The Swing (1767), The Wallace Collection, London
The Meeting (1771-73), Frick Collection, New York
The Stolen Kiss (1788), MetropolitanMuseum of Art
Calla Lee / June 10, 2002Art ISU
This independent study unit serves to outline the characteristics of the late 18th century Rococo art history period, in which Jean-Honoré Fragonard produced his most prized pieces. This study unit will outline his pieces from the beginning of his new found Rococo style to the end, utilizing a piece from the very beginning of the period, the middle and the end. This study unit will include a biography of Fragonard’s life, a description of the Rococo period characteristics, how they are relevant and apply to Fragonard’s work throughout his career.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard was born on the 5th of April in 1732 in Grasse, Provence of France. As a boy, his family had moved to Paris where Fragonard became an assistant to a Parisian lawyer, however, Fragonard did not suit himself to this routine, and so began his find his talents. While drawing on the job, his employer recognised his talent and convinced Fragonard’s parents to encourage his talent by allowing him to pursue further education. After being refused by Rococo artist, François Boucher, he was apprenticed by Jean-Baptiste Chardin, who forced him to copy contemporary prints, which Fragonard found to restraining. Finally when Fragonard hit the age of 16, Boucher, at the peak of his career, decided to teach Fragonard because he was amazed at his talent. In 1752, Fragonard was awarded with the Prix du Rome and was sent to Italy to begin an Italian training where he found himself very inspired and influenced by Italian Baroque Artists Tiepolo and Peitro da Cortona. His mentor Charles-Joseph Natoire, the director of the school gave Fragonard the freedom to explore his own talents. In 1760, Fragonard was invited to travel Venice with Abbé de Saint-Non. A year later, Fragonard returned to Paris where he became recognised by his work and was accepted to the Paris Salon, but because finances did not come easily with his historical based paintings, Fragonard chose to employ his true talents of his vivid imagination to better use in 1766. Fragonard hit his artistic peak in the early 1770’s and l780’s, but he soon began to see the Neo-classicism period approaching when his four panelled series entitled The Pursuit of Love (1773), commissioned by the mistress of Louis XV, Madame du Barry, was returned to him. Although the Neo-classic period was beginning to settle in, Fragonard still continued to teach and paint for the few clients that were still commissioning him up until before his downfall in 1789, just prior to the French Revolution. After the revolution, in 1791, Fragonard took his son to Jacques-Louis David to begin his studies of the Neo-classical style. In 1799, Fragonard lost his job and was evicted from the Louvre; his family was then taken in by his sister-in-law at the Palais Royal where he lived in poverty until his death in 1806.
The Rococo period was heavily defined by its revolt against the religious scenarios of the Baroque period, in which the paintings were adorned with heavy church dominant images and solemn colours. In revolting, this movement spawned a group of painters, which included Boucher, which led the Rococo period. This group of painters did not include Fragonard but inspired him to become a Rococo artist. Although these painters had amazing technique and skill, many people say that this skill was wasted because the Rococo period was based on frivolous themes of courting, earthly love, and superficial and elegant parties of the French Aristocracy. As opposed to the Baroque period, the Rococo period was saturated with a brilliant palette of different shades of pinks, golds, whites, silvers, greens and blues. We can also see that Rococo artists gave attention to the frivolous items within the painting such as fabrics and ribbons The shapes found through out the painting were to be graceful with soft wavy brush strokes that showed movement and obscurity. This allowed the painting to take on more meaning because it allowed the mind to fill in what was not evident in the movements of the painting, which gave it its erotic nature.
Prior to the change in style, Fragonard’s paintings were inspired and defined mostly by the idyllic colours and landscape of his birthplace. With his amazing technique, Fragonard was able to portray an ideal landscape as opposed to the real landscape. After learning from other Rococo artists such as François Boucher and Jean-Baptiste Chardin, Fragonard began his Rococo style pieces in the latter half of the Rococo period. Fragonard became instantly recognised as a Rococo artist, gratitude to his first commissioned painting of The Swing (1766-1767) for the Baron de Saint Julien. Due to the success of his free imagination and skilful technique he became highly demanded and his works were found all over France as décor for aristocrat’s salon and boudoir.
The three works that I choose to analyse from Fragonard’s Rococo career are The Swing, The Meeting, and The Stolen Kiss. These three paintings range throughout his entire Rococo period and have become visual embodiments of the Rococo characteristics. In these three paintings, Fragonard uses colour to draw people’s attention accordingly so that we may interpret the painting properly, depending on the amount of each colour, the examiner’s eyes are drawn chronologically. All three of these paintings serve to depict earthly love and playful courtship. The determining factors that Fragonard uses to depict courtship are the expression on his subject’s faces, as well as the statues around them. These characteristics can be found in most paintings and in particular these three.
In The Swing, we can see that Fragonard is very keen on making the lady’s dress a light and very exuberant pink against the dark, mellow green of the nature behind her. He then makes the next point of interest her slipper, which is the same colour but is shown to be flying in a leftward direction. Due to the quick brushstrokes, we can see movement and our eyes are drawn to where the slipper might land, in it’s place, we see the third point of interest, a man. We can see that he still embodies the slight pink in the face, as well as the mellow greens in his clothes. The fourth point of interest is the cupid statue. It continues to contain the pink flesh-coloured highlights as well as the cold grey of stone. And our last point of interest is found on the right side of the painting, with only light greens for highlights, her husband pushing her on the swing. On closer examination and interpretation, we can see that the man has a view up the woman’s dress and is about to receive a slipper as her favour. When we look at the cupid, he is signalling the sign of silence, as to say that this must be kept a secret. And when we include the husband in the background, we can see that this piece is describing earthly love and courtship. We can also see that Fragonard is using pink and gold to catch people’s eyes. He uses a lot of pink on the woman’s dress to draw out eyes first, then to the dot of pink, the slipper, then with the still movement towards the man and then up again towards the cupid. The face of cupid is telling us that there is something going on that should not be because of his signal for silence. Along with the look on the woman and lover’s face tell us of a secret happiness that is unmistakably present and the solemn expression of the husband in the back tell us that he is not aware of the lover’s presence.
In The Meeting, our eyes are first drawn to the bright red of the man’s clothing, and we can see that he seems to be concerned yet he is still happy, by the expression on his face. Our second point of interest is the woman in the pink dress sitting in the middle of the canvas. The expression on her face tells shows us concern and the direction of her head shows a swift movement of her turning her head. From this, we can interpret that she has seen the man and has quickly turned her head in concern to ensure that there is no one else around. Our third point of interest is the statue above her. Although she is not as brightly coloured, the direction of her face tell us that she is watching out for any other living person and her expression depicts the secret happiness that these two people have found in their encounter. Also, the position that the lover seems to show us that he is forbidden to be where is he is and is slipping away before he is caught. This yet again is depicting the idea of earthly love and courtship with the aid of colour and facial expressions.
In The Stolen Kiss, the points of interest are the faces of the man and woman. The woman seems to be enjoying the kiss but seems to be worried while as the man’s face shows only happiness. The colour of the woman’s dress is a very bright silver with a touch of pale gold and the contrast on the dress makes it look almost shimmering. The colours used in this piece are very bright but fades off in the back to show swift movements and to brighten up the picture and show love. But on closer examination, we can observe that this is a forbidden love because the girl seems to listening for people and in a hurry to leave and her facial expression shows some fear of being caught. We can also see that she is trying to push the boy away with her arm, while as the boy is holding her arm back and leaning in towards her. This painting as well as The Swing and The Meeting show frivolous love thrown away, which is very typical of the Rococo era.
From these examples, we can clearly see that Fragonard was indeed a very skilled Rococo artist and that his skill does not justify the content in his works. His short-lived career as a Rococo artist was near the end of the period and the beginning of the Neo-Classic period and was not much of an influence to many other artists. However, he may have inspired his son, who was an apprentice to the Neo-classic artist David, to pursue a career as an artist. The Rococo era, was a period in which many French aristocrats found appealing but due to the revolution, this era was not given the chance to outlive its fullest potential.