Antoine Watteau painted his engaging and ravishing fêtes galantes during a period in which the art of polite conversation flourished in France. In this innovative study, Mary Vidal shows that conversation was central to Watteau's images of sociability and provided the framework for figural and formal relationships even in his military, mythological, theatrical, and religious works. Vidal argues that Watteau's paintings were not mere literal descriptions of social behaviour but represented conversation as part of an aesthetic, linguistic, and ethical system, as an art of living. -- from interior flap. Includes notes, bibliography, and index. Printed in color and black-and-white.