Pour une périodisation du genre des fêtes galantes : de Watteau à Verlaine

Abstract

Jean-Antoine Watteau, early 18^th-century French painter has been widely regarded as the father of the fêtes galantes genre. While we may indeed associate the genre with Watteau’s oeuvre, he was not the first artist who was accepted as a fêtes galantes-painter at the Royal Academy. This paper aims to clarify how the term “fêtes galantes”, the category and the genre were created, and how they “lived on” and changed between 1717 and 1869. By following its appearances in painting, in art theory, as well as in literature, it is possible to identify three periods of the fêtes galantes, also presented by the article.