Art Masterpiece Today

This morning I did an Art Masterpiece presentation and the artist was Jean-Honore Fragonard (pronounced: zjahn oh-no-reh Fra-go-nahr)

The painting was titled "A Young Girl Reading" it was painted in 1776. Fragonard lived from 1732-1806, he began painting at 18 studying under such famous artists as Chardin & Boucher. Boucher encouraged him to enter "Prix de Rome" which from what I've learned sounds to be a scholorship for Artists. At age 20 he won Prix de Rome. At that point he wasn't sure as to what he wanted to paint since he mainly did landscapes. He spent some time searching and learning and also spent time in Italy. He was then accepted into the Royal Accademy in France and his reception piece drew a lot of praise, it was sent to be copied into a tapestry. He would have possibly had an illustrious career as a court painter for Louis XV but turned his back on the opportunity. He instead chose to paint commissioned work for Aristocrats (it was funny when I was telling the 6th graders this, AristoCATS came out instead :) I quickly corrected myself. The time period style paintings were "Rococo" which is described as delicate colors, curving forms, cherubs, myths of love & portraiture. Fragonard was commissioned by Madame du Barry (Louis XV's last mistress) to do several paintings. She rejected his work saying they were passe' it was the late Rococo period. The other two painting I have pictured are from that group. One is called "The Meeting" and the other "The Swing". Of his work I am more fond of these, than the Young Girl Reading but the kids had quite a few comments about it. They questioned if she may be reading the Bible. One boy said her finger looked like a noodle. Another comment was that her pinkie stuck out and we talked about that being an aristocratic thing. There was also a lot of discussion as to where she was sitting because of the pillow behind her. The girl is unidentified so we speculated as to who she may be. I thought it would be good to bring in other work he'd done. I also brought in a picture to show the difference between Baroque and Rococo style. Baroque came before Rococo.

Fragonard's career was destroyed by the French Revolution since the nobility was obviously destroyed by the Revolution.