [Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Warsaw, Poland] -- Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French; 1725 – 1805) | by La Música en La Pintura - Music in Painting.](http://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52392580472_9c93fb21f8.jpg)
Guitar Player (ca. 1757) “Oil on canvas, 62 x 48 cm” [Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Warsaw, Poland] -- Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French; 1725 – 1805)
Original title: L'Oiseleur accordant sa guitare (a bird catcher tunes his guitar)
The painting shows a young The Birdcatcher who, after returning from a hunt, tunes a guitar. The work is full of allusions and hidden meanings. In the iconographic tradition, dating back to the 16th century, the The Birdcatcher surrounded by hunting attributes was understood as an image of a seducer, a lover hunting for a woman's virtue. Greuze quite often showed young women with dead birds, which - according to the then famous writer and art critic Denis Diderot - was a reference to lost virginity and honor. Returning from a successful hunt and tuning the guitar should be interpreted as preparing the seducer for the next love hunt, because the guitar was treated in the modern tradition as one of the attributes of love.
Guitar Player is an exceptional picture in Greuze's work. It was created in the years 1755–1757, during the painter's stay in Rome. Following the example of all the great artists of the modern period, Greuze went on a Grand Tour to Italy to get to know the famous works of art and the places where they were made. The painting was exhibited after the artist's return, at the Paris Salon in 1757, along with a group of works created during this stay. Among the works shown is the painting "The Lazy Italian" (Wadsworth Atheneum of Art, Hartford), which is a pendant to the Warsaw work. Critics at that time included both paintings in the group of bambochades (it. Greuze, in the period preceding his study trip to Rome, got to know Dutch and Flemish art of the 17th century, mainly on the basis of engravings. The message of the Warsaw "Guitar Player" should be considered in the context of the aforementioned composition "Lazy Italian", as both images create an opposition between male and female sexuality, activity and passivity, between the hunter and the victim. Due to the accumulation of symbolic objects, they illustrate two deadly sins: lust and laziness. Throughout his work, Greuze strongly emphasized the function of art as an ethical instruction. He referred to the trend of moral reconstruction of society, which was very popular in painting and French literature in the 18th century, by stigmatizing sins that lead to the loss of human dignity. In his understanding, art was to show people the tragic consequences of bad deeds, awake consciences and ennoble people. [Iwona Danielewicz]
Source: Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie
cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl/en/catalog/507209
Jean Baptiste Greuze was a French painter best known for his portraits, genre scenes, and history paintings. Greuze’s work was known for having sentimental and sometimes titillating subject matter, as well as for its formal combination of Rococo and Dutch Realist styles. Born on August 21, 1725 in Tournus, France, Greuze studied with Charles Grandon in Lyon and later at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris. He would go on to apply to be a member of the Académie in Paris with mixed success, having applied with history paintings but only granted acceptance as a genre painter. Ultimately, Greuze’s marriage proved to be his downfall, since his wife both cheated on him and embezzled his money before their divorce. By the end of his life, Greuze, whose work had commanded some of the highest prices in France during the 1760s and 1770s, was nearly bankrupt. Today, his works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Louvre Museum in Paris, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among others. Greuze died on March 4, 1805 in Paris, France.
Source: Artnet
Guitar Player (ca. 1757) “Oil on canvas, 62 x 48 cm” [Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Warsaw, Poland] -- Jean-Baptiste Greuze (French; 1725 – 1805)
Original title: L'Oiseleur accordant sa guitare (a bird catcher tunes his guitar)
The painting shows a young The Birdcatcher who, after returning from a hunt, tunes a guitar. The work is full of allusions and hidden meanings. In the iconographic tradition, dating back to the 16th century, the The Birdcatcher surrounded by hunting attributes was understood as an image of a seducer, a lover hunting for a woman's virtue. Greuze quite often showed young women with dead birds, which - according to the then famous writer and art critic Denis Diderot - was a reference to lost virginity and honor. Returning from a successful hunt and tuning the guitar should be interpreted as preparing the seducer for the next love hunt, because the guitar was treated in the modern tradition as one of the attributes of love.
Guitar Player is an exceptional picture in Greuze's work. It was created in the years 1755–1757, during the painter's stay in Rome. Following the example of all the great artists of the modern period, Greuze went on a Grand Tour to Italy to get to know the famous works of art and the places where they were made. The painting was exhibited after the artist's return, at the Paris Salon in 1757, along with a group of works created during this stay. Among the works shown is the painting "The Lazy Italian" (Wadsworth Atheneum of Art, Hartford), which is a pendant to the Warsaw work. Critics at that time included both paintings in the group of bambochades (it. Greuze, in the period preceding his study trip to Rome, got to know Dutch and Flemish art of the 17th century, mainly on the basis of engravings. The message of the Warsaw "Guitar Player" should be considered in the context of the aforementioned composition "Lazy Italian", as both images create an opposition between male and female sexuality, activity and passivity, between the hunter and the victim. Due to the accumulation of symbolic objects, they illustrate two deadly sins: lust and laziness. Throughout his work, Greuze strongly emphasized the function of art as an ethical instruction. He referred to the trend of moral reconstruction of society, which was very popular in painting and French literature in the 18th century, by stigmatizing sins that lead to the loss of human dignity. In his understanding, art was to show people the tragic consequences of bad deeds, awake consciences and ennoble people. [Iwona Danielewicz]
Source: Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie
cyfrowe.mnw.art.pl/en/catalog/507209
Jean Baptiste Greuze was a French painter best known for his portraits, genre scenes, and history paintings. Greuze’s work was known for having sentimental and sometimes titillating subject matter, as well as for its formal combination of Rococo and Dutch Realist styles. Born on August 21, 1725 in Tournus, France, Greuze studied with Charles Grandon in Lyon and later at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris. He would go on to apply to be a member of the Académie in Paris with mixed success, having applied with history paintings but only granted acceptance as a genre painter. Ultimately, Greuze’s marriage proved to be his downfall, since his wife both cheated on him and embezzled his money before their divorce. By the end of his life, Greuze, whose work had commanded some of the highest prices in France during the 1760s and 1770s, was nearly bankrupt. Today, his works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Louvre Museum in Paris, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among others. Greuze died on March 4, 1805 in Paris, France.
Source: Artnet