Jean Honoré Fragonard.

Article I
Author(s): Ralph Nevill
Source: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 3, No. 7 (Sep. - Oct., 1903), pp. 50-
53+55-57
Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/855709 .
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 JEAN HONORf FRAGONARD
A WRITTEN BY RALPH NEVILL A
ARTICLE
T is recorded that Frago-
nard, on being asked one day
how he had become a pain-
ter, and in what manner his
style had been formed, gave
the reply,'Tire toi d'affaire
comme tu pourras, m'a dit la Nature en me
poussant a la vie.' From this answer the
whole character of the great artist may be
inferred. His ambition limited to a desire
of leading a smooth and pleasant life, and
endowed with a disposition of a curious kind
-paresseusement travailleuse, as De Gon-
court aptly terms it-he took the world ab-
solutely as he found it, nor ever troubled
about a future which did not yet exist.
From his own sun-kissed Provence he had
brought sufficient joyousness wherewith to
brush worries lightly aside, whilst remain-
ing ever ready to enter into and enjoy to the
full such pleasures as human existence has
to give. To be the founder of a school-
the inaugurator of a new departure in art
-he never aspired or wished to aspire, nor
was he in any way desirous of correcting or
reforming his fellow-creatures. Himself of
an exceedingly easy morality, nothing was
further from his thoughts than to venture dis-
quieting comments upon the facile standard
of conduct which in his age was so generally
accepted. In short, Fragonard sought but
to please others, whilst giving free rein to
his own pleasure-loving fancy. ?The time,
indeed, at which he lived was exactly suited
to his disposition; and once the painter
had adopted that style in which he so pre-
eminently excelled, he soon found himself
eagerly welcomed by a society given up to
amusement-by an aristocracy devoted to
those lighter forms of art which, whilst
pleasing the eye, suggest no unpleasantly
austere or puritanical reflections. In the
middle of the eighteenth century enor-
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I
mous sums were being spent by thefermiers
generaux in the decoration of their houses,
which in some cases were but miniature
palaces. The boudoirs of many of the
ladies of the day were masterpieces of ar-
tistic collaboration, in which the artist, the
decorator, and the ebinisteeach had his well-
balanced part. Accustomed to gratify al-
most every caprice, the nobles of the court
vied with one another in the luxury (for the
most part restrained by good taste) lavished
upon the bonbonnikres in which the ladies of
their heart were wont to receive them; and
for the decoration of these abodes of love no
one was more sought after than Fragonard,
who, himself an ardent worshipper at the
shrine of Venus, thoroughly understood the
kind of setting which such a gem as a pretty
face deserved to receive. A Frenchman of
Frenchmen, love appeared to him as a joy-
ous pastime, which came near being the real
object and main business of life. For him
asceticism had no meaning, austerity no
message; and having once taken his place as
the painter ofjoyous youth and light-hearted
love, he made no attempt to curb his fancy
even when it manifested a disposition to
break down convention and trample upon
prudery. ?Endowed with such a tempera-
ment, there is little cause for wonder that he
did not long continue an adherent of the
grand school of painting to which he at first
made an attempt to belong. It is also pos-
sible that the difficulty which Fragonard
experienced in getting paid for his picture,
Cor6sus se sacrifie pour sauver Callirhoe,
may have had some part in causing him to
abandon the grandiose style and become, as
it were, the painter-in-ordinary to thefer-
miers gne'raux. He was, besides, totally
devoid of ambition, for his work gave him
such little trouble that it was more an
amusement than a cause for vanity. Indeed,
5'
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The it seems doubtful if Fragonard ever dreamt
Burlington of attaining any posthumous fame, for in
Magazine, many of his paintings he has but tossed half
Number his name to posterity, signing ' Frago' with
VII a familiarity which may, nevertheless, have
been born of a sure confidence that the
world of the future would recognize in that
semi-signature the supreme painter of youth
and love-the genius-the great Frago-
nard. ..... Jean Honore Fragonard was
born at Grasse on April 5, 1732, and in
that little town were passed the first fifteen
years of the future artist's life. In 1747,
his father, Frangois Fragonard, who had
embarked upon an exceedingly unsuccess-
ful speculation, went to live in Paris,
where it was soon decided that the youth
should earn his living as a junior clerk
in a notary's office. Occupation of such a
kind as this did not, however, prove at all to
his liking, and as Honor6 was perpetually
drawing and showed considerable artistic
aptitude, the notary, who appears to have
been a sensible man, advised the family to
send their son to study under some painter,
'for,' said he, 'he will do far more good in
copying pictures than he has ever done in
transcribing deeds.' It having been de-
cided to follow this advice, the youthful
Fragonard was in due course taken by his
mother to Fran9ois Boucher, then at the
height of his success. The great artist, how-
ever, was not in the habit of receiving any
but advanced pupils, and therefore sent him
for six months to study under Chardin, who
appears to have made every effort to de-
velop the young man's talents. Curiously
enough, whilst with Chardin, whose school
of painting was antagonistic to Fragonard's
natural tastes, the youthful artist made no
progress whatever, and so much so was this
the case that his master at last informed his
pupil's family that while there was no indi-
cation that the youth would ever do any good
as a painter, he was also incorrigibly idle,
and more given to wandering about the
streets of Paris than to devoting himself to
serious work. The very wanderings, how-
52
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ever, of which Chardin complained, were in
reality an artistic education for Fragonard,
who in the intervals of amusing himself had
been wont to study the pictures hanging in
the Paris churches. These he would com-
mit to memory, and on his return home,
setting to work, would make careful copies
from recollection. T?Afterleaving the studio
of Chardin, the young man proceeded to
show these copies to Boucher, who, aston-
ished at their excellence, for the first time
began to realize that Fragonard was no or-
dinary dauber. He declared that now the
young artist might come to his studio, and
entrusted him with some designs for the Go-
belins tapestry manufactory-his usual way
of employing pupils. For two years Frago-
nardhad been engaged in this work, when his
master one day suddenly said to him, 'You
must try for the Prix de Rome.' 'That,' re-
plied the young man, 'I cannot, unfortu-
nately, do, for I have never followed the
course of study which is obligatory.' 'What
does that matter?' cried Boucher, 'you are
my pupil,' and so the matter was decided.
In 1752, at the age of twenty, Fragonard,
notwithstanding his lack of the usual artis-
tic training, competed for the prize and won
it. The subject was Jeroboam Sacrificing
to Idols, a picture now at the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts. In this composition, Frago-
nard'sgreat powers as a colourist are already
clearly to be discerned, whilst the execution
gives promise of that talent which was later
on to be so fully developed. At this period
Fragonard's method was very much founded
upon that of his master, as is especially evi-
dent in La Bascule and Le Colin Mail-
lard, engraved by Beauvarlet in 1760; in-
deed, were they unsigned, they would cer-
tainly be attributed to Boucher, and, as a
matter of fact, some of the engravings pub-
lished of these two pictures were at first
actually published as being 'after Boucher,'
the engravers themselves having been de-
ceived. Another picture painted by Fra-
gonard about this date was the R6crbation
dans un Parc, in which his great gift for
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painting gardens filled with animated figures
is strongly conspicuous. His Philosophe
appuy6 sur sa Main, a painting of a quite
different style, was now bought by the
amiable son-in-law of Boucher, who by his
purchases was wont to assist any promising
young pupils of his relative. ?Some little
time before Fragonard's success in winning
the Prix de Rome, Louis XV had instituted
a special course of instruction for young
artists to complete their artistic education
before proceeding to study in the Eternal
City. This school was in the Place du vieux
Louvre, at the corner of the Rue Fromen-
teau, and its director was Carle Van Loo,
under whom Fragonard began to work in
the spring of 1753. Here he came in con-
tact with Deshayes, Doyen, Brenet and
Monnet, as well as with the sculptors Pajou
and Clodion. Whilst under this tuition the
young painter produced several pictures,
one of which (now in the cathedral of
Grasse), Le Sauveur lavant les pieds a ses
Ap6tres, was exhibited at Versailles in
1755. Going to see his old master before
setting out for Rome in 1756, Boucher
addressed him in these words: 'My dear
Frago, in Italy you will see the works of
Raphael and Michael Angelo; but in confi-
dence and as a friend I tell you this-if you
take those fellows seriously you will be a lost
man !' ? At first Natoire, the director of
the French students in Rome, was not at all
satisfied with Fragonard, who, a contem-
porary of the Pompadour and fresh from the
delights of Paris, was not in sympathy with
the severe works of the old masters. He
himself declared that Michael Angelo and
Raphael frightened him, but eventually he
took to studying painters such as Baroche,
Pietro da Cortona, Solimena and Tiepolo,
with whom he felt himself more at home.
Whilst living in Rome, the young man at-
tracted the attention of that ardent patron
of the arts, the Abb6 de Saint-Non, who,
having had the Villa d'Este placed at his
disposal, invited the painter to come and
stay with him there. In the lovely grounds
D 55
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Fragonard, in company with his friend, Jean-Honor6
Hubert Robert, sketched and painted to his Fragonard
heart's delight. His principal works exe-
cuted at this time were the Vue de l'entr6e
de Tivoli and the Vue prise dans les jardins
de la Villa d'Este. Saint-Non, who had
taken a great fancy to Fragonard, behaved
very generously towards him, and, besides
sending him to Naples, took his prot6g6
to pass a springtime in Venice. In return
for this generosity Fragonard presented his
patron with most of the work which during
this period he had executed. ? At last, in
the autumn of the year 1761, Fragonard,
after an absence of five years, returned to
Paris full of enthusiasm and with a fixed de-
termination to paint a masterpiece in the
great style of painting of which he had in
Italy seen so many splendid examples. Na-
turally such a masterpiece must, according
to the fashion of the day, be taken either
from history or mythology, and so he
proceeded to attempt various sketches be-
fore definitely making a decision. ? An-
tiochus dying of love for Stratonice is one,
Renaud dans les Jardins d'Armide and Re-
naud dans la Foret enchant6e are others.
Finally choice falls upon Coresus sacri-
ficing himself to save Callirhoe, a picture
which he painted and exhibited at the Aca-
demie Royale de Peinture in March 1765,
where it was received with a chorus of
congratulatory acclamation, and a royal
command ordered it to be reproduced in Go-
belins tapestry. Concerning this painting
Diderot says: ' The ideality of this artist is
sublime, and there is but lacking to him a
more truthful colouring and a perfection of
technique, which time and experience will
alone be able to give him.' ?In addition to
his great picture, Fragonard exhibited at the
same salon L'absence des Phre et Mbre mise
t Profit-a boy embracing a girl older than
himself, who is making her little brothers
play with some dogs. In this is to be dis-
cerned the real spirit and natural style of
the painter. ? In the salon of 1767 his only
exhibited works were a Tate de Vieillard
The and a design for a painted ceiling which was
Burlington to be put up in the house of Bergeret, Re-
Magazine, ceveur des Finances, to whom Fragonard
Number had been introduced by Boucher. ?From
VII the criticisms of the day, which express
regret at the young artist having halted
when on the threshold of what should have
been a completely successful career, it is to
be inferred that Fragonard was now indulg-
ing a good deal in pleasure. It is also likely,
as has before been said, that the delay in pay-
ment for his Coresus led him to think
that it would be far more profitable to paint
for the fermiers gbnVraux and their fair
friends than to exhibit pictures which,
though they might enhance his artistic re-
putation, yet did not furnish that supply of
ready money so necessary to one of his plea-
sure-loving tastes. ?The truth was that, in
any case, Fragonard's nature was too frivo-
lous-too exuberant ever to have continued
in the grand style of painting, whilst he was
being solicited on all sides to deal with sub-
jects in which his gay southern nature re-
velled and delighted. So it came about that
the artist soon gained a reputation as a
painter of light-hearted love, and for this
reason it was that Doyen naturally selected
him as being the man to paint the delightful
Hasards heureux de l'Escarpolette, which
to-day, under the prosaic name of 'The
Swing,' hangs in the Wallace collection at
Hertford House. ? The story of how it
came to be painted is worth telling. Doyen,
who had just exhibited a religious picture,
Sainte Genevieve des Ardents, at the Sa-
lon, was one day sent for by a gentleman of
the court, who, having received him with
the greatest civility and politeness, con-
ducted him into a boudoir in which sat,
smiling, a 'petite dame' of charming ap-
pearance. 'I am,' said the noble,'dying of
a desire to have a picture painted in a style
of my own which I will describe to you.'
?' I wish you,' continued he, 'to paint
madame in a swing which is being set in mo-
56
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tion by a bishop, whilst you will depict me
lying on the ground glancing upwards at my
dear little lady, whose dainty feet will
twinkle above my eyes.' 4?Doyen declares
that at first, considering the nature of the
picture he had just sent to the Salon, this
proposition astonished him considerably;
but having quickly recovered himself, he
began to enter somewhat into the spirit of
the idea, and said to the gentleman,' You
should improve your picture by making the
shoes of madame fly off in the air and be
caught by Cupids.' Nevertheless, being, as
he says, a long way from having any wish to
embark upon a subject so utterly alien to his
usual style, he recommended the noble to
address himself to 'M. Fagonat,' as he calls
Fragonard. The latter, it appears, at once
undertook to paint the required picture, the
general scheme of which thoroughly ap-
pealed to his tastes. One change, however,
he made in the general design, which was
to replace the bishop by an ordinary indi-
vidual. ? Les Hasards heureux de I'Es-
carpolette was painted in the year 1765, in
the month of October, and there is a strong
probability that the name of the gentleman
for whom it was executed was the Baron de
Saint-Julien. The print of the picture by
Nicolas de Launay achieved, when issued, an
immediate and prodigious success. It was
most likely engraved from the replica of the
Escarpolette (also by Fragonard) which is
now in the possession of Baron Edmond
de Rothschild, and not from the painting in
the Wallace collection, which Lord Hert-
ford purchased at the sale of the duke de
Morny in 1865 for 30,200 francs. Almost
pathetic is it that this work of art, so
thoroughly French in conception, should
have found a permanent home in England,
where the little lady of the Escarpolette
must of necessity swing her dainty rose-
coloured lingerie before a public which by
nature and trainingis unsympathetic towards
irresponsible and unfettered frivolity.
L'ESCARPOLETTE, BY JEAN-HONORE FRAGONARD; FROM THE PICTURE IN THE WALLACE COLLECTION

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