Jean Honore Fragonard

Jean-Honore Fragonard was born April 6, 1732 and died on August 22, 1806. Fragonard was a French painter who produced over 550 paintings during his life time. Only five of his numerous paintings are dated. His later works tended to convey an atmosphere of eroticism, intimacy and are highly hedonistic.

Fragonard's early paintings were influenced by Francois Boucher and Chardin, a great luminist. His early "Jeroboam Sacrificing to the Golden Calf" earned him an invitation to Rome where he studied under Charles-Andre van Loo. Fragonard's painting "Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles" resides in the Grasse Cathedral.

While living in Rome, Fragonard toured Italy and learned to love the local scenery. The romantic gardens and fountains granted Fragonard more subjects for his paintings. He learned to admire the Dutch and Flemish masters including Rubens, Hals, Rembrandt, and Ruisdael with their loose brushstrokes.

In 1765 Fragonard's "Coresus at Callirhoe" brought him to the attention Louis XV. At court, Fragonard was in demand by the wealthy art patrons of Louis XV. Their pleasure loving and licentious court inspired him to paint scenes of love and voluptuousness. The beauty of his color schemes and the skill of his brushwork can be seen on "Blind Man's Bluff", "Love Vow", "The Bolt", and "The Shirt Removed". He painted decorations for the living quarters of Mme deu Barry and Madeleine Guimard one of France's premier dancers.

Fragonard stopped painting in the Rococo style and turned to Neoclassicism. He used his wife Marie-Anne Gerard and daughter Rosalie Fragonard as his subjects. During the French Revolution Fragonard lost his patrons to either the guillotine or exile. He felt very neglected, left Paris for the countryside and painted a series of decorative panels. He returned again to Paris where he died in 1806. Unfortunately, here no one seemed to remember who Fragonard was.

One of Fragonard's paintings "A Young Girl Reading" (1776) resides in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.