The Royal Academy’s Sackler Wing is lit like a pearly shell for a tour through the pastel, chalk and oils of 18th-century artist, Jean-Etienne Liotard. The radiance emanating from his portraits – the blue satin robes and silver lacework, the pink-cheeked aristos with glittering eyes and complacent smiles – lights up each room with serenity and grace. But the likenesses refuse to flatter and there is the grit that makes Liotard irresistible. Double chins and clumsy noses abound. Signs of inbreeding are especially noticeable in the room dedicated to the British ruling families.
Jean-Etienne Liotard, Still-life: Tea Set, c. 1770-83. Oil on canvas mounted on board, 37.5 x 51.4 cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, inv. 84.PA.57. Photograph: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Liotard trained as a miniaturist and enameller – first in Switzerland, then in France. But the young man longed for more exotic scenes and left for Italy in 1735, where he met young noblemen on the Grand Tour who offered to take him to Constantinople, sketching the costumes and characters they met along the way. The room dedicated to his Oriental works is the most intriguing. His obsessive detailing of intricate costumes and reclining odalisques, the Emperor’s dwarf in delicate chalk, show why Liotard became an international hit.
Jean-Etienne Liotard, Julie de Thellusson-Ployard, 1760. Pastel on vellum, 70 x 58 cm. Oskar Reinhart, Winterthur, inv. 278. Rodolphe Dunki, Geneva; acquired 1935. Photo SIK-ISEA. Photography: Philipp Hitz
Arriving in London in 1753 he was dressed to kill with a long curly beard, fur hat, and kaftan modelled on the robes at the court of Moldavia (modern Romania). Liotard “the Turk” was the go-to pastel portraitist of his era. Only the rich could afford the turqueries that showed off his ability to catch a likeness and his precise detailing. His portrait of the quicksilver actor David Garrick is notable for the intelligent brown eyes of the sitter, and his apparent desire to jump out of his seat.
Jean-Etienne Liotard, L’Ecriture, 1752. Pastel on six sheets of blue paper, 81 x 107 cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Photo (c) Schloss Brunn Kultur-und Betriebsges.m.b.H. Photography: Edgar Knaack
Liotard’s use of pastel and chalk were key to the hyper-realism of his art. Pastels consist of powdered pigments bound with gum Arabic and shaped into sticks. The pigments’ pure colours still shine through. In his autobiography, he explained that it facilitated a subtle blend of colours and enabled him to rework a subject without having to repaint it.
Hence the immediacy of his subjects’ poses.This is the first UK exhibition of Liotard’s work because of recent developments in the understanding of the medium’s properties and advances in safe handling.
Jean-Etienne Liotard, Archduchess Marie-Antoinette of Austria, 1762. Black and red chalk, graphite pencil, watercolour and watercolour glaze on paper, heightened with colour on the verso, 31.1 x 24.9 cm. Cabinet d’arts graphiques des Musees d’art et d’histoire, Geneva. On permanent loan from the Gottfried Keller Foundation, inv. 1947-0042 . Photo Musee d’art et d’histoire, Geneva. Photography: Bettina Jacot-Descombes
Also shown here is a challenging and intimate series of self-portraits. Relaxed, rueful and bearded (Self-Portrait in Profile, 1753), the artist is more concerned with silhouetting his beard – the texture and transparency make it a tangle of fuzz. Then, in Self-Portrait, Laughing, c.1770, he has shaved off his beard to please his new wife. More noticeable here are the missing teeth and strong, mischievous energy bouncing off the canvas. He took this work to Paris and London as a marketing device, and landed commissions with both sets of royal families.
Jean-Etienne Liotard, Self-portrait Laughing, c. 1770. Oil on canvas, 84 x 74 cm. Musee d’art et d’histoire, Geneva, inv. 1893-9. Photograph: Musee d’art et d’histoire, Geneva. Photography: Bettina Jacot-Descombes
Sharp and luminous, delicate and dazzling, Liotard enjoyed a long, illustrious career. He died at the age of 87 in 1789, a month before the storming of the Bastille and the start of the French Revolution: the era of ostentatious luxury was over. But his greatness persists. For all the vamp, Liotard enthrals because he captures in his subjects their vulnerability.
by Lilian Pizzichini
Jean-Etienne Liotard is on display at the Royal Academy of Arts, London until January 31, 2016
Royal Academy, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD
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