Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Jean-Honoré Fragonard's paintings use animated figures, changing light, and varied brushwork to give narratives a sense of movement. Trained in Paris with Chardin and Boucher, he also studied in Rome, where drawing and the observation of earlier Italian art broadened his treatment of figures and landscape. The Swing sets a social encounter within a richly planted garden, making the moving figure, surrounding foliage, and observer's viewpoint parts of its meaning. The Progress of Love was commissioned in 1771 by Madame du Barry as a decorative series, allowing related encounters to unfold across several canvases. Its figures and garden settings connect private patronage with narrative painting on the scale of an interior. Landscapes and fanciful portraits reveal other uses of his quick handling and attention to expression. His later work also developed more restrained, classical arrangements alongside the movement associated with his Rococo subjects.