Design for a Frontispiece: Love Staying the Hand of Time
Original title: Design for a Frontispiece: Love Staying the Hand of Time
kurzbeschreibung
François Boucher designed this allegorical scene as a frontispiece: a goddess of love restrains the hand of the god of time. The design is carried out in black chalk, and its date is unknown. Several putti surround the animated pair of figures.
Description
Above a book resting on a rock hovers a female figure, read as the goddess of love, bearing a scroll. Facing her at the right sits a male figure, the god of time, who stretches his arms toward the scroll. Putti in varied poses and with differing expressions fill the space around the two. Hatching and the movement of the draperies create light and shade in monochrome black and white.
Context
Boucher made this sheet as a preparatory study for a frontispiece, presumably for an eighteenth-century publication. Love halting time was a widespread motif in the Rococo. Boucher ranked among the leading artists of that style and often worked for the French court.
Impact
Lively figures and a dynamic layout engage the viewer at once. The interplay of the characters and the flowing draperies produce a theatrical tension. Because the drawing stays monochrome, line and gesture come to the fore.
Technique
Black chalk on paper allows both delicate shading and precise lines. This medium permits soft gradations as well as firm contours that stress the flow of movement. The design was intended as a preliminary drawing for the printing of a frontispiece.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)