Fragonard Reconsidered

Long ago, in a university humanities course, we learned about French painters of the 18th century and their rococo works, particularly exemplified by Francois Boucher and Jean-Honore Fragonard both of whose works were long out of fashion by those days. The pictures themselves seemed like cakes with too much gooey icing, too sweet, too "cute." (As a callow youth I completely missed the sub rosa eroticism.) No, Fragonard's work was not my taste nor style, which in those days tended toward a more gritty American realism.

"Young Girl Reading," ca1770.

Perhaps twenty years later while visiting the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. I happened on a small work by Fragonard, "Young Girl Reading." In this picture, we see much less of the sugary dollops and flourishes in favor of an intimate portrait of a twenty-ish woman in a brilliantly painted yellow dress. The effect was entirely stunning when I saw it. Here was smashing color, deft and exciting brushwork, and in total, a truly fetching picture. As the years have passed I've returned to visit the picture many times, always astonished by the facility and apparent rapidity of the work. During those years I ran across other works by Fragonard that were equally surprising, particularly his portrait of an old man that is now in the Chicago Art Institute. In that work, an elderly man with a face riven by the years and a too-red nose stares at us from a gloomy setting. The brushwork of the features is at least as delicious as that in the portrait of the young woman.

Now the National Gallery is opening a new exhibition of Fragonard's Fantasy Figures, a group of paintings that includes the Young Girl. The exhibit runs until early December. Some years ago, a page of drawings by Fragonard was discovered and has been linked to a series of fourteen paintings, which are the subject of the exhibit. Nearly all of the sketches are of named individuals of the time, and are linked together with the resultant paintings. These remind me of tronies--the idealized Dutch paintings of heads--but are of actual people. But the brushwork and composition on display are very reminiscent of earlier painters like Hals. In any event, this looks like a not-to-be-missed show, and I hope to see it.