My father did two paintings he titled 'Fete Champetre', this one and a longer one that's the next work in this series.

This is a study for the work above.

The right side of the painting mostly holds true to the study, but in the right my father removed the mother and child. Removing people or objects from his work as they went along was a fairly common practice for David. I remember on a number of occasions I would look at a finished works and say something like, "Wasn't there a figure on this this side?" or something like that. His response would almost always be that he discovered he didn't need that figure, that work was better without it. It took away from what made the piece work, it distracted the viewer from what was important. So the making of art is both a process of building, and tearing down, or streamlining.

I think my father, and in fact anyone that titles a painting Fete Champetre, has been influenced by versions from art history, including works by the Renaissance artist Titian and a century later by the French painter Antoine Watteau and those that followed in his footsteps. I know my father was a great admirer of both Titian and Watteau, but he knew he couldn't produce works like they did in this day and age.

SL