Fête galante

Fête galante (French pronunciation: ​[fɛːt ɡalɑ̃t]) (courtship party) is a term referring to a category of painting specially created by the French Academy in 1717 to describe Antoine Watteau's (1684–1721) variations on the theme of the fête champêtre which featured figures in ball dress or masquerade costumes disporting themselves amorously in parkland settings. When Watteau applied to join the French academy in 1717, there was no suitable category for his works, so the academy simply created one rather than reject his application.

Watteau specifically created the fête galante painting style as a compromise between two drives. On the one hand, most of his funding came from private individuals, rather than from the government. On the other hand, Watteau wanted recognition from the government-appointed Académie des Beaux-Arts. The Académie ranked scenes of everyday life and portraits, the paintings most desired by private patrons, as lower than morally educational paintings illustrating history and mythology. By portraying his patrons in scenes reminiscent of the mythologized land of Arcadia, where humans had supposedly lived in leisurely harmony with nature, Watteau was able to get his paintings the highest ranking at the Académie and still flatter his buyers.

After the death of Louis XIV in 1715, the aristocrats of the French court abandoned the grandeur of Versailles for the more intimate townhouses of Paris where, elegantly attired, they could play and flirt and put on scenes from the Italian commedia dell'arte.

Fête galante paintings are an important part of the rococo period of art, which saw the focus of European arts move away from the hierarchical, standardized grandeur of the church and royal court and toward an appreciation for intimacy and personal pleasures. Nonetheless, the lush, outdoor settings of fête galante paintings were often mined from earlier paintings, especially from Venetian paintings of the 16th century and Dutch paintings of the 17th century.

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