Jean-Honoré Fragonard

The Swing

1766

Rococo

Is a fete galante painting. Painting of a Patrons mistress, cupid with finger to his lips to show forbidden love. The little dog barking to  show he is upset with the love. Behive reference to the sting of love. On the patrons property. A bishop is pulling on the swings strings. The tree bow made to look like lightening like love strikes. The female is at the center to show that females were most important socially.

Antoine Watteau

Pilgrimage to Cythera

1717

Rococo

Features the Island of Cythera where Venus was thought to be born. A fete galante. Not really a historical painting. Shows the three stages of love in the three couples. Woman looking back at the other times and stages of love. Theres a cupid curled next to the couple on the ground to show that there in the first stage of love- new love. Venus is present holding Cupid's arrows. A dog by the standing couple to show that it is a faithful love.

François Boucher

Cupid a Captive

1754

Rococo

Shows cupid as an infant with female flesh against a cool leafy backddrop. Fluttery draperies revealing and hiding nudity. Used crisscrossing diagonals, curvilinear forms and slanting recessions to create his composition. Decorative flourishes to show playfulness as opposed to drama in baroque. 

Joseph Wright of Derby

A Philosopher Giving a Lecture at the Orrery

ca. 1763-1765

Enlightenment

Tenebrism used as some of the figures coming into the light out of the darkness. Lighting also produces drama in the scene. Orrery demonstrations can be lit by single light. Scholar demonstrates a mechanical model of the solar system. Everyone looks mesmerized by the speakers scientific knowedge. 

Jean-Baptiste Chardin

Saying Grace

1740

Enlightenment

The children are kept in nice clean clothing. Little boy (even though dressed like a girl) sitting with his drums on his chair. The kids are saying grace with the mother helping. To emphasize parents role in the growing of children. Modest room and slightly worn things to show humbleness. A moment on social instruction when mother and sister assist with pieous move- thanking God for food. 

Jean-Baptiste Greuze

Village Bride

1761

Enlightenment

Shows father giving dowry for his daughter as young couple takes eachothers arms and are blessed by the father. Mother tearfully lets go of daughters hand, jealous sister looks on behind fathers back. Children play in background. Simple story- happy climax of rural romance. 

Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun

Self Portrait

1790

Natural

Shows her painting Marie Antoinette from memory to show how skilled and familiar with the queen she was. Looking out at viewers shows her confidence and that her art has won her slef respect. 

William Hogarth

Breakfast Scene, from Marriage à la Mode

ca. 1745

Enlightenment

Shows a marriage of fashion0 arranged marriage. He marries her for money, she to himto be a countess. Not a happy marriage. Dog sniffing in pocket of man to find a womans kerchief to show an affair. Sword broken to show loss of power. He has syphillys from cheating. She looks like she hasnt slept, looked as if a party happened, chairs are falling everywhere. The buddha is there to show the influence of China and as a symbol of harmony (there is none). Servant holding unpaid bills and looking to heavens for help dealing with the couple. 

Angelica Kauffmann

Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Her Treasures, or Mother of the Gracchi

ca. 1785

Neoclassicism

The two boys- the Gracchi- grow up to be the founder of the Roman republic. The two women are showing off their treasures- the woman sitting showing off jewels as her treasures while Cornelia shows her children as her treasures. Deep red color to show passion for material things. The pink on the girl child to show the innocence but tendency for liking material things.

Jacques-Louis David

Oath of the Horatii

1784

Neoclassicism

The three men are taking an oath to their father. From a popular play, but this scene was made up. The woman are now seen as emotional and untrustworthy (crying). The three brothers are under one arch, the father under another while the woman and children are under the last. Appealed to both the nobility and revolutionaries. The nobility would see the father as Louis XVI and the brother pledging to the king. The revolutionaries would view the father as the french state showing that it was most important.

Jacques-Louis David

Death of Marat

1793

Neoclassicism

Marrat was a Swiss doctor who came to France to be part of the revolution and was a journalist. He had a skin disease so he had to bathe often- this would show a truthful depiction. He had a bathtub in his bathroon often. It shows him being in the process of giving money showing that he was a good person. The Charlotte lady that killed him isn't in the scene and neither is the knife. Not showing him makes him look like a victim and a martyr. Marat was a national hero. His pose is the same as Michelangelo's Pieta - to show Marat as Christlike and a martyr.