Der Landtanz

This little forest scene is thought to be the earliest painting by Watteau that survives. He was barely into his twenties and still years from fame, yet the thing he would become famous for is already here. Villagers make music under the trees while a couple dances, and a toddler solemnly copies the lady's steps. A generation of Flemish painters had shown peasant dances as noisy, drunken affairs. Watteau cleans his up and dresses them halfway to the court, so the scene hovers between a real village and an elegant daydream. That in-between mood would soon get its own name, the fete galante, a genre the French Academy more or less invented to describe what he did. The dark wall of trees behind is there to make the dancers' bright clothes jump forward.