Like almost all the genre paintings of Chardin, “Prayer before dinner” exists in several copies. The picture that you now see in front of you, the master in 1740 presented as a gift to the French King Louis XV. Now she is in the Louvre. Another “Prayer before dinner” is kept in the Hermitage. And another, very similar scene, which is also considered to be an author’s copy, is owned by the Rotterdam Museum of Boymans-van Beiningen. This number of copies indicates that the painting was very popular during the life of Chardin.
I must say that even now she is one of the most famous works in the Louvre collection. Representing the everyday scene from the life of the French family of the third estate, Chardin does not regret the lyrical tones. Emotionality was the creative credo of the master. The Engraver of Koshen, a biographer of the painter, wrote that, once angry at the superficial chatter of an artist about the technique of painting, Chandin irritably asked: “But who told you that they paint?” – “And what?” – the unlucky interlocutor was surprised. “They use colors,” Chardin said, “but they write with a feeling.” A small child is very busy. He learns to say a prayer. Perhaps, for the first time he himself utters words that before he babbled after his mother and older sister.
The modern viewer may think that we have a girl in front of us, but in fact it is a boy. The fact that he is dressed in a dress should not embarrass you. This – the usual clothes of small children of both sexes in the XVIII century. The face of the praying boy is hidden from us. Only his plump cheeks and slightly upturned nose are visible. His light dress almost merges with the color of the tablecloth, to which the boy’s prayerfully folded hands cast a shadow. Chardin managed to achieve in the “Prayer before dinner” amazing penetration and warmth.
He achieves this, “linking” the views of all the characters in the picture. The kid looks at his mother trustingly, she looks at him with tenderness. And the older girl watches her younger brother. She also says a prayer – her folded arms are visible above the edge of the table. The rough surface of the picture Sharden creates as if luminous from the inside with a soft muffled light, imposing several layers of paint on the canvas. Details of his “magical”, according to contemporaries, he kept technology secret.
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