The Swing By Jean-Honore Fragonard Essay

While the painters after the Impressionism period were collectively called the “Post-Impressionists,” the label is quite reductive. Each artist had their own unique style, from Seurat’s pointillism to Signac’s mosaic-like divisionism, Cezanne, Émile Bernard, and others. These artists were all connected in that they were reacting to the aesthetics of Impressionism. Two of the more influential painters from this movement were Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin, who aimed to connect with viewers on a deeper level by access Nature’s mystery and meaning beyond its superficial, observable level. However, each artist’s approach to achieving this goal was different. In close examination of Vincent van Gogh’s Self-Portrait (Dedicated to Paul Gauguin) and Paul Gauguin’s Self-Portrait with Portrait of Émile Bernard (Les misérables), one may clearly see the two artists’ contrasting styles on display.

The 18th century, more precisely between 1715 and 1789, was a significant time period in the fashion sphere for women in France. The time period itself was a mark of great change for the history of France due to various political reasons as well as various art movements and often times fashion, despite being a branch of art, is overlooked by most viewers. However, fashion during this time excelled in France and was essentially the symbol of a new era in this domain; French fashion was now snowballing into something much greater that still echoes to this today. Ultimately, the goal of this essay is to describe women’s fashion during the period of 1715-1789 and the shifts it made through the analytical use of various sources including artwork, literature, museums’ online archives and internet sources.

Daniel Ridgway Knight was an odd American artist who loved to paint relaxed French peasants in luscious landscapes. Ironically, he lived during a stressful time when the Industrial Revolution displaced numerous farmers and polluted the environment. He seemed to ignore the harsh truth and shut himself in his imaginary serene world. For instance, In the Premier Chagrin, translated as The First Grief, Knight paints two healthy girls conversing on a stone wall in front of gorgeous fields. At first, it appears as merely a pretty painting that is nicely contrasted to show depth and realism. Yet, with a closer look, this contrast in the colors and lines of the landscape and the figures creates tension to suggest the painter’s conflict between longing for serene freedom and feeling trapped within the stiff society.

-In the 1700’s a new middle class emerged. Mass print became a thing as well. Every day people started to purchase art works to display in their homes. It was a way for them to express their status and national patriotism. The diversity in patrons had a great impact on the arts of the 15th – 18th centuries. With new patrons and the demand for art work, artists were able to capture more than just religious scenes. They were able to create landscapes and everyday life in their work. Artists were commissioned by the new middle class to create art work that they were able to hang in their houses. For instance, artist Joseph Wright of Derby’s painting “A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrey (1765).”

Finally his studies led him to France at the age of 21, where he studied under Paul Vidal for a short period of time and then under Mlle. Boulanger for three years. Before

The Swing is a typical Rococo painting with loose brushwork, soft colors and an amorphous organic composition which celebrates the beauty of love and sophistication of the ruling class while, The Oath of the Horatii displays war and anger and eschews the Rococo style with its geometric organization and its strong impression of

As we continue to utilize this theme of femininity versus masculinity, we can see how the composition of each painting depicts each contrast. The Swing places the viewer inside an outdoors setting that is clearly soft, curvy, and feminine. The Death of Socrates takes place in an indoor setting marked by its attention to geometry, straight lines, and 90-degree angles. When looking at the setting in Fragonard’s work, we can see that there is no sense of order or structure, the same that are conveyed in David’s The Death of Socrates. This lack of order or structure was used by the Neo-Classicist to repudiate Rococo. By giving their form of art

He lived for this! He was a Republican! He was a governor! Forget him being a not so important person! He attacked political parties! He was Republican Robert La Follette serving as the governor of Wisconsin. As they nicknamed him “fighting Bob” and quotes “Men must be aggressive for what is right if government is to be saved from men who are aggressive for what is wrong.”

The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard, is an oil on canvas painting (2′8″ x 2′1″) created in 1766. This painting is often brought up when one discusses the Rococo period of art, as it is considered to be one of the most recognized of the period. This painting is the epitome of the Rococo style of art. Rococo was an art period that appeared in the early 1700s, when the reign of Louis XIV came to an end. It’s a combination of the Italian word Barocco, and irregularly shaped pearl; with the French word rocaille, which is a popular form of ornate gardening/interior ornamentation.

This Piece was created by Roxy Paine an American Artist. Some of the formal elements that are displayed in Roxy’s Piece are lines in reference to the tree branches. The shapes of the branches are irregular in the way they are looped and curved different ways. Also Roxy use earth tone colors like dark green in the grass and gray in the flooring. He also utilizes the entire space to spread out the tree branches to make it a larger sculpture. The 3D form gives the viewers the chance to walk around and through the sculpture to get a better look at it.

The term, Rococo is a style of French design or an artistic expression that originate in the modern age of the eighteenth century. The Rococo style of art was an artistic revolution of the hopes and dream of the emerging middle class, which spread through the European region. This movement is most popular for its uses of fancy, curved asymmetrical forms and rich ornamentation. Rococo art style is shown elegantly and beautifully, with the scenes of classic love stories and fantastical dreams of romance. Fragonard described the theme of the painting as an act of individual freedom, both physical and emotional in the sense of movement.

Art and the French Revolution The French Revolution was both influenced by art and influenced art. Prior to the revolution the art style that was popular in France was Rococo, an art style that depicted the life of leisure enjoyed by the aristocracy. Displaying luxury, excessive indulgence and a lack of seriousness, those who were not involved in the aristocratic lifestyle could not help but feel it was immoral and indecent. The fact that the aristocracy were flaunting their luxurious lifestyle while the average citizen was suffering with inflation and over taxation angered many.

Jean-Batiste Simeon Chardin was famous for his still life painting, which depicts the ordinary life in 18th century. As most artists belonged to the Rococo style at that time, in which artists painted about the luxury life of aristocracy, Chardin chose to go against Rococo and began to paint about the ordinary life to bring the art to the public viewers. He used still-life painting to show the link between the motions of the body’s repetitious habit and the stable world around the body, instead of just painting about the body itself. While Rococo style painters painted their subjects with fluffy and soft textures to create

Some men would never commission a painting to idolize their mistress, however Baron de St. Julien felt as though he needed to immortalize his forbidden love in a painting and Jean-Honore Fragonard was the only artist of the time to agree to this request. Jean-Honore Fragonard’s The Swing also known as The Happy Accidents of the Swing is a stupendous example of the Rococo era because of how dainty and light it was which is ironic because of its adulterous themes. How Fragonard portrayed St. Juliens vision made men of the Enlightenment uncomfortable and enraged with the artwork because it made men look immoral and foolish.

An example of this is The Hours of Jeanne d'Évreux by Jean Pucelle, whose style clearly derives from the courtly mode established in Paris at the time of St. Louis. This influence can be seen in the softly modeled, voluminous draperies gathered loosely and falling in projecting diagonal folds around tall, elegantly posed