Focus on this artwork and analyze the Historical information.
This is Watteau's earliest known painting, but already he had developed his own style. Painted shortly after he moved from Valenciennes to Paris, Watteau took the merry rustic scenes favored by his Flemish antecedents like Pieter Bruegel and Peter Paul Rubens, but gave them unprecedented grace, nobility, and style. Though painting a standard northern European subject, he drew heavily on Venetian landscapes, particularly in the atmospheric effects. It is, in effect, a declaration in favor of the Rococo movement with which Watteau would become so heavily associated.
Valenciennes Peter Paul Rubens Rococo Pieter Bruegel Flemish Paris