Special correspondent in Grasse (Alpes-Maritimes)
This is advice to give to a director who would like to stage Mozart's operas: rush to Grasse, to the Jean-Honoré Fragonard Museum, to admire the canvases and gouaches of Jean-Baptiste Mallet (1759-1835), reminiscent of
Cosi Fan Tutte
, the
Marriage of Figaro
or
Don Giovanni
.
With great shrewdness and intelligence, this artist, a compatriot of Fragonard and friend of Prud'hon, hides strange details in his seemingly charming and light scenes: statues taken from his imagination quiver under the foliage, as if animated in unison the love affairs that take place in the evening in the parks, a young woman harassed by an enterprising boy grabs a bell on a table to call for help, the ribbons tremble, the hairstyles capsize...
Mallet excelled in genre scenes, pleasant anecdotes brilliantly executed, hence his reputation as a sometimes insipid painter.
It is actually daring: the
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