Cookies for Santa

Illustrator, Robert Sauber's Santa taking a break. Notice the
strategic product placement off to the right.

Hey, Grinch, you're no cookie.
How'd you get in here?

We are fortunate that Santa Claus has a sweet tooth. Otherwise, there would be no need for cookies and milk under the Christmas tree, and in fact, probably no such thing as Christmas cookies. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but for me, one of the highlights of this holiday season, the number one staple on my food pyramid, is the Christmas cookie. In pondering a Christmas topic to write about, I suddenly pounded my forehead with the heel of my hand and muttered, "Of course, why didn't I think of that before? CHRISTMAS COOKIES." So I went in search of some of the most creative, the most artistic, the most exquisitely beautiful examples of this Santa Claus inspired art form I could fine. Here I pay little attention to what went into them and give only passing reference as to how they're made. For our purposes, we're going to assume that ALL Christmas cookies tastes good, that they're good for you, and that, as with most forms of art, taste is subjective and therefore largely pointless to discuss.

 

Cookies for Santa, Jersey Girl Graphics

Eat'em or hang'em on the tree.

For simplicity's sake, we're going to assume that all cookies this time of the year are baked for the benefit of fueling Santa's arduous, rein-deer-propelled jaunt around the world in twenty-four hours in an effort to reduce the ex-cess inventory of Mattel, Has-bro, Lego, Tyco, Nintendo, Fisher-Price, and Toys-R-Us. However, before you can bribe Santa with your sucrose-laden feast, you need a plate to place them on. Jersey Girl Graphics (above) has just what you need. Or, you can simply attach a ribbon and hang them on the tree as seen with the little jewels at right--no plate re-quired.

The recipe and instructions are listed below.

Use half of an Oreo cookie
as a base.

A few years ago, my wife began baking meringue cookies for our family get-togethers during the holidays. They were a big hit. In researching Santa Claus cookies, I came to realize that this light, airy, sugary substance has been turned to great creative advantage by pastry chefs (amateur and professional) in their pursuit of holiday cookie excellence. I won't say they're easy to make but then again, they're not as hard as they look, especially for anyone with an ounce of cake decorating skill. (The little white Christmas trees (right) uses the same basic meringue recipe...except for the food coloring, of course.) The recipe and especially the all-important instructions are below:
 

Meringue Christmas Poinsettia Cookies--

 

Ingredients: (about 25-30 medium-size flowers)

 * 4 large egg whites (no yolks)
 * 3/4 cup sugar (not powdered sugar)
 * pinch of salt
 * 1 1/2 tsp. extract (vanilla, mint, orange, or lemon..etc.)
 * red, green and yellow gel food coloring
 * rainbow luster dust (optional)
 * small brush (optional, used to apply disco dust)
 * 3"x3"parchment squares

* flower petals -tip Wilton #70
* green leafs - tip Wilton #352
* yellow dots - tip Wilton #3

* flower nail (if you don't have a flower nail, you can easily use a stainless steel meat thermometer covered with plastic wrap to protect the surface).

 

Mix and beat at high speed the first four ingredients for several minutes until stiff, then separate into three unequal masses before adding food coloring. The largest mass should be red, the second largest green, the smallest, yellow.

 

Piping and Baking:

 

1. Fit your piping bags with your tips (as indicated above) and fill them with meringue. Preheat the oven to only 180 F (extremely critical).

 2. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

 3. Place a dot of meringue onto the flower nail and place a piece of parchment square on top to secure it.

 4. Pipe the first row of 5 petals (as seen above) using red meringue.

 5. Pipe the second row of 5 petals, slightly shorter and offset to the first row

 6. Add green leaves

 7. Add yellow dots

 8. Dip small dry brush into a disco dust and shake of the excess over freshly piped meringues (optional).

 9. Bake for 3 hours (also extremely critical), then turn the oven off and let the cookies cool in the oven.  You are not so much baking the meringue but simply drying it out. Store in an airtight container.

 

"And all through the house, not a creature was stirring,
not even a mouse."

These can also be used to
decorate other Christmas
cookies.
 

Perhaps more candy than cookie, the non-stirring rodents (above) are basically one and a quarter marshmallows melted together then with a slender strip of string licorice poked in the rear for a tail. The whole carcass is then dipped into a chocolate coating, and refrigerated to harden. Kids love eating such "gross" stuff. On a more elegant note, though still more candy than cookie, the delicate snowflakes (left) are created by piping fondant onto waxed paper and decorating with a candy silver bead. Just be sure to count the number of snowflake "arms." Those with more than six are in extremely bad taste. Accidents should be eaten as soon as possible.

 

Merry Christmas from Jim and Sharon Lane
(and Santa).

 

Weird Santas

From the moment Haddon Sundblom's iconic Santa Claus started
drinking Coca-Cola, his image would never be the same again.

How quickly we went from
Sundblom to this.

Judging by the indignities perpetuated by artists on the image of Santa Claus this time of year, you would think he was running for President of the United States. A few years ago some wise guy labeled Santa the most famous man who never lived. That would put him ahead of such diverse figures as Superman, Uncle Sam, and Mickey Mouse. Artists have long taken on iconic figures for fun and profit from cartoon characters to literary figures the likes of Tarzan, Peter Pan, and the Lone Ranger with their sharpened pencils and dripping pens. But no one, not even the Devil himself, has been such a maligned victim of abuse as the fat old man with the long white beard and the bright red overcoat. Today, in this searing Christmas Eve expose', I intend to bring to light the worst transgressions of past artist in their desperate efforts at character assassination in the hope each one will be brought to justice (or at least receive in their Christmas stocking this year the lump of coal they so richly deserve).

The Creation of Adam was probably not a Christmas gift, but
as for Emanuel Leutze...well, his event did, in fact, take
place on Christmas Eve.



Cartoonist Thomas Nast's
Santa Claus set the standard

Where did it all begin, this desecration of our sacred Santa Claus? Well, certainly not with Haddon Sundblom, who, as much as anyone else, was responsible for etching into our popular culture during the 1940s and for twenty years thereafter, the jolly old man in the bright red suit who just happened to guzzle Coke. The late 19th-century cartoonist Thomas Nast (right) had something to do with it. Despite the two examples above, we can be fairly certain that Michelangelo and Eman-uel Leutze (above) were above reproach (those images are of digital origin). Actually, Santa Claus has never had a single, "etched in Stone" image. Most countries within the realm of Christianity have slightly different images of Santa (below). The Irish pose him in a green suit, the Scottish in a kilt, the French turn him into a chef, while the Germans see him as rather "imperial."

 

Does Santa change his outfit whenever he crosses a border?

In some ways, Santa is a lot like God--everyone sees him a little differently. In reality, there is far more truth to that statement than many evangelical Christian denominations would like to admit. When I was growing up, the highlight after our Christmas eve church services was the arrival of Santa Claus passing out bags of candy and popcorn balls. Today most such denominations would be horrified at such a tradition within their church. What happened? I'm not sure, but I think Gene Autry, the singing cowboy, may have had something to do with it. His children's Christmas ditty, Here Comes Santa Claus bore the lyrics:

 

"He sees you when your sleeping.

He knows when you're awake.

He knows when you've been bad or good,

So be good for goodness sake."

 

Elders and deacons all across America quickly came to the realization that children might easily equate God and Santa Claus, and upon realizing the mythology surrounding the latter, might easily extend the same thinking to the former. Despite his Christian origin as St. Nicholas, Santa Claus got kicked out of the church accompanied by the theme song, Put Christ Back into Christmas. The satirical Creation of Adam, seen earlier, is a direct reference to this thinking. In less than a decade, Santa Claus was relegated to gilt thrones in department stores and his own float in a big Thanksgiving Day parade in New York City. Moreover if Santa could sell Coca-Cola and improve holiday traffic in department stores and malls, then retailers reasoned he could sell virtually any product to which his name and some semblance of his traditional visage could be attached. Poor Santa's image, reputation, and character went downhill from there.

 

He's not God, but Santa Claus makes an excellent super hero.



Probably for "breaking and entering."

Once Santa Claus "fell from grace," his image quickly slipped from bad to worse. Artists, in search of holiday hu-mor, began depicting him as a drunken bum passed out in an alley (below), or utilizing bathroom facilities (bottom), or arrested for felonies and misdemeanors (left). And finally, nowadays, he's car-icaturized as despicable presidential politicians. I know...the election is over, but it was fun while it lasted.



That's not Coca-Cola in the bottle.

Poor Santa, is this
any way to treat a
cultural icon?

Cookies and milk all night long
can have their effect.

 

Folk Art Christmas

Christmas at Home, Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses

Around this time of the year even the oldest, most jaded of us find it difficult (or impossible) to not let our minds wander to Christmases past, present, and even those of the future. Depending upon your age, images of Christmases past may center on the wartime years of the forties or the creeping affluence of the 1950s and 60s. The latter of these is true in my case. I suppose younger reminiscers may harken back to discovering their first Atari under their tree. And of course, the older we get, the more choices we have as to eras from which to choose. For me, it's especially easy in that I have movies of Christmas morning dating back to 1958 (8mm) up through the Christmas present, all of which I've converted to DVDs. Just as an aside, if you are fortunate enough to have ancient home movies or even video tapes of Christmases past, please be aware, they DO NOT last forever. If you value them at all, by all means, get them digitized NOW...the sooner the better.

Sleigh Ride, Anna Mary Robertson Moses

Before there was Beta or VHS, before there was 8mm, even before there was Kodak, there was painting. Very often our images of Christmas past center around the paintings that have made their way to Christmas cards depicting scenes that have little or no basis in the "reality" of our memories. Very few of us living today have ever enjoyed anything even close to the "Grandma Moses" version of Christmas at Home (top) or had the thrill of a "One Horse Open Sleigh." Yet, insofar as folk art is concerned, Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses owns Christmas. She started painting Christmases at the ripe old age of 76 and didn't stop until her death shortly before Christmas in 1961 at the age of 101.

 

Blue Car Christmas, Wendy Presseisen--true Folk Art.

Since Grandma Moses' death, any number of artists have tried to assume her mantle as the pre-eminent Folk Art Christmas painter. (They should live so long.) None have succeeded, though one or two have come close. Many have tried to copy her style, which is the easiest thing in the world to do in terms of technique. Dealers and appraisers have to constantly be on the lookout for Grandma Moses forgeries. But quite apart from the legalities, are the copyists. By definition, folk artists are entirely self-taught, painting strictly from memory, with little regard for such niceties as composition, scale, perspective, or natural color. That, too, is easy to do, especially if the would-be folk artist makes a conscious effort to appear "naïve." Due to the popularity of Folk Art, especially around the gift-giving season, we thus have today "real" folk art and "fake" folk art.

 

Home for the Holidays, Catherine Holman, not true Folk Art.

In researching this topic I found that, even for me, it's sometimes difficult to tell the difference. Of course there's more to all this than the appraised value of the paintings, but the difference between the two can often mount into the tens of thousands of dollars. So how do you tell the difference? It ain't easy. Add to that the fact that some legitimate folk artist were instinctively adept at handling primitive forms of perspective, usually what we call isometric perspective (no vanishing points). The moment a folk artist begins dealing with vanishing points, the work veers sharply away from any designation as folk art. A similar criteria involves scale and detail. In true Folk Art there is little or no regard for either beyond that which is imposed by the limited space on the canvas. Tree limbs in the distant background are rendered with the same detail as those in the foreground. Likewise, as to backgrounds, the presence of much in the way of aerial perspective is a dead giveaway that the artist work is a little too sophisticated to be called Folk Art (above).

 

Snowy Winter,  by the Canadian painter, Sharon Eyres
--obviously bearing virtually every trait of primitive Folk Art.

Christmas Tree Hill, Bonnie White

With Folk Art, color is almost always local. That is to say, it is largely divorced from any environmental effects resulting in ambient color. A yellow house is painted bright yellow with a deeper hue on the shaded side (provided there is, in fact, a noticeable light source). Colors, if blended, are done so only minimally. Artists imitating Folk Art often find it difficult to break lifelong instincts having to do with color choices and manipulation. The Christmas paintings of Bonnie White (below and at left) appear at first glance to be Folk Art but upon closer inspection, a number of factors work together to suggest otherwise. How many can you identify? Though invoking the most traditional elements of Christmas past, In terms of style, at best, her work could be termed "folk arty." She isn't, and perhaps doesn't try to be, a primitive.

 

On Our Way To Christmas, Bonnie White. Though Folk Art busy with abundant detail, the modeling of the animals and figures as well as color use, shading, overlapping and scale perspective, suggest a conscious attempt by the artist to appear to be a folk artist.

So, the rule of thumb separating true Folk Art from crass imitation comes down to the "cruder" it looks, the more apt it is to be the real thing? Not so fast. If only it were that easy. Some imitators are wiser and more aware than others in their stylistic deception. The work of Medana Gabbard, as seen in her North Pole, frankly has me on the fence. On the one hand it displays a flatness, a reliance on simple primary colors and secondary colors, an utter lack of painting technique, and disregard for any form of perspective that would easily cause it to pass muster as Folk Art. And yet...it's too perfect in that regard. In fact it bears an abstract relationship to (of all things) Synthetic Cubism. Believe me, Pablo Picasso was no folk artist.

 

North Pole, Medana Gabbard. Is it or isn't it Folk Art?

The work of Renie Britenbucher (below) has an unsophisticated, childlike quality that once more would suggest the work of an authentic folk artist. The problem with that is, almost never is there a childlike quality to legitimate folk art. It may be compositional primitive, as well as bearing little understanding of color, perspective, anatomy, scale, and space, but the precisionist handling of the paint itself and attention to myriad details (often to a fault) is unlike the painting efforts of most preteen children. Technically and stylistically, Britenbucher's work appears to barely rise above that of a talented Kindergartener. It's a case of an artist trying too hard to be a primitive.

 

Christmas card art.

Rocking Around the Christmas Tree,
Cheryl Bartley. Christmas Folk Art from
the 1950s...complete with a boy-band.

Top Ten Christmas Paintings

10. Kitten Christmas, 2010, Carol Chretien.
High marks for originality, lower marks for Christmas relevance. That's why it's number ten on the list.

I started off intending to present the top ten Christmas paintings of this year, 2016 but then was reminded of a fact I'd known for quite sometime--artists and critics care little for dates when dealing with contemporary art. I mean, who cares if a painting was done in 2014 or 2016, right? Thus, I've had to settle for presenting the top ten recent Christmas paintings. That would suggest that I'm at least talking about works done in this century, which sounds a bit grandiose. My guess is that all these seen here (with one exception) were done in the past five years, which seems a reasonable time frame.

 

9. Fractal Christmas, Omron. High marks for originality as well as abstract Christmas spirit and color. Low marks for a total lack of a Christmas narrative. I know, This stretches the definition of painting, but in the 21st-century, that's a positive factor.

Having disposed of that matter, some may wonder how I'm such an expert on Christmas painting to be both judge and jury in selecting a top ten listing. I've painted about a dozen such works over the years. One of them, He's Making a List (bottom) dates from as far back as 1971, though it wasn't my first such effort. I know, that doesn't sound like many but it's somewhat more than most painters. Beyond that, as a high school art instructor, I spent twenty-six years evaluating student art. With a set of explicit criteria, it's not easy, but quite doable. That brings us to the criteria. I've place a high emphasis on originality of concept. That's extremely important in that such originality is quite difficult to achieve in a genre that has been so overworked in the past. It's difficult to eliminate Santa, Christmas decorations, sleigh rides, playing children, snowmen, and a dozen more iconic elements so common in such paintings, but I've made the effort, or at least demanded a fresh approach in dealing with such content.

 

8. Boy and Dog with a Christmas Tree, unknown artist. A bit trite, but substituting a boy instead of a father and kids hauling the tree through the snow on his little red wagon counts for something.

 

 

And finally, I've made every effort to choose paintings with a direct reference to Christmas. A winter snow scene, even with warm lighted, Thomas-Kinkade-type cottages, and gift-laden kinfolk does not equate to Christmas, just as the songs Sleigh Ride, Winter Wonderland, Baby, It's Cold Outside, Let It Snow, or even Jingle Bells, have nothing to do with Christmas. I'm well aware that selections number 10 (top) and number 9 are weak in this regard, but that's why they're at the bottom of the list. When possible, I've included the actual title and artist of the paintings.



7. Christmas Eve Walk, Russell Cobane. Christmas Eve
or not, a dog has certain..."needs."

Christmas paintings are rife with suburban street scenes of snow and Victorian homes alive with warm, amber windows. I've not included any such works simply because they're so common and often amount to little more than pretty pictures rather than involving the human element with Christmas overtones such as Christmas Eve Walk (above), by Russell Cobane. At least he didn't show the dog demonstrating the need for such a yuletide outing. Okay, this one is pretty, but not syrupy sweet.

6. Christmas in Washington, Paul McGehee. This one rates high for originality, despite the iconic content.

Christmas in Washington (above), is a worthy Christmas scene, yet it does have some problems. In observing the carolers' clothes, they would appear to be from the 19th century. However, the electric Christmas tree lights didn't appear on exterior White House trees until sometime after 1900. Also, the White House is depicted with the Truman Balcony, which dates back only as far as the 1950s. Santa's outfit is a bit too 20th-century as well. This painting is, in fact, burdened with several other anachronisms.

5. Adoration of the Magi, Marcello Corti.

Marcello Corti's Adoration of the Magi (above) comes in fifth on the list for its relatively original composition, color, and approach to a biblical scene about as shopworn as they come. I like the fact that the number of magi appears to be rather ambiguous, just as is the Bible. This is the first of two scenes by Corti on the list. This artist has painted dozens, perhaps hundreds of Christmas oriented works, many with a surprising degree of originality.

4. Little Girl Looking Downstairs At Christmas Party,
Norman Rockwell.

What would a list of Christmas paintings be without a Norman Rockwell? This is not, obviously, a recent work by a living artist, and it's just as obviously dated in appearance (probably from the early 1950s). However, as compared to other Christmas art, both now and then, its concept displays an originality in in thinking and approach which sets it apart from even most of Rockwell's many other Christmas works. It's often said that Christmas is for and about children. Rockwell deftly pokes fun at this hypocrisy.

3. Saint Nicholas Feeds the Horses, unknown artist.

By far, Saint Nicholas Feeds the Horses (above) is the most

beautiful of all the paintings on the list. It's also quite an original, little-used image. Notice, we're not depicting Santa Claus here but his original incarnation as a Catholic saint imbued with the highest ideals of Christmas love and giving.

2. Memories At Rockefeller, Robert Finale



The extremes between my number 2 choice (above) and number 3, were such that I debated long and hard between the two rankings. St. Nicholas is the epitome of the selfless Christmas spirit while the opulent extravagance of New York City's Rockefeller Center Plaza is just the opposite. The latter is Christmas NOW, the former is Christmas THEN. Which is the better depiction of Christmas?

1. Nativity, Marcello Corti

Of course the number one Christmas painting on the list would have to be a nativity. This one is also by Marcello Corti, seemingly the number one authority on the subject. There would be no Christmas without this iconic scene painted by (it would seem) just about every painter on earth. Because of that, and the fact that this scene centers on Joseph, rather than the traditional mother of Christ, I chose it as number one. The couple look holy, yet con-temporary. Also, the painting style is looser, more painterly, than most such scenes.

Copyright, Jim Lane

He's Making a List, 1971, Jim Lane.
You mean Santa doesn't use a
Christmas catalog?

I'm sure no one will agree completely with my ranking order. Some might even did-pute the inclusion of certain works. That's good. That means you're employing the gift of critical thinking. That might, arguably, be a gift from God to mankind second only to his son, who was almost certainly not born on Christ-mas Day.

 

Franz Cizek

As near as Google and I can translate, the words above read:
"Christmas twelve greeting cards from the Youth Art Class of
Franz Cizek of the 1920s. Osterr Kunst-u. Cultural Publishing."

Nearly fifty years ago, when I was an undergraduate in art education at Ohio University, we learned a lot about the history of education. Likewise, we were taught a lot about the history of art. However, we were taught little or nothing about the history of art education. Today I came upon an Austrian painter by the name of Franz Cizek. I'd never heard the name before thus I had no knowledge of the fact that he was an important pioneer as to the manner in which young children are taught art. I quickly came to realize that much of what I'd done as an art instructor for some twenty-six years, had its roots in the teaching philosophy of this man and his work in organizing some of the first children's art classes in the world in Vienna, Austria, around the turn of the century.

 



Copyright, Jim Lane

The teaching of art has changed a lot down through the centuries.

Erika Giovanna Klien

In researching Dr. Frank Cizek, I was dismayed to find few, if any examples of his paintings. (The cover design at the top is, I think, one of his works.) Each time I thought I'd found something, it turned out to be by one of his young students. That's not altogether surprising in that Cizek spent most of his career promoting the work of his students, not only in teaching them, but in organizing some of the very first art exhibits devoted solely to the artwork of young children (most under the age of fourteen). Moreover, many of the children he taught, one in particular, Erika Giovanna Klien (left), went on to become art teachers themselves, spreading abroad the same teaching techniques and philosophies as their mentor. Miss Klien was responsible for bringing Cizek's brand of art education to the United States during the 1930s. Another former student, Emmy Lichtwitz Krasso, became Cizek's assistant from 1933 to 1935, then later went to India where she started a children's art movement in the Mumbai schools.

Cizek "guided" his students in painting and drawing while
also developing the use of linoleum as a safer relief printing medium in place of woodcuts (and their much-sharper tools). Notice the examples on the bulletin board.

Franz Cizek was born in 1865, and entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1885. While a student, he lived with a family having many children who visited him in his room. He allowed them to use his art supplies and encouraged them to express themselves. Cizek was impressed by their creativity, and showed their work to fellow artists at the university. They encouraged him to start an art school for children. The Juvenile Art Classes (above) were free of charge to children of Vienna, each child who applied was interviewed and selected by Cizek. His teaching method had limited structure, encouraging instead imagination and free expression. This concept would seem unremarkable today, but was exceedingly rare at any level of art training at the time.

The work of former Cizek student, Herta Zuckerman
dating from sometime before 1922.

In essence, Franz Cizek started a ball rolling insofar as recognition and appreciation had to do with the world of children's art. In 1920, the work from Cizek's children's art classes was exhibited at the British Institute for Industrial Art in Kingsbridge, England, and then toured the country. The following year, Francesca Wilson, a Birmingham teacher, exhibited the child art in London. This exhibition, and those for the Save the Children Fund, raised interest in the Child Art Movement. They are also early examples of featuring art in raising funds and awareness for humanitarian causes. Among those Cizek influenced was Johannes Itten, the Swiss painter and Bauhaus leader. Arthur Lismer, a Canadian artist, as well as the American Education writer and researcher, John Dewey. He founded a Children's Art Center at the Art Gallery of Toronto in 1933, and at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts in 1946, the same year Franz Cizek died in Vienna at the age of eighty-one.

The work of two other Cizek students. Not surprisingly, Christmas and Santa seem to have been a favorite subject among Cizek's students. These designs were used on
greeting cards which were sold to help pay for art supplies.

Surprises For The Younger Brothers And Sisters,
Steffi Kraus

 

Charles Joshua Chaplin

Lots of "bare naked ladies."

It's a style of painting from about two-hundred years ago which today, artists, critics, and "art appreciators" all over the world love to hate. For as much as a century now the sophisticated art world has "looked down its nose" at Rococo art. It's not that there's anything particularly "wrong" or ugly about Rococo. Most of it is really quite beautiful (in a sinfully decadent sort of way). It's just that Rococo is so far out of step with present day lifestyles, tastes, and thinking regarding art that only museums and those living in gold leaf palaces want anything to do with it. In fact, even at it's height, during the late 18th and early 19th-century France, there were a great number of French art connoisseurs who weren't particular fond of the style.

After the Masked Ball, Charles Joshua Chaplin

A Beauty with a Bouquet,
Charles Joshua Chaplin.

Charles Joshua Chaplin (not the filmmaker, Charles Spenser Chaplin), for most of his life was a Rococo painter specializing in portraits of beautiful young ladies in various stages of dress and undress. He was good at what he did, but by no means the best (or even one of the best). Rococo is sometimes referred to disparagingly as "cotton candy" art--sweet, but without much substance. Chaplin's languid nudes, such as After the Masked Ball (above) sometimes appear to be lazing about in the sugary stuff. One might more accurately term Chaplin's Rococo as Academic eroticism. Often many of his portraits such as A Beauty with a Bouquet (right) were nearly as erotic as his highly sanitized nudes. Needless to say, most were commissioned by men for ornamenting the boudoirs.


A 17th-Century Court Scene, Charles Joshua Chaplin

Jean-Antoine Watteau is generally considered the first great Rococo painter. He greatly influenced younger painters, including François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, two masters of the late period (after 1800). Even England's Thomas Gainsborough's delicate touch and sensitivity are reflected in the Rococo spirit. Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun's style shows a great deal of Rococo influence as well, particularly in her portraits of Marie Antoinette. Other Rococo painters include: Nicolas Lancret, Jean François de Troy, Jean-Baptiste van Loo and his two sons, Louis-Michel van Loo and Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo, also his younger brother Charles-André van Loo. The fact that you've probably never heard Charles Joshua Chaplin or most (if any) of these highly popular artist gives some indication of how quickly the Rococo style fell into disfavor with the advent of all the subsequent "isms" of 19th-century painting.

Take a look at that moustache/beard in the upper etching!

Charles Joshua Chaplin was born in 1825 in Les Andelys, Eure, (the Normandy region of northern France). His mother was French, his father, an art broker from England. Charles Chaplin spent his whole life in France. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris after 1840, while taking private lessons in the studio of Michel Martin Drolling. Later Chaplin also taught at the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1845 he entered the Salon de Paris, the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, as a portrait and landscape painter with the painting Portrait of the Artist's Mother. Chaplin conducted art classes specifically for women at his studio. The American artist Mary Cassatt, the French artist Louise Abbéma and the English artist Louise Jopling were among Chaplin's students. His son Arthur Chaplin was also a painter. Chaplin's lovely ladies, luscious nudes, and his Rococo style apparently served him well. He died in 1891 in Paris as a wealthy man.



Venus with Putti, Charles Joshua Chaplin

Decades later, in 1922, one of Chaplin's paintings was sold at an auction in Paris. It was described by the auctioneer as a landscape painting by Charles Chaplin. As the bidding progressed, it achieved an unexpectedly high price for an artist considered to have "fallen into oblivion". You guessed it. Most of the bidders mistakenly believed it was a work of art by the famous actor, Charlie Chaplin. All the bidders were hoping they would acquire a remarkable find. The disappointment of the ultimate buyer can only be imagined when it was discovered that the picture was by an all but forgotten Rococo artist.

I could find no image for Chaplin's Salon
painting of his mother, but I did come
across this charming little portrait
of his daughter from 1881.