Art Institute of Chicago

Study after Apollo Revealing his Divinity before the Shepherdess Isse

Studio of François Boucher

Date

c. 1750

Medium

Black chalk, with stumping and red chalk, heightened with white chalk, on buff laid paper, laid down on cream laid card

Culture

France

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

“I have seen enough of bosoms and buttocks,” wrote the French philosopher and critic Denis Diderot (1713–1784), discussing the paintings of François Boucher. What Diderot and others considered Boucher’s decadent frivolity was associated with the excesses and corruption of the monarchy (Boucher was named first painter to the king in 1765). In other words, Boucher’s work was seen as embodying, in aesthetic form, everything that led to the French Revolution. His style was rejected by the next generation of artists in France in favor of a simpler, more honest style inspired by ancient Rome and Greece.

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