Showing Off Boucher’s Sly Sense of Humor

The sometimes-snubbed French Rococo court artist Francois Boucher gets another chance in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s installation “Boucher Rediscovered: The Conservation of Three 18th Century Works From the Permanent Collection.”

Boucher’s appreciation problem is partly historical. A favorite of Louis XV, he was immensely successful in his time, a reliable old pro who popularized Rococo, a more intimate and playful version of the grand Baroque. But two decades after he died, the French Revolution blazed, and Boucher was viewed as embodying the erotic frivolity of a decadent aristocracy, oblivious to the misery of the poor. Philosopher Denis Diderot dismissed him, saying, “He has never known truth.”

Diderot had a point. Boucher, for example, avoided working from nature because, he said, “it’s too green and badly lit.” Like Andy Warhol, he reveled in theatrics.

The present exhibition carries with it some local history. These works--two paintings and a tapestry--were donated to the museum during its previous incarnation in

Exposition Park before it moved north in the mid-’60s. The paintings were a 1947 gift by William Randolph Hearst; J. Paul Getty donated the tapestry in 1952, correcting any impression that LACMA had no significant backers in those ancient days.

Technically the conservation effort’s most significant discovery was that the paintings were meant to be kidney-shaped over door panels. Some time after being executed, around 1740, they were modified into rectangular formats. Now restored to match the original intentions, their frames echo the compositions’ soft contours.

The tapestry is about 12 feet by 18 feet. It was commissioned by Louis XV from the Royal Beauvais Manufactory as part of a series on “The Loves of the Gods.” Finished around 1776, after Boucher’s death, the work was so popular a couple of other monarchs ordered duplicates. Modern viewers, however, may have some trouble just looking at it.

Perceptually, tapestry works best when its imagery is strongly stylized and the implied space in the composition is shallow or flat. The Rococo depiction of deep space, realistic figures and lots of organic detail acts in complete contradiction to tapestry’s inherent qualities. The result is very like looking at a giant TV screen where surface interference obscures the projected image. It either drives you crazy and you shut it off, or your eye successfully adjusts to the visual contradiction.

If you can do that, “Bacchus and Ariadne” is a very amusing piece of theater. It evokes a classical mythic story. The god of earthly pleasure arrives on his favorite island only to find a despairing young beauty abandoned by her lover. He comforts her so successfully that they marry.

Boucher plays the whole thing like an intimate outdoor bedroom farce subtly poking fun at its own heroic surroundings. Bacchus’ chariot is pulled by kitten leopards that may not be up to the job. Ariadne’s attendants unveil her by pulling back a monstrous velvet drape that has no reason for being. The girls ogle the god whose virtues appear to be grace and wit rather than strength and daring.

The same qualities inform the paintings. Everybody lolls on clouds winsomely nude. In “Venus and Mercury Instructing Cupid,” the goddess looks at the earnest Mercury as if saying, “Hey, the kid knows the alphabet, handsome. How about paying attention to me?” In “Cupid Wounding Psyche,” the Valentine cherub is now an adolescent teasingly pointing an arrow at the girl’s breast. Her look says something unprintable and funny.

Boucher was a superb technician and deft colorist. His sly sense of humor was just vulgar enough to deflate pretense and invite fun.

The restoration team included LACMA curators J. Patrice Marandel and Dale Carolyn Gluckman. Conservation experts were Joe Fronek, Catherine McLean and Cara Varnell.

BE THERE

“Boucher Rediscovered,” LACMA, 5905 Wilshire Blvd.; through March 30; closed Wednesdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas, (213) 857-6000.