Portrait de chardin biography

Birth Year :
Death Year :
Country : France

Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin was born in Paris. He was the son of a carpenter, and the environment of craftsmen and humble middle-class people into which he was born did much to determine his life and art. Similarly, his study of seventeenth-century Flemish and Dutch genre paintings was far more important to his artistic development than the academic training he received from Pierre Jacques Cazes, Nicolas Coypel, and Jean Baptiste Vanloo. After having attracted attention at an exhibition Chardin became a member of the Royal Academy in Thereafter his work received the appreciation it deserved and the favor of the king, who granted him an apartment in the Louvre and a pension.

From until , Chardin painted scenes of middle-class life to which he brought a special comprehension, and in which children play an important role. He then devoted himself principally to still life and finally, between and , he drew portraits in pastel that are among the finest of their kind. Chardin was first of all a craftsman, but he was enough a man of his time to have absorbed the subtle tonality and delicate texture of French painting of the era