The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard

The Swing, c. 1767 by Jean-Honoré Fragonard.

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From The Short History of Art by Susie Hodge.

The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard

Recognized by his frivolously light-hearted things, deft brushwork and soft lighting and colors, John Honoré Fragonard (1732 -1806) exemplifies the hedonism of the Rococo era.

A notorious philanderer, Baron de Saint Julien, commissioned the history painter Gabrielle Francois Doyen (1726 - 1806) to paint his young mistress being pushed on a swing by a bishop, while the Baron admired her legs from below.  Doyen refused to work, so Fragonard took up the challenge, but omitted any church references, and made the girl the main focus.

In a frothy pink silk dress, poised in mid-air, she is being pushed on the swing by an elderly admirer, who is unaware of her excited young lover looking up her skirt from the bushes below. Tantalizingly, she kicks off her shoe towards a statue of Cupid, the god of desire and love, who raises a finger to his lips to show that he approves of the clandestine love affair, while behind her are two disapproving cherubs.  At the time, a woman's shoeless foot symbolized nudity.  Deliberately ironic is her bergere or shepherd's hat, as shepherdess's, at least in France, were associated with virtue and purity.  This is considered to be one of the greatest paintings of the Rococo era and Fragonard's best known work.  It's asymmetrical composition, lush scenery and amalgamation of playfulness, insouciance and eroticism and epitomize the Rococo focus on innocent cheerfulness, with less respectable insinuations.