This painting is a perfect illustration of the pastoral genre invented by Boucher in which he achieved perfection. It is a unique blend of convention and naturalism, fantasy and observation, innocence and ambiguity.
This superficial, contrived and conventional style is appealing in its very artificiality and lack of realism, in keeping with the artist’s intention to create “a surprising power of escapism”.
For the Goncourt brothers: “Boucher is one of those men who represents the taste of a century, who express, personify and embody it. French taste in the 18th century was made manifest in him in all the singularity of his personality”.
M. A. P.
