Was there a boy, or what they argue about for many years, looking at Chardin’s picture “Prayer before dinner”

He was called the “artist of animals and fruits.” He had a significant influence on Henri Matisse and Paul Cezanne. In art, this artist sought naturalness and humanity as opposed to the official Rococo style. All this is about Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin and his picture “Prayer before dinner.” What is the main debate of art critics about this picture?

The 18th century French artist Jean Simeon Baptiste Chardin was known for his still lifes and genre paintings. His refined and realistic style had a significant impact on a number of the greatest artists of the XIX-XX centuries, including Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954) and Paul Cezanne (1839 – 1906). Chardin’s canvases were simple, but workshops performed. The Chardin world is a world with feeling (and not gallantry), with humility (and not vanity), with simplicity (and not covetousness). For the bourgeois establishment, the works of Chardin represented a salutary contrast with the “decadent aristocratic fragility” of many of the artist’s colleagues (including Watteau). Continue reading →