The Age of Pleasure and Enlightenment European art of the ...

Everyday LifeArt, both decorative and functional, has always been made for the domestic environment.Everyday life, both high and low, has also provided subject matter for artists. Works of art canoffer a window into everyday life by recording private moments, social customs, domesticinteriors, and changing fashion, across time and geography.Gaspare TraversiItalian, Neapolitan, c. 1722–1770A Quarrel over a Board Game, c. 1752Oil on canvasThe Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1948.118Tavern scenes such as this one, showing games and gambling, were often intended to conveymoralizing messages denouncing human weakness. This work focuses on a range of emotions—concern, fear, and anger—made emphatic by the placement of the three-quarter-length figures ina narrow foreground space. Traversi also delighted in painting rich colors and fabrics, seen mostespecially in the embroidery on the waistcoat of the man on the left. The overall impression isone of theatricality and stylish staging, suggesting that the artist may have been inspired bycontemporary theater or opera.Traversi began his career in Naples but in 1752 moved to Rome where he remained until hisdeath. His most significant contributions to eighteenth-century Italian painting are his eloquentand often mocking reflections on the morals of his time.Pietro LonghiItalian, 1702–1785The Temptation, c. 1745Oil on canvasThe Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund, 1931.188Longhi was one of the most gifted of eighteenth-century genre painters in Venice, an excellentdraughtsman who effortlessly captured the features and gestures of his subjects. He depicteddelightful scenes, often satirical, of life among the city's upper classes. In this work a youngmonk visits a group of ladies engaged in sewing and holds a glass to his eye to get a betterlook—though not necessarily at their work. The presence of the caged bird is undoubtedly areference to the preservation of virtue, as a bird in a cage symbolizes intact virginity.