Jean-Baptiste Greuze

French painter and draftsman
French, (1725–1805)
Greuze's paintings are typical for his time and place in that he used clear, bright colors, with subjects exhibiting rather light attitude of eighteenth-century painting. However, he was innovative in introducing a Dutch-influenced realism into French genre painting and portraiture. Through vivid facial expressions and dramatic gestures, Greuze's moralizing paintings exemplified the new idea that painting should relate to life.