Meet the Expert: The Fragonard Project

[@darrendazcox]

What an excellent video! 30 years after my my first art history class I'm still learning and gaining inspiration with quality content like this! I was never a fan of Jacques-Louis David. His work never stacked up to the inspiration I get from Fragonard and to see how wooden and almost folk-art-like David's rococo work is by comparison is amusing. The fact that both artists intersected artistically and while Fragonard was by far the superior talent it was David who gets the next chapter in the art history books. Well said about Fragonard starting 'modern art' - exactly right and not just by painting contemporary subject matter vs mythological or historical genres but by not needing to be part of the establishment at all - he was a freelancer! Fragonard is an artist who understood that contemporary women just needed an occasional glamorous moment of perfection in the spotlight to celebrate their importance as life bringers and nurturers. Women in the early days of the age of enlightenment could use wealth and power to achieve worthy goals and even epic ones if their complicated protocols were followed. Sure, the occasional scullery maid might get sent to the Bastille for being too coquettish or using Pledge not Windex in the Hall of Mirrors but David simply has the women waiting with the Brasso shield-polish at home. 'Women can't do much war stuff because they have to raise children so we act out of duty to protect you' his narrative tells us but Fragonard's narrative says 'lets focus on what's important here - the other countries have women and children too'. Basically the same message but one artist paints pretty girls to tell the story and the other paints sweaty half naked men to tell the story. Perhaps Fragonard was more of a voyeuristic nerd than a alpha-male jock but in terms of pure painting technique and subject matter I can attest from practice with the brush that it takes far more skill to capture moving lace and embroidery than to just paint the glint on a sword. It's far easier to paint something ugly than to paint something pretty and when you can do so with a flourish of personalized brushstrokes that make me think of Marie Antoinette licking an ice-cream cone I can feel Fragonard's love of the craft of painting. That inspires me! I imagine what Fragonard must have been thinking day by day as he entered his studio regardless of how much money he had or not "it took a life time of un-wasted moments to experience and show my love of art by simply indulging my appreciation of women".