Fragonard's Allegories of Love

by Andrei Molotiu

Overview

Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) was a French painter whose late manner is distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. A prolific artist, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings. The J. Paul Getty Museum's Fragonard masterpiece, The Fountain of Love, is part of a series of his most striking works called the Allegories of Love, exquisite paintings that convey an atmosphere of intimacy and eroticism.
This lavishly illustrated book compares and analyzes the compositions, iconography, and sources of the Allegories in the context of ancient régime pre-Romanticism. The author discusses the transcendental aspect of love in the Allegories and the concept of Romantic love and painting on the eve of the French Revolution. The book accompanies Consuming Passion: Fragonard's Allegories of Love, an exhibition of the artist's work that opens at the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute on October 27, 2007, and at the J. Paul Getty Museum in February 2008.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780892368976
Publisher:	Getty Publications
Publication date:	01/21/2008
Series:	Getty Museum Studies on Art
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	8.25(w) x 10.50(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Andrei Molotiu has taught art history at the University of Rochester, Indiana University, and the University of Louisville. He has published articles on eighteenth-century French painting in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts and other art journals.

Editorial Reviews

Fragonard’s Allegories of Love provides a valuable opportunity to reassess a fascinating group of late works that, like much of Fragonard’s oeuvre, eludes easy categorization.”—New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century 

From the Publisher