The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard Postcard

The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard, c. 1775-1780, is a monumental oil on canvas landscape painting of lush trees harmoniously silhouetted against blue sky and clouds, a tiny group of young people playing in a tree swing in the foreground. Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) was a late Rococo painter of the French Ancien Régime whose works were distinguished by painterly facility and exuberance. Originally a pupil of Chardin, Fragonard produced a large number of works until the growing fashion of neo-classicism and the French Revolution forced him to flee into obscurity. Fragonard’s reputation revived in the late 19th century, when his sense of colour, relaxed hedonistic subject matter and painterly brushwork inspired new generations of the Impressionists such as Renoir.