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Jean Siméon Chardin looked for beauty in everyday things.
From the 1730s onwards he focused on figure painting,
which was considered superior to still-life within the hierarchy
of pictorial genres. He thus produced scenes in which the subject
is an extremely simple, humble one such as a young boy blowing soap bubbles
or a girl teaching her younger brother to read.
Other, even smaller compositions include a mother saying grace
with her children before the meal.
The Bénédicité was perhaps the most popular picture in France.
It was very popular because it gave the idea of France
in the XVIII century, the idea of the country, of the bourgoisie,
the opposite idea that one has of the dissolute life of the kings.
The opposite of the image that Boucher gave,
so in France everyone had the feeling that Chardin
was the France of the XVIII century,
the France which would do the French Revolution.
This picture was very popular, the one in the show here
was in fact given to the King as a gift by Chardin.
But I mean, this is one aspect of Chardin and in a certain way in our days the picture is a little bit too anecdotal.
Nowadays we prefer pictures without a real subject, where the subject is done with pressures.
The Bénédicité is a crucial picture for the readers discovery of Chardin,
it is a very beautiful picture but perhaps it is not the Chardin that we like now.
This is also the greatness of Chardin, that each generation has it’s own Chardin,
each generation reads him differently and this is the effect of a great artist.