The Paternal Blessing, or The Departure of Basile
c. 1769
Medium
Pen and brown ink, brush and black ink, gray wash and graphite, with traces of scraping, on tan laid paper, laid down on tan wove board
Dimensions
37.3 × 50.8 cm (14 11/16 × 20 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
84277
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
The second half of the 1700s was an age of great sentiment; tears flowed profusely in art and literature. Jean-Baptiste Greuze in particular capitalized on this cult of feeling. The Paternal Blessing was an illustration for a pictorial narrative by Greuze called Bazile and Thibault, or The Two Educations. It told the story of two brothers, one good and one bad. Reflecting theories of nature versus nurture espoused by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), Bazile became a good man beca...
About the Artist
Jean Baptiste Greuze · 1725–1805
Greuze's paintings are typical for his time and place in that he used clear, bright colors, with subjects exhibiting rather light attitude of eighteenth-century painting. However, he was innovative in introducing a Dutch-influenced realism into French genre painting and portraiture. Through vivid facial expressions and dramatic gestures, Greuze's moralizing paintings exemplified the new idea that ...