Artist Fragonard: interesting facts, paintings with names

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) was a painter and engraver of the sensual and refined, epicurean in its atmosphere Rococo period. He is, above all, a master of the pastoral and gallant genre in all its countless manifestations. We will try to present his most famous and expressive works. Let's start, however, with a brief biography of the artist Fragonard.

The life path of a student of J.-B. Chardin and F. Boucher

Jean-Honoré was born in sunny Provence, in the city of Grasse. His father sewed gloves, but went bankrupt, and the family moved to Paris in search of a better life. As a teenager, the boy is sent to be trained as a notary. But the desire to become an artist, drastically changing his life, was so great that he ended up in the workshop of the recognized master Francois Boucher. Jean-Honore's skills are not great, and six months later he goes on an internship with Chardin, and then returns to Bush again. Jean-Honore learns by copying the teacher's work. It becomes impossible to distinguish them from Boucher's paintings. The artist Fragonard is gradually formed, depicting young charmingvillagers with babies, wheelbarrows of flowers, lambs. An example is the painting "Shepherdess" (1752).

The bodice of the dress is cut low, the overskirt is tucked up. Her lines are whimsical, tortuous. The girl with beautiful hands holds a branch of a tree and a wreath. Nearby stands a basket filled with bright flowers, and a pretty little white sheep. A festive and joyful mood pours from Fragonard's painting. There was a great demand for such works. But the artist Fragonard did not stop there. He copied the works of the old masters, becoming more and more fond of Rembrandt, and later Rubens. As a result, after one of his paintings on a historical theme, he received a Gold Medal at the Academy and was sent to Rome. In Italy, the painter came under the influence of Tiepolo.

Return to Paris

Returning to his homeland, the artist Fragonard completely abandoned religious and classical themes, devoting his work to scenes of love, play, voluptuousness. It is with them that his name is now associated. It is enough to cite some paintings with the names of the artist Fragonard: "The Kiss Won", "The Theft of the Shirt by Cupid", "Desired Moment", "Love as Recklessness", "Playing with Fire", "Guardian of Love", "Bathers", "Fountain of Love", "Happy lovers", "Latch", "Love dreams". This is not all that is written by the master. After all, he has more than 500 works! Isn't that interesting!

Features of the artist's art

Fragonard's work is many-sided, changeable. He worked in almost all genres with amazing artistry and skill:painted in oils, painted with bistre, sanguine, pencil, ink, watercolor. The etching technique was also subject to him. Throughout his career, he was influenced by different artists and painted in different manners. But the works of Honore Fragonard are always recognizable: almost all the gallant-erotic motifs of the 18th century are represented in his paintings - these are passionate love hugs and playful play, genre love scenes and naked bathers, which are more reminiscent of sea naiads. The everyday episode of the artist's choice of nature becomes piquant, playful under the brush of Jean-Honoré ("The Artist and His Model"). The lightness of images and plots is smoothed out by the power of pictorial talent and filled with poetry. The paintings of the artist Fragonard enchant with the intoxicating beauty of life, sincerity, purity and freshness of feeling. For example, "Blind Man's Bluff" (1769, Toledo).

The richness of his palette lies, in short, in strokes of pure color (broad, fluid or sharp, short), which are combined with mixed color. This would later delight the Impressionists. And the last thing that needs to be said. Fragonard saturated all his works with light. In the shadows, the colors thicken almost to black or begin to shine with pearly whites, pinks or golden hues. The light gently flows around all forms and fills the space, creating the painter's signature touch.

Spicy story

Commissioned in 1762, the painting "Swing" was painted. Jean-Honore Fragonard is associated with most admirers of hisworks with this work.

Luminously and wildly swirling tall trees and shrubs of the park fill the area of the work. They "harden" in the foreground into beautifully painted leaves and flowers. The rest of the environment is immersed in a greenish-brown twilight. The sun pierces it, illuminating the blue sky, against which a young charmer flew up on a swing with a red velvet seat like an elegant airy butterfly. She knows that the one who rocks her from behind does not see the second young man who hid in the bushes. He is very young and gracefully mannered. The coquette with pleasure does not hold the lush coral-pink skirts. They rise high and open to the admiring gaze the lovely legs, which the beauty gladly allows to admire. With playfulness, she tosses a shoe into the air, as if giving it to a secret admirer. The three characters of the gallant scene are ingenuously sensual and a little naive. These qualities make them part of the natural environment. Cupid Falcone standing on a pedestal slyly presses his finger to his lips, urging everyone to silently admire the gallant scene. The picture is easy to perceive, as it combines the material beauty of life and theatrical spectacle. The whole composition was turned by the author from a joke into a picturesque poem.

70s park cycle

Like a true son of his time, the artist loved park art and was inspired to paint trees with a huge luminous sky and melting clouds. Their huge size servedin contrast to the small figures of people. Many paintings by Jean Fragonard can serve as an example: “An elegant company disembarking in a park”, “Love Island”, “Flourishing love: love letters”, “Feast in Saint-Cloud”, “Flourishing love: persecution”. In particular, we will offer a look at the "Little Park".

The master brought a touch of spectacle, softness, intimacy, refinement into the perception of nature. He looks at the structurally organized nature from the outside. In the melting mass of trees and clouds, light and color form a single whole, embodying the material world into a poetic work. The park cycle is the pinnacle and epilogue of the gallant and festive theme in the master's work.

Singer of the hearth

In the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment, under the influence of Diderot and Rousseau, Fragonard begins to paint scenes of family life. He tenderly looks at the young girls and young mothers of the family. They are full of enthusiasm and fun in the paintings of Honore Fragonard. The old sensual charm is felt in them: “Cooking Dinner”, “Caring Mother”, “Happy Family”. With a special picturesque brilliance, humor and tenderness, scenes with children are written: “A boy with a curiosity”, “Tell me please”. Life in the art of Fragonard is poeticized and theatricalized.

Portraits

This is one of the vast areas in which the master worked all his life. His works are not filled with psychological characteristics, but serve to decorate salons. It seems that his models do not pose, only for a moment turn their faces towards the viewer. Usually these are people familiar to the author: writers, artists,artists, their daughters. The names of the paintings speak of their generalized image: “Memories”, “Inspiration”, “Music”, “Singing”, “Reading”, “Philosopher”. The pictorial composition is usually based on the contrast of dark, condensed colors and clothes and radiant, light tones of the head. Let's look at some portraits.

Thoughtful reading girls

Dreamy-romantic and lyrical notes begin to appear in these images. The Portrait of the "Reading Girl" was for some time considered the most popular work of the master.

He wrote a sketch of a girl sitting comfortably, completely engrossed in reading a novel. She is focused, and nothing takes her away from an interesting book. The artist filled this most common occupation with the poetry of everyday life and bright decorativeness. The character captivates with a fresh young face with delicate peach skin. Her light lemon-colored dress with a white collar and cuffs reflects the sun's reflections. The girl sits leaning against a soft purple cushion, on which shadows of a deep golden-purple color fall. This portrait was painted during the transitional period, when Fragonard was already moving away from typical Rococo images.

Love Letter

This painting by the master is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and was painted around 1770.

A young beauty in a pearl-silver dress, depicted with light air strokes, and with a white lapdog behind her back, sits at a table by the window. She was taken by surprise, turned her face from the sheets on the table to the one whosuddenly entered the room. In her hands is a bouquet with a note enclosed in it. The joy that radiates from her whole fragile figure, a slight smile and rosy cheeks shows that she was waiting for this note. She is quite happy now, knowing that she is loved. Rays of sunlight that filter through the window color her skin with golden hues, also play on the golden wall hangings and the brown polished table. The beauty of the portrait is that it doesn't seem to be staged, but a moment captured from life.

Search for new directions in painting

In the 80s and 90s, the artist feels how the style of painting is changing. It becomes dry and strict. David sets a new direction - neoclassicism. Heroic staged scenes are becoming popular, in which the desire for freedom and the chased bas-relief of the image are expressed. Fragonard, not fully accepting the latest research, turns his attention to the "little Dutch". Their influence can be seen in the work below.

Sneak Kiss

Consider one masterpiece of 1788, which is in the Hermitage. This later work of the master came to Russia in 1895 from the collection of S. A. Poniatowski in exchange for the painting "Polka". A genre scene invented by Fragonard, as if he had seen it in real life.

The girl left the living room, filled with visitors, to take the scarf she had forgotten. Op! And she has already been caught by a young man who can no longer endure without breaking a kiss from a beautiful woman. He's not worried at allguests who are visible through the half-open door. Most importantly, the goal has been achieved. The young man gently but firmly holds the object of his passion. She, shyly and apprehensively that they will be seen, obeys the gentleman, trying not to get too close to him. The girl trembles all over and is ready to run away at the slightest opportunity. We will not dwell on the coloristic skill and style, which was influenced by the classicism that was coming into force. This can be seen without words on the presented reproduction.

Departure from Paris

During the revolution, the artist Fragonard leaves the seething and terrible Paris. His patrons and customers were guillotined or expelled. The painter found shelter in Grasse with his cousin Alexander Easel. Only at the beginning of the 19th century did the artist return to the capital. Ruined and forgotten by everyone, he dies in 1806.

The meaning of the work of the artist Fragonard, interesting facts

The painter managed to organically combine in his images theatricality and realism, incomparable sophistication and energy, almost incorporeal dreams and dreams and sensual fullness of being. He summed up all the trends that existed in the 18th century, and became the forerunner of classicism, romanticism and realism of the next century. Reopened, he again began to give people la joie de vivre.

• He was honored by the Impressionists as one of their teachers and forerunners.
• The artist wrote unusually quickly. On the backs of his portraits, you can find inscriptions that the work was written within an hour.
• Sale of his painting "Portrait of François-Henri, Duke D'Harcourt" at auctions around the world in2013 reached an all-time high of $28 million.
• A museum in Paris is named after the master, as well as factories and a perfume museum in Eze and Grasse.