Jean-Antoine Watteau Gersaint's Signboard 1721 Oil on canvas Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin Gersaint’s Signboard was painted by Jean-Antoine Watteau in 1721. Watteau was born the fall of 1684 in Valenciennes, France and in 1702, at the age of 18, he left his hometown to travel to Paris. Within the next few years he secured a job working for artist Claude Gillot through which he was exposed to the commedia dell'arte, a type of theatrical comedy show, that perhaps served as inspiration for the distinctive light hearted and whimsical genre of the fête galante that he developed and popularized through his career (1). In the years to follow Watteau would enter the Prix de Rome, an academic painters competition, and eventually gain acceptance into the Royal Academy. Five years later in 1717 he delivered his iconic fête galante reception piece, Pilgrimage to Cythera, to the Academy. Four years later in 1721, the same year of his death, Watteau painted Gersaint’s Signboard for his art dealer friend Edme Francǫis Gersaint. While Gersaint’s Signboard is often first and foremost viewed as a beautiful piece of art, and as one of Watteau’s masterpieces, its primary conception and function was to serve as a shop advertisement. Despite this it took only two weeks for the sign to be taken down from its original location and transferred into a private art collection. However, the circumstances surrounding its removal are quite unique and it seems questionable that this would have been done without Watteau’s academic prestige playing a role. When considering why this painting has become as well known as it is there are two main aspects to be aware of. The first of these is the painting as a purely artistic piece of work, and second is the context in which it was produced, both societal and and physical (2). Gersaint’s Signboard achieves success in both by being an effective advertisement and a beautiful piece of art. Imbued with an inviting golden aura, Gersaint’s Signboard depicts a larger than life interior representative of Gersaint’s small art boutique located on the Pont Notre-Dame in Paris. As a viewer we look past the intentionally invisible facade to clearly see the inner workings of the busy shop. Several potential clients are positioned inside and can be identified as the aristocratic elite through both their elegant posture and their beautiful flowing dress. On the left, three working men who stand out from the clientele appear to be in the process of packing a collection of paintings for transit. Next to them a couple enters from the street as indicated by the woman's foot still planted on the ground outside. To the right, a larger group of people by the counter scrupulously inspect the merchandise while the dealer, presumably Gersaint, looks on. Behind all of the figures the walls seem to almost overflow with paintings, a sight reminiscent of the salon, something that any prospective customer would have been familiar with. In the center of the back wall is an ajar entrance to what can only be an imaginary extension that serves to further exaggerate and project an air of grandeur upon the space of Gersaint’s shop.
Shop signs in the eighteenth century sought to inform their viewer of an establishment through the use of exaggerated visual representations and iconography. This allowed would-be customers to easily see the shop as they passed by and quickly discern what they would find inside. Watteau employed all of these techniques to advertise Gersaint’s shop. By showing aristocratic clients within the shop, Watteau is able to make the connection in the viewer's mind between the elite luxurious lifestyle they lived and the very paintings that Gersaint himself was selling (3). When considering an artist as talented and reputable as Watteau, it may seem strange to see his focus shift from academic work to that of a shop sign. Granted his friendship with Gersaint explains this to a degree, he could have just as easily made another painting for him to show on the inside of his shop; and indeed Gersaint even suggested this (3). However if you take into account Watteau’s failing health it seems entirely plausible that he may not have wanted to take on a more artistically prominent, and a more stressful, commission from an aristocratic patron. By instead painting a shop sign for his friend, Watteau allowed himself more creative freedom without fear of academic critique. This may explain why he painted the sign with relative speed and without thorough attention to detail (4). Sometime in the years following the paintings quick removal from the shop it was markedly altered. The area that it was originally designed for had an arching top, similar to the space under a bridge, and to fill it entirely Watteau joined two pieces of fabric down the middle. Once removed the painting was cut to a more rectangular size, and the space above the arch was filled in by another artist. Even later the painting was split down the middle and made into two separate pieces (4). This sort of artistic appropriation calls to mind the modern artist Banksy, an anonymous political graffiti artist who paints his pieces on public places like sidewalks and buildings. Much in the same way Watteau’s reputation influenced the reception of Gersaint’s Signboard, and probably contributed to its quick movement into private collection, Banksy’s reputation transforms his graffiti into priceless pieces of art that are frequently removed from their original location and sold into the art market. In many aspects the way in which Gersaint’s Signboard was originally intended to function, the tools it uses to entice its viewer, is still used in modern advertising. The portrayed themes of a luxurious lifestyle are equally present in many car advertisements. Take for example the two magazine ads pictured below. Car advertisements are a perfect example of how advertisements use imagery to depict a lifestyle and experience in order to drive desire in a consumer. The Stingray advertisement boldly claims that “the car you drive reflects who you are to the world,” just as many eighteenth century parisian elites used their material wealth to construct their social image. And the Pontiac offers an opulent appeal as “you travel first-class,” that recalls the rich and beautiful clients of Gersaint. While society and culture have indeed changed, the iconography of advertising has remained much the same; human nature is often drawn to depictions of luxury and status. Gersaint’s Signboard inhabits a unique position in the history of art. It succeeds both exclusively as advertisement and as a beautiful piece of art, something few other artworks are able to do. 1. Eidelberg, Martin. “Watteau and Gillot: A Point of Contact.” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 115, no. 841, 1973, pp. 232–239., www.jstor.org/stable/877333. 2. Wrigley, Richard. “Between the Street and the Salon: Parisian Shop Signs and the Spaces of Professionalism in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.” Oxford Art Journal, vol. 21, no. 1, 1998, pp. 45–67., www.jstor.org/stable/1360696. 3. McClellan, Andrew. “Watteau's Dealer: Gersaint and the Marketing of Art in Eighteenth-Century Paris.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 78, no. 3, 1996, pp. 439–453., www.jstor.org/stable/3046194. 4. Vogtherr, Christoph Martin, and Eva Wenders De Calisse. “Watteau's 'Shopsign': The Long Creation of a Masterpiece.” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 149, no. 1250, 2007, pp. 296–304., www.jstor.org/stable/20074823.
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