Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose lively Rococo works often depict love, leisure, and aristocratic life. His best-known painting is The Swing.

The Swing: An oil painting by Fragonard depicting a woman on a swing, watched by two men in a lush garden. Its playful secrecy and exuberant brushwork epitomize Fragonard’s reputation.
Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture: The French royal institution that trained and regulated painters and sculptors before the Revolution. Fragonard’s rise depended on recognition within this institution and its official artistic hierarchy.
Rococo: An eighteenth-century European artistic style marked by ornament, asymmetry, lightness, and playful intimacy. Fragonard’s color, movement, and courtship scenes are among Rococo painting’s best-known expressions.
Madame du Barry: The last official royal mistress of Louis XV and a major patron of the arts. Her commission for The Progress of Love became one of Fragonard’s most ambitious projects.
The Stolen Kiss: A Fragonard painting of a woman stealing a kiss from a man in a doorway. It compresses the painter’s interest in secrecy and romantic encounter into a domestic setting.
François Boucher: A French Rococo painter and Fragonard’s principal teacher in Paris. Boucher’s decorative style helped form Fragonard’s early artistic vocabulary.
Brushwork: The visible marks and handling of paint through which a painter builds an image. Fragonard’s loose, energetic handling gives his scenes much of their sense of motion.
French Revolution: A period of political and social upheaval in France beginning in 1789 that ended the monarchy. The Revolution weakened the aristocratic patronage on which much of Fragonard’s career had depended.
The Bolt: A Fragonard painting of a couple embracing as a man reaches to bolt a door. Its intimate drama shows Fragonard turning a private moment into theatrical action.
Prix de Rome: A French art prize that enabled selected artists to study in Rome at public expense. Winning it gave Fragonard the opportunity to study Italian art and travel beyond France.

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