The Swing (painting)

The Swing

Artist	Jean-Honoré Fragonard
Year	ca. 1767
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	81 cm × 64.2 cm (31 ^7⁄8 in × 25 ^1⁄4 in)
Location	Wallace Collection, London, United Kingdom

The Swing (French: L'Escarpolette), also known as The Happy Accidents of the Swing (French: Les Hasards heureux de l'escarpolette, the original title), is an 18th-century oil painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard in the Wallace Collection in London. It is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the rococo era, and is Fragonard's best known work.^[1]

Painting

The painting depicts a young man hidden in the bushes, watching a woman on a swing, being pushed by an elderly man, almost hidden in the shadows, and unaware of the lover. As the lady goes high on the swing, she lets the young man take a furtive peep under her dress, all while flicking her own shoe off in the direction of a statue of the Greek god of discretion and turning her back to two angelic cherubim on the side of the older man.

The lady is wearing a bergère hat (shepherdess hat) which is ironic since shepherds are normally associated with virtue because of their living close to nature, uncorrupted by the temptations of the city.

According to the memoirs of the dramatist Charles Collé,^[2] a courtier (homme de la cour)^[3] asked first Gabriel François Doyen to make this painting of him and his mistress. Not comfortable with this frivolous work, Doyen refused and passed on the commission to Fragonard.^[2] The man had requested a portrait of his mistress seated on a swing being pushed by a bishop, but Fragonard painted an ugly layman.

This style of "frivolous" painting soon became the target of the philosophers of the Enlightenment, who demanded a more serious art which would show the nobility of man.^[4]

Provenance

The original owner remains unclear. A firm provenance begins only with the tax farmer M.-F. Ménage de Pressigny, who died in 1794, after which it was seized by the revolutionary government. It was possibly later owned by the marquis des Razins de Saint-Marc, and certainly by the duc de Morny. After his death in 1865 it was bought at auction in Paris by Lord Hertford, the main founder of the Wallace Collection.^[5]

Copies

There are a number of copies, none by Fragonard.

• one once owned by Edmond James de Rothschild,^[6] slightly different from the original; the lady's dress is blue, not pink^[7]
• a smaller version (56 × 46 cm) owned by Duke Jules de Polignac.^[6] This painting became the property of the Grimaldi family in 1930 when Pierre de Polignac (1895-1964) married Princess Charlotte, Duchess of Valentinois (1898-1977). In 1966, it was given by the Grimaldi & Labeyrie Collection to the city of Versailles, where it is currently exhibited at the Musée Lambinet, attributed to Fragonard's workshop.^[8]

Notable derived works

• 1782: Les Hazards [sic] Heureux de l'Escarpolettes [sic], etching and engraving by Nicolas de Launay (1739–1792), 62.3 × 45.5 cm (24 ⅝ × 17 ⅞ in).^[9] Contrary to the original painting, the lady is facing right and has plumes on her hat (among other dissimilarities) because it was drawn after the replica owned by Edmond de Rothschild.
• 1972: Sailin' Shoes, cover art of record album by American rock band Little Feat, artwork by Neon Park
• 1976: The scene in The Slipper and the Rose where Cinderella is seen swinging on a chair surrounded by climbing flowers while she is in exile is a direct reference to the "The Swing" by Jean-Honore Fragonard. Every detail of Cinderella's costume and setting are identical to the painting, right down to the color of her dress, the style of her hat, and the climbing flowers on her swing.
• 1999: The first act of the ballet Contact: The Musical by Susan Stroman and John Weidman is described as a "contact improvisation" on the painting.^[10]
• 2001: The Swing (after Fragonard), a headless lifesize recreation of Fragonard's model clothed in African fabric, by Yinka Shonibare^[11]
• 2010: The animated film Tangled uses a visual style based on The Swing.^[12]
• 2013: In Frozen, a painting based on The Swing appears in the portrait gallery in Arendelle's castle (as a reference to Tangled)^[13] during "For the First Time in Forever." In one shot, Anna jumps in front of the painting and copies the pose of the woman on the swing. The version in the film omits the statue of Cupid and the male figure in the bushes.
• 2015: The live-action Disney film Cinderella homages the painting in a scene where Ella rides a swing in the prince's secret garden while he pushes, during which her shoe falls off.^[14]

Notes

External video

Fragonard's The Swing, Smarthistory[4]

1. Ingamells, 164
2. Collé, Charles. Journal et mémoires de Charles Collé sur les hommes de lettres, les ouvrages dramatiques et les événements les plus mémorables du règne de Louis XV (1748-1772) III. Paris: Firmin Didot Frères, Fils et Cie. pp. 165–166.
3. Although his identity was not unveiled by Collé, it has been thought that it was Marie-François-David Bollioud de Saint-Julien, baron of Argental (1713–1788), best known as Baron de Saint-Julien, the then Receiver General of the French Clergy. However there is little evidence for this, according to Ingamells, 163-164.
4. "Fragonard's The Swing". Smarthistory at Khan Academy. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
5. Ingamells, 165
6. Wallace Collection (1908). Catalogue of the Oil Paintings and Water Colours in the Wallace Collection (8th ed.). A repetition of by no means equal merit is in the collection of Baron Edmond de Rothschild ; a smaller version was in that of the Duc de Polignac (see Virgile Josz: Fragonard).
7. Bremmer, Jan (1991). From Sappho to De Sade: Moments in the History of Sexuality. Routledge. pp. 80–81. ISBN 978-0-415-06300-5. Note 4: According to Nevill (1903), a replica with a blue instead of a pink dress is in the possession of Baron de Rothschild.
8. "L'escarpolette". Catalogue des Collections des Musées de France. Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
9. "About This Artwork – The Art Institute of Chicago". Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved 2011-11-19.
   "R. S. Johnson Fine Art". R. S. Johnson Fine Art. Retrieved 2011-11-19.
10. Terry Byrne (14 June 2008). "Moving tales of love make 'contact'". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 7 May 2011. 'Swinging' tells the story behind a painting by 18th-century artist Jean-Honore Fragonard, in which a girl on a swing (Ariel Shepley) is teasing her companion (Jake Pfarr), while a servant (Sean Ewing) pushes the swing for her.
11. "Yinka Shonibare, MBE The Swing (after Fragonard), Yinka Shonibare, MBE Tate". Tate. Retrieved 2014-08-04.
12. Desowitz, Bill (2005-11-04)."Chicken Little & Beyond: Disney Rediscovers its Legacy Through 3D Animation". Animation World Magazine. Retrieved 2006-06-05.
13. "Look What We Found in Frozen". Disney.com. Disney. 12/10/2013. Retrieved 2015-10-02. REPURPOSED PAINTING – Artist Lisa Keene’s painting—completed during the development phase of Tangled and based on “The Swing” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard—made such an impression on Frozen filmmakers, it became part of Anna’s signature song, Check date values in: |date= (help)
14. "The Fine Art Diner - Kindness and Courage: Cinderella (2015)". Blogspot.com. 2015-03-14. Retrieved 2015-10-02. While the painting doesn't appear directly in Cinderella, I would like to posit that it's invoked when Kit takes Ella to his "secret garden" and pushes her on the swing

References

• Wallace Collection webpage
• Ingamells, John, The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Pictures, Vol III, French before 1815, Wallace Collection, 1989, ISBN 0-900785-35-7
• Farber, Allen (2006-04-05). "Fragonard's The Happy Accidents of the Swing". State University of New York at Oneonta. Retrieved 2009-01-18.

External links

• The painting at the Wallace Collection website
• The Swing - Analysis and Critical Reception

Media related to Les Hasards heureux de l'escarpolette at Wikimedia Commons