“Consuming Passion: Fragonard’s Allegories of Love”
Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute,
Williamstown, Massachusetts.
October 28, 2007-January 21, 2008
“Consuming Passion: Fragonard’s Allegories of Love,” currently on view at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, attempts to complicate our view of the artist said to have made the impudent boast “Je peindrais avec mon cul”—“I would paint with my ass.” The endlessly facile Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), a commercial success but critical failure during most of his career, died largely forgotten, a painter who had outlasted his public. Diffident toward official success, Fragonard devoted himself to work for private clients with brio to equal his bragging, using a fast brushstroke, bold handling, and an extraordinary range of styles to position himself as the successor to his teacher, François Boucher (1703–1770.)
The current exhibition focuses on a group of paintings and related works Fragonard made in the 1780s, near the end of his active artistic career. An introductory gallery presents the artist as we already know him through examples of the landscapes, genre scenes, and notorious erotic works Fragonard created for the financiers and courtiers of the ancien régime. The main body of the show then turns to the Allegories of Love, four scenes existing in multiple versions: The Oath of Love, The Invocation of Love, The Sacrifice of the Rose and The Fountain of Love(the first two represented by works on paper only). Love, or at least sex, had long been