Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702-1789) was probably the greatest pastelist of the 18th century. Because pastel is a stable medium, the colors in his portraits haven’t faded — his reputation, however, has. The exhibition of some 80 of his works at London’s Royal Academy is an attempt to return to him something of the status he once had.Liotard was an extraordinary character as well as an extremely gifted artist. Born in Geneva and trained in Paris, he worked his way not just around the capital cities of Europe but also the Levant (as a souvenir draughtsman to Grand Tourists) and spent four years in Constantinople. On his return he wore oriental clothes, a Moldavian cap, and grew a preternaturally long beard. He became known as “The Turk” and his exoticism and skill combined to win him commissions from various royal houses and the top echelon of continental society.The RA covers something of his range: while he found fame with pastels (previously thought a female and domestic medium), he also worked in oils, enamel, watercolor, mezzotint and was a draughtsman in black and red chalk of the highest order. The chalk drawings of Turkish scenes and customs in particular show him to be worthy of mention in the same breath as his contemporaries Watteau and Chardin. They combine a feeling for the texture of materials with an eye for detail and wonderful dexterity in wielding the porte-crayon.As a portraitist, Liotard refused to flatter, which contributed to the fact that his pictures of, say, Isaac-Louis and Julie de Thellusson-Ployard (1760), or his daughter Marianne holding a doll, have such fresh immediacy. He was more concerned with real appearances than idealized ones. In this he was perfectly in tune with the new informality of the age of sensibility.When Liotard made two visits to London, in 1753 and 1773, Joshua Reynolds resented both his success and his showmanship and he wasn’t shy in airing his opinion. This exhibition though shows what Reynolds refused to acknowledge: Liotard, as a painter of informal, small-scale and very beautiful pictures, was one of the most gifted artists of his time.
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