Some Thoughts on Painting

Fragonard, a French romantic painter, painted during the time of the licentiousness of the French courts. He particularly chose the excess of that regime as his subject. I am drawn to his art because it is more than what is depicted. Fragonard's art often shows the subject in all the pomp and circumstance of his or her wealth involved in some frivolous activity while the back ground of sky and cloud depicts doom. A perfect example is the painting, The Swing.

The Swing portrays court members in the garden with a lady painted in the innocence and ignorance of pink seated in her swing as she is pushed by her priest lover, while another man stares up her skirts. In the background ominous gray clouds are forming The trio is oblivious in their happy naughtiness unaware of the storm that is coming...the French Revolution. Fragonard had a good sense of irony.

I love the way art perfectly expresses realities that we in our own lives find hard to admit. We all distract ourselves from reality and focus on frivolity....or even scarier some noble cause. And the storm of of truth, the revolution of reality is forming.