Fragonard

256 Pages·2015·38.609 MB·English

by  Edmond Goncourt, Jules Goncourt

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Authors : Edmond and Jules Goncourt
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Marguerite Gérard,
Portrait of Jean-Honoré Fragonard,
c. 1787-1791.
Oil on panel, 21.8 x 16.1 cm.
Private collection.
Layout :
Baseline Co. Ltd
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
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we would appreciate notification.
ISBN: 978-1-78525-070-5
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„The touch of Fragonard resembles those accents which, in
certain languages, give to mute words a melodious sound. His
figures, though merely indicated, live, breathe, smile and
delight. Their very indecisiveness has the attraction of a tender
mystery. They speak in low voices and glide past on tiptoe.
Their gestures are like furtive signs exchanged by lovers in the
darkness. They are the voluptuous shades of the 18th century.‰
· Paul de Saint-Victor
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Biography
1732: Jean-Honoré Fragonard is born in Grasse in the south of France.
1738: Arrives in Paris around this time.
1748-1752: After working as a notary apprentice for a while and having shown a keen
interest in drawing, Fragonard is sent to François BoucherÊs studio. Boucher
refuses to teach him so he is then sent to Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin who
trains him by creating copies. He focuses on the paintings of the Masters that
he sees in churches and impressed by the quality of his paintings, Boucher
finally takes him on as a student.
1752: He wins the Prix de Rome with his painting Jéroboam Sacrificing to the Idols,
a competition usually reserved for students of the Academy.
1753-1756: Thanks to the prize, he joins the École Royale des Élèves Protégés under the
direction of Carle Van Loo. His many works from this period demonstrate the
influence of his masters and their training.
1756-1761: First sojourn in Italy. He studies at the Académie de France in Rome. After a
difficult start, he becomes interested in the baroque painters he emulates in
his lessons. During this period, he leaves Rome on two occasions. Once to
work in Tivoli and another in Naples accompanied by his painter friend,
Hubert Robert, and Jean-Claude Richard, abbé de Saint-Non, who will go
on to become one of his primary sponsors. The two young artists create
many paintings for the abbé de Saint-Non. Upon his return to Paris,
Fragonard has established himself as a reputable artist.
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1765: His is accepted at the Académie Royale de Peinture due to his painting The
High Priest Corésus Sacrificing Himself to Save Calirrhoé which allows him
to obtain a studio and accommodation at the Louvre in Paris.
1767: Starting from this year he seldom takes part at the Salon. He turns his back
on academic and classical painters to focus on more light-hearted subjects.
The majority of the work he produces is commissioned by private clients.
1769: Fragonard marries Marie-Anne Gérard who is also an artist and comes
from Grasse. Their first child is born, a daughter named Rosalie.
1770-1773: He creates the series Progress of Love, a collection of decorative panels
made to adorn the walls of one of the dining rooms of a pavilion in
Louveciennes, the residence of the countess du Berry, a mistress of Louis XV.
The panels however are returned to the artist and are highly critiqued by
defenders of the emerging neoclassical movement.
1773-1774: Fragonard travels Italy and central Europe.
1780: Birth of his son Alexandre-Évariste, who will go on to become a painter like
his father.
1792-1800: Bankrupt and out of favour after the French Revolution, Fragonard paints less
and less. The painter Jacques-Louis David uses his influence and gets him a
position as a curator in the recently opened museum at the Louvre.
1805: An imperial decree requires all the resident artists, including Fragonard, to
leave the Louvre.
1806: He dies following a stroke, largely unnoticed by his contemporaries. His
artwork only starts to once again receive recognition in the 19th century.
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T he 18th century had no poets; I do not mean
rhymers, versifiers, word-spinners; I say
poets advisedly. Poetry in the noblest and
most profound sense of the term, poetry which is
creation through imagery, poetry which is an
enchantment, an enhancement of the imagination,
an ideal of pensive meditation or smiling delight
offered to the human mind, that poetry which lifts
up from the earth, with throbbing wings, the spirit
of an age, the soul of a people, such poetry was
unknown in 18th-century France; her two poets, the
only two, were painters: Watteauand Fragonard.
Blind Man’s Bluff
c. 1750-1752
Oil on canvas, 116.8 x 91.4 cm
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo (Ohio)
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Watteau, a child of the north, of Flanders, was
the great love poet, the master of a serene and
tender paradise whose art is like the Elysian Fields
of passion; he was the elegiac poet amid whose
tristful autumn woods, around whose wistful image
of pleasure, all the sighing of nature was magically
audible; he was the pensieroso of the Regence.
Fragonard sang in less elevated strains; he was the
poet of the Ars Amatoria of the age.
You remember that mischievous, impudent cloud
of naked cupids, vanishing into the sky of the
Embarquement de Cythère? Their destination was
the studio of Fragonard, where they shed the dust
from their butterfly wings onto his palette.
The See-Saw
c. 1750-1752
Oil on canvas, 120 x 94.5 cm
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
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