| Chardin was born to a prosperous artisan family in Paris and lived there all
his life. Between about 1718 and 1721, he studied with two history painters,
Pierre-Jacques Cazes and Noël-Nicolas Coypel. But Chardin soon turned his
talents to still life and scenes of everyday life, called “genre painting.” He
attained critical and popular success with these modest subjects, even though
theorists and most artists considered this kind of painting to be inferior
to those that depicted people, especially famous men, engaged in noble or heroic
pursuits. . . .
:: Laura Coyle, Art historian and Independent Curator |
Text excerpted from A Capital Collection: Masterworks from
the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
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:: The Curator's Journals Project
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