Jean-Honoré Fragonard Picture Study Aid and Art Prints
Though Antoine Watteau is considered the father of the Rococo movement, the name that comes to mind when I think of the decadence of the French upper class during the last half of the 18th century is Jean-Honoré Fragonard. Many of his paintings are a record of the lives, desires, aspirations, and values of the French artistocracy in the time period just before the French Revolution. He painted for his audience, and his vision and style offer a glimpse of how these wealthy lords and ladies, many of whom later lost their heads, lived.
Along with the decadence of those who purchased his paintings, however, he also painted his own values and visions of beauty and noble ideas. These include the Fantasty Figures, as well as the family-centered subjects of the series of paintings most likely inspired by Rousseau’s Émile. Regardless of which painting you’re looking at from his oeuvre, though, his work is a prime example of the Rococo style.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard Picture Study Aid and Art Prints
I’m excited to announce that I have a new Picture Study Aid covering the art of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, along with accompanying fine art prints, now available! Included in this 30-page Picture Study Aid is a summary of the life and artistic inspirations of the French Rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), key topics for seven of his works (see below), printable versions of the pieces covered in the PDF version, and a brief discussion about Charlotte Mason’s ideas and methods for implementing picture study at different ages.
The pieces discussed are*:
*AmblesideOnline users, please note that these are not all the same pieces as those selected for the AmblesideOnline artist rotation.
You can also find books for further reading about Fragonard in the Living Art Book Archive.
I include a brief overview of Charlotte Mason picture study at the beginning of the Picture Study Aid; however, I have also written posts here on the blog about why it is important and how we do it in our home and homeschool co-op.
You can get your copy at the link at the end of the post!
Caveats
This guide is by no means an exhaustive analysis or study of each piece, which is intentional. I tried to keep it all very simple in the spirit of there being:
…no talk about schools of painting, little about style; consideration of these matters comes in later life, the first and most important thing is to know the pictures themselves. As in a worthy book we leave the author to tell his own tale, so do we trust a picture to tell its tale through the medium the artist gave it. In the region of art as else-where we shut out the middleman.
CHARLOTTE MASON (VOL 6 PG 216)
Instead, this Picture Study Aid is meant to offer basic information about the artists as well as ready answers should your student ask about a particular aspect of a piece and the explanation isn’t readily evident. Ms. Mason emphasized not focusing on strict academic discourse when doing picture study but rather simply exposing students to the art itself:
His education should furnish him with whole galleries of mental pictures, pictures by great artists old and new;––…––in fact, every child should leave school with at least a couple of hundred pictures by great masters hanging permanently in the halls of his imagination, to say nothing of great buildings, sculpture, beauty of form and colour in things he sees. Perhaps we might secure at least a hundred lovely landscapes too,––sunsets, cloudscapes, starlight nights. At any rate he should go forth well furnished because imagination has the property of magical expansion, the more it holds the more it will hold.
CHARLOTTE MASON (VOL 6 PG 43)
Hello Rebecca,
I am an art museum docent and will be giving a tour on 3 paintings by Tintoretto to home schoolers in 6th -12 grades. I typically give tours to adults so this is a new experience for me and I’m a bit nervous.
Can you provide any tips on how to give the best tour to this special group, such as questions to ask, observations in the paintings, etc? The paintings include Cain and Abel, The Temptation of Adam, and The Creation of the Animals. Thank you for your advice.
I always believe the simple practice of picture study is the best way to appreciate art, even in a museum setting. 🙂 I would ask them what they see and use that to further conversation. Usually that spurs questions which can then lead to more discussion. If no one wants to volunteer what they see, then you can share what you know about it. I have never been a docent before, though, so I’m not sure if that’s helpful!