Madame de Pompadour & Enlightenment Art

Though Madame de Pompadour's relationship as lover, confident, and adviser to King Louis XV is a fascinating subject, the purpose of this essay is to examine how this remarkable eighteenth century woman influenced the art of her era. It will be demonstrated in this report that Pompadour used her position and influence to promote the careers of several well known Enlightenment figures. Among these figures were Voltaire, Francois Boucher, and the court artist Jean-Marc Nattier.

Part of Madame de Pompadour's success in establishing royal patronage of the arts was facilitated by the fact that she lived in an era "when France dominated the European artistic scene" and consequently, "had at her disposal the best of the country's painters

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s a emans of crting what could be considered a Personal "brand' or image that would keep her firmly fixed in the mind and heart of Louis XV (The National Gallery, 1). One of Pompadour's most favored rtists was Boucher, described by Jones (5) as a "versatile master of the roccoco style which was so dominant in this period and which Pompadour did much to endorse." Boucher painted Pompadour's image many times in many different costomes, mythological and realistic settings, and moods. Jones (5) described some of these paintings as follows: "From his sketches of her in 1750 down to his last portrait of her in 1759, Boucher presented Pompadour as an unchanging ideal of beauty. He also highlighted Pompadour's cultural accomplishments. A 1750 sketch currently held at the Louvre portrays her as a beautiful bluestocking, a rococo femme savante, bedecked with roses but also tinkling at a harpsichord while at her feet lie a globe, a scrolled architectural sketch, drawing and engraving tools and leatherbound volumes resplendent with her heraldic arms. The painting clearly represented Pompadour as a practitioner as well as a patron of the arts (she did indeed engrave, under instruction from Boucher, as well as being an accomplished musicia
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Approximate Word count = 2708
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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