Jean-Baptiste Greuze: The Laundress
Greuze's La Blanchisseuse (The Laundress) was very well received by critics at the Salon of 1761. But by 1983, when it was acquired by the Getty Museum, it had been largely overlooked by art historians for the simple reason that it had long belonged to a series of Swedish private collections not available for scholarly scrutiny. Furthermore, Greuze's work, which combines homely pathos, sentimental moral edification, and a sly eroticism that powerfully appealed to the sensibilities of his contemporaries (Diderot's in particular) , had become largely discredited because of changes in aesthetic taste. Beginning in the 1960s and 70s, however, eighteenth-century artists, and especially Greuze, have benefited from a remarkable renewal of interest on the part of such distinguished art historians as Anita Brookner and Edgar Munhall, among others.
Our relatively newfound appreciation of Greuze now includes Colin Baily's fine monograph, greatly enhanced by a beautiful presentation and superb illustrations. Baily demonstrates how a perceptive reading of a single painting can illuminate not only the whole oeuvre and career of an artist whose importance has by now been fully acknowledged, but also the complex sociological and aesthetic tensions of Ancien Régime France. His analysis skillfully proceeds on several levels, explaining topical events, the role of patronage in the contemporary art world, the dissemination of paintings through engravings, the difficulties Greuze experienced with the stodgy Academy's hostility to the gifted and independent-minded genre painter, and Greuze's indebtedness to visual and literary popular sources, notably Dutch cabinet painting and the genre poissard. Like the Goncourt brothers, Baily compares Greuze's depictions of domestic servants to Chardin's, offering thought-provoking observations on the differences between these two artists. Greuze's Laundress, for instance, differs markedly from Chardin's Washerwoman. Greuze's laundress is fetchingly young and pretty, and her gaze is enticingly, even provocatively directed toward the onlooker, whereas Chardin's washerwoman is represented with a gentle, quiet but stately dignity and detachment.
Baily's most original chapter is devoted to a fascinating exploration of the actual world of Parisian laundresses, washerwomen, and maidservants and the ways in which they were represented in eighteenth-century literature and art. He shows how in The Laundress Greuze turned a literary trope common in the novels of the time, the maidservant-as-seductress, into the sexually charged image of the young laundress with the enticingly inviting look. Diderot's terse comment upon viewing the painting in 1761 still rings true: "This little laundress leaning over . . . and pressing the linen between her hands is charming; but she is roguish, and I wouldn't trust her an inch." It is fitting that Colin Baily should pay generous tribute to Diderot--the philosopher turned art critic whose enthusiasm for Greuze had so long been decried and ridiculed as evidence of his poor judgment and aesthetic sense--as "the most perceptive and articulate art critic of the Ancien Regime" (2).
Yet another attractive feature of this outstanding study is Baily's lively, readable style. The author's familiarity with the latest scholarship in eighteenth-century art is amply borne out by his rich scholarly apparatus and numerous, informative endnotes. This monograph is a notable contribution to a fuller appreciation of an important but all-too frequently misunderstood eighteenth-century artist.
