The Swing

2016
Inkjet on watercolour paper
90 x 67.5 centimeters

The Jean-Honore Fragonard painting, The Swing, is a memorable Rococo confection of delicate colour which depicts an aroused nobleman spying on a young woman on a swing. Her flouncy dress parts in the breeze, the artist suggests what he might see and it's unclear whether she is complicit in a game of exhibitionism or a victim of voyeurism.

This ambiguity has long fascinated scholars but readings of art can be subjective and are conditional of the values of the period in which they are made; one interesting interpretation comes from Clive Hart and Kay Stevenson who write in In Heaven and the Flesh: Imagery of Desire from the Renaissance to the Rococo that The Swing is a “disguised representation of inverted sexual intercourse.” It's the woman who is on top in this potential ménage-à-trois.

I wasn't aware of the article when I made this reimagining hence I was quite pleased when a female friend detected this frisson when I showed it to her. Another reason for making this was the forested setting and the technical challenge it presented in convincingly depicting such an environment.

Undressing the Erotic Symbolism in “The Swing,” Fragonard’s Decadent Masterpiece : Artsy

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