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The Swing, probably about 1765, oil on canvas, 2.159 x 1.855 m., Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1961.9.17
Elegant young people amuse themselves at a fête galante (an idyllic
gathering) with flirtation and games of love. They find themselves in a magical
garden, an immense expanse of earth and sky that is an idealized vision of
Nature, imposing yet tamed by civilization. Light plays on the towering clouds
and breaks through in patches on the ground to illuminate the tiny figures as if
they were on a spotlit stage. Our eye falls on a young woman swinging beneath the
trees. As she waves with a flower to her companions, she kicks out a leg to
reveal petticoats, ankles, and a dainty calf. To eighteenth-century audiences,
the swing's rhythm and motion would have suggested erotic abandon. Looking
carefully, we find that this swing is pulled by a youth barely visible in the
shadows between the two lion fountains-and so we discover a romantic attachment.
Fragonard adopted the lighthearted subjects of his teacher Boucher, but painted in a freer style. Quick trills of paint create silk ruffles; spare dots of color are sufficient to convey a wealth of flowers. "Swordplay of the brush" one contemporary called it. This painting and its companion nearby, Blindman's Buff, originally formed part of a large scheme of decoration.
From the dappled edge of the Tuileries Gardens, we see the Louvre
across the light-filled Place du Carrousel, the site of renovations undertaken
for the museum's bicentennial in 1993. The pavilion at left, until recently part
of the finance ministry, has now been reclaimed for gallery space. Better known
for rural landscapes, Pissarro came to paint urban scenes late in his career. As
his vision failed and he was forced to work indoors, he rented rooms that gave
him views of Rouen, Paris, and other cities. Influenced by Monet's series
paintings, Pissarro set up a number of easels to work simultaneously on different
canvases, as light and weather conditions changed. This is one of several such
views of the Place du Carrousel painted from his rooms above the Rue de Rivoli.
By giving us a sidelong view and by interrupting it on all sides, Pissarro
captures some of the busy city's restless activity. His quick brushwork seems to
mimic the action. Scoured circles of paint trace the motion of carriage wheels.
With the movement of the brush in his hand, Pissarro does not simply paint; he
reenacts their rolling progress.
Although she was American,from a
prominent Pennsylvania family, Mary Cassatt's work normally hangs with French
painting. At the age of twenty-two she left to study art in France and she
remained there most of her life. Her choice of career-and success-were unusual
for nineteenth-century women. Her paintings were exhibited with the independent
artists we now call impressionists, and she produced some of the most inventive
works in their late expositions. It was through Cassatt's social contacts and
wealthy friends at home that impressionist works were first acquired by
progressive American collectors. Like Degas, however, Cassatt detested the term
"impressionist." She relied, not on momentary inspiration, but on drawing and the
careful working out of design. This bold composition-one of her most
ambitious-shows her understanding of the flat, patterned surfaces, simplified
color blocks, and unusual angles of Japanese prints, which were very popular in
nineteenth-century Paris. The horizon is pushed to the top of the canvas, giving
an oblique, bird's-eye view into the boat. Bold areas of citron and blue carve
strong patterns and flatten space.
It is unlikely that anyone who saw this
painting when it was exhibited in Paris in 1893 would have understood the
Tahitian legend Gauguin inscribed on it. Its symbolism remains complex. The
masked kneeling figure is the varua ino of the title, a malevolent spirit who
materializes as strange and frightening human forms. The standing woman, on the
other hand, is associated through her gestures evoking modesty and shame with
Western images of Eve after the Fall. When Gauguin traveled to Polynesia in
search of life unspoiled by civilization, he took with him a collection of
photographs-of Renaissance paintings, the Parthenon, the Buddhist temple of
Borobudur-and often incorporated these images in his Tahitian paintings.
Yet this is not simply a Western theme in Polynesian guise, and it is unlikely that this Eve is meant to embody guilt and remorse. Among the women of Tahiti, Gauguin discovered profound spiritual forces at work. In the Polynesian Eve he identified a channel through which spiritual energy enters the everyday world. Probably, she represents knowledge of good and evil, of life and human mortality-part of Gauguin's long dialogue with life and death. At the upper right, under the curiously serpentine red and green face, Gauguin inserts himself into the scene with the depiction of a sketchy hand, an emblem he used in self-portraits.
This page was revised on 1/12/95