038

  • Les Hazard Heureux de L'escarpolette (The Happy Accidents of the Swing or The Swing)

  • After the 1767 painting, 1782
  • After Jean Honoré Fragonard (French 1732-1806), engraved by Nicolas DeLaunay (1739-1792)
  • Engraving
  • 59.7 x 44.6 cm., 23-9/16 x 17-9/16" image
  • Catherine Carter Goebel, Paul A. Anderson Chair in the Arts Purchase, Paul A. Anderson Art History Collection, Augustana College 2010.3

Essay by Katherine E. Goebel, Assistant Editor

Producing art in an age of frivolity and decadence, Jean-Honoré Fragonard showed a deep understanding of the style widely accepted by the French public in the eighteenth century. The aesthetics of the Rococo movement exemplify the vices of debauchery and excess quite present at the time, a lifestyle King Louis XV brought to the limelight with his royal succession in the mid eighteenth century. Consequently, popular artists of the time felt a need to produce lavish pieces to adorn the ornate residences of French aristocrats. As a result, artists such as Fragonard may have never truly found their full creative potential as they instead subscribed to the style they knew patrons and consumers desired (Sheriff 2).

The Swing is no exception to the sumptuous subject matter practically synonymous with the Rococo movement. This eighteenth-century engraving is a mirror image of the original oil painting. The omnipresent eroticism mixed with lush surroundings hints at indulgence and flirtation, both between humankind and nature. We see a nymph-like maiden being pushed on a swing by an older man, presumably her father or husband, into the gaze of a young boy who has positioned himself so as to see the girl's undergarments with the undulation of the ropes (Cuzin 97).

Viewers are entranced by the juxtaposition of the Utopian surroundings and provocative gestures. The woman seems pleased with her admirer, tossing her dainty shoe as an act of flirtation, or invitation of sorts, which either the boy will have to return or she will have to fetch, inevitably causing an interaction. We delight in the playfulness of the vignette-like snapshot, yet we sympathize for the poor man unknowingly, and literally, pushing his daughter or mate into impious arms. Even the young cupid sculpture on the right has his finger to his lips, as if to warn of the repercussions of lust. In this way, the work encapsulates the strains of primitive desire, as human desire is often a negative thing, even when placed in such a quaint setting. The twisting of branches and billowing of leaves leads the eye upwards at which point we notice natural light, perhaps a hint at what is to come from the heavens if these mortals continue with their impurities. Originally painted in 1767, this piece commemorates the height of Fragonard's artistic career as a painter of eroticism, or more broadly the Rococo, as his wealthy clientele specifically requested amorous scenes packed with splendor and lust, truly validating the time period as one of a celebration of earthly delights in which the patron and viewer can revel (Cuzin 97).