Fragonard, Jean-Honoré (zhäN-ōnôrā` frägônär`), 1732–1806, French painter. He studied with Chardin, Carle Van Loo, and intensively with Boucher, whose style he assimilated. He won the Prix de Rome and studied in Italy from 1756 to 1761; there he was particularly attentive to the works of Tiepolo. In 1765 he was admitted to the Académie royale for the historical Coresus and Callirrhoë (Louvre), but thereafter he devoted himself to painting polished and delicately erotic scenes of love and gallantry for the court. Characteristic examples are Love's Vow, The Swing (Wallace Coll., London), and the Music Lesson (Louvre). He married and his works became less sensual and more sentimental. Ruined by the Revolution, he retired to Grasse, where he decorated the house of a friend with the panels Roman de l'amour et de la jeunesse, earlier rejected by Mme Du Barry (Frick Coll., New York City), and several other paintings. Fragonard is esteemed for the freedom of his brush technique, the strength and vitality of his portraiture and landscapes, and for his virtuosity in depicting the character of gaiety and charm in the age of Louis XV. Well represented in the Louvre, the Wallace Collection in London, and the Frick Collection and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, his work can also be seen in the museums of Washington, D.C., Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, and St. Louis.

Bibliography

See the exhibition catalog from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (1988); studies by D. Wakefield (1976), J.-P. Cuzin (1988), and M. D. Sheriff (1989).

Fragonard, Jean-Honoré

“The Swing,” detail, oil on canvas by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, c. 1766; in …

(credit: Courtesy of the trustees of the Wallace Collection, London)

(born April 5, 1732, Grasse, Fr.—died Aug. 22, 1806, Paris) French painter. He studied with François Boucher in Paris c. 1749. He subsequently won a Prix de Rome, and while in Italy (1756–61) he traveled extensively and executed many sketches of the countryside, especially the gardens at the Villa d'Este at Tivoli, and developed a great admiration for the work of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. In 1765 his large historical painting Coresus Sacrifices Himself to Save Callirhoë was purchased for Louis XV and won Fragonard election to the French Royal Academy. He soon abandoned this style to concentrate on landscapes in the manner of Jacob van Ruisdael, portraits, and the decorative, erotic outdoor party scenes for which he became famous (e.g., The Swing, c. 1766). The gentle hedonism of such party scenes epitomized the Rococo style. Although the greater part of his active life was passed during the Neoclassical period, he continued to paint in a Rococo idiom until shortly before the French Revolution, when he lost his patrons and livelihood.