In the French Rococo period, Jean-Honoré Fragonard created one of the more wonderful pieces of art that captured a powerful and enduring representation of the general milieu present in 1767 in his painting, “The Swing”. Gertrude Stein’s since offered a powerful tool of critical analysis in her discussion of, “What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them”, that can greatly enhance a discussion of how this painting’s a masterwork. This essay will open with a brief discussion of various individual interpretations of this painting, that’re revealed to be reliant on the individual’s perspective and identity. For this, one must be able to recognize the entity masterfully crafted into the painting in order to identify anything so’s to clarify the art to themselves and others. It’ll then close in tying these interpretations to Stein’s paragraph on the notions of clarity and the lack of clarity in a masterpiece from her essay.
In the painting, front and center there sits The Swing, the paintings namesake. Intertwined in the painting are displays of an overgrown and untended Nature, appearing as vine-like. These all are adorned with Fragonard’s familiar, intricate and numerous brush strokes that incorporated an aura of a vibrant naivety in his use of lines and color scheme on display. The foliage-work’s so numerous and radiates a sense of overwhelming ignorance that says, “This is to be the Paradise that’s lost”. Depicted also are the architectural works of man falling into a sort of disrepair in the background. What appears to be a gardening tool underneath the swinging woman’s been discarded as carelessly as the woman swings extravagantly and opulently across the scene with the aid of her helper as she engages in a hedonistic display of tantalizing sexuality with the man lying down on the left side of the painting.
In knowing the history to follow, this work’s a statement on the carelessness of an era in which all forms of “progress” fell into disregard for the sake of catering to the whims and wants of The Aristocracy as the servant class grew increasingly discontent. This theme’s indicated by the shadowy man in the background, who could be a servant, of sorts, for lack of a more appropriate term. He serves as part of the depicted entity in this painting. Further personal critical analysis of this painting isn’t needed to convey the message that the depiction I see’s different from the one that the artist would’ve seen, and this again’s different from that which any other viewer might see. An analysis is outside the scope of this essay that’s focused on the tool Gertrude Stein introduces to discuss the nature of aspects inherent to masterpiece work.
The alternative (“official”) explanation by art historians of this work, is some story about it being commissioned by a suitor engaged in an affair with the woman as he’d depicted to hide in the bushes while she’s swung by her shadowy cuckold husband in the background. This is just a different interpretation of this narrative, even the original commissioning was said to have it be a religious bishop figure take his place whereas the shadowy man depicted might very well be presumed to be depending on one’s identity. In that light, note the position’s such that this man cannot ever push her, she’s too elevated. Thus he can only pull her, as one does to the reigns of a horse. The general notion that the suitor lying down was obscured by an overgrown bush that’s since fallen into a state of being untended still holds true; however, regardless of whether or not this shadowy man in the background is her husband, friend or servant makes the overall impression of the work not too different from the others in regards to the entity depicted in the painting, but still invokes clarity for a particular individual and not necessarily another.
That all of myself, the original artist and the original commissioner may all hold these different notions of the painting through the lens of our individual identities is exactly the nature of what Gertrude Stein meant when she’d expressed the level of clarity through identity and entity using one’s memories in relation to a work. The entity contained within The Swing is a powerful statement on nature, those who have things and those who lose things, and hedonism. This is the nature of the entity in this art, masterfully placed there by Fragonard. For the sake of creation of this work, he would’ve placed his memories aside and allowed the work to come to existence through his talent, as Stein so discussed.
Stein says, “The minute your memory functions while you are doing anything it may be very popular but actually it is dull”, in trying to explain what she meant by clarity. In this case, had Fragonard used the originally requested Bishop or something else that came from memory in place of the shadowy man, the work would’ve just been a fine piece according to Stein, but not a masterpiece (DeKoven 498). Stein implied this just after she’d said, “If you do not remember while you are writing, it may seem confused to others but actually it is clear and eventually that clarity will be clear, that is what a master-piece is, but if you remember while you are writing it will seem clear at the time to any one but the clarity will go out of it that is what a master-piece is not” (DeKoven 498). What she means here’s best explained by her notions of identity and entity, in that identity’s based on the individuals memory and that’s what she describes as an inhibition to making a masterpiece in “thinking” while doing. Accessing parts of one’s memory tied up in identity creates a barrier to making a masterpiece. Stein implies that entity is the essence that’s left, that we see in a painting such as “The Swing”.
Clarity’s obtained by accompanying the entity on display with the identity of the person that’s appreciating it. That this work’s open to such a style of interpretation yielding powerful implications is what makes it a masterpiece according to Stein, because Fragonard’s memory doesn’t bar anyone else’s identification of what’s going on in this painting. Had the painting been painted with the bishop depicted as was originally in the commission, it would’ve said something very different, and thus risked its status as being able to be a masterpiece. It then would’ve incorporated into it an inseparable bit of identity that may’ve inevitably corrupted the discrete unit of entity displayed in the painting according to the logic presented by Stein in her essay and thus rendered it no more than a possibly popular work but not a masterpiece.
In this case, the identity of the author’s one whom very much was patronized by the Aristocratic patrons that funded his pursuit of art, and it’s unlikely that he would’ve valued it in the same way myself or someone else would’ve. That it invites most anyone with an eye for it to discern a clarity in studying it by being so able to be interpreted speaks much to it being able to be considered a masterpiece according to Stein’s own words. Furthermore, it’s not likely that any other artist could’ve originated such a painting as this, and this fact is critical to this being the masterpiece that it is. The perceived individually obtained clarity is that all of these notions folks have aren’t clear in the painting alone and require much in the way of further discussion and discourse such as found in this essay. Essay-writing such as this is what Stein would refer to as something that may be very popular but actually it is dull in her mentioning secondary writing.
In conclusion, Jean-Honoré Fragonard created one of the more wonderful pieces of art that captured a powerful and enduring representation of the general milieu present in 1767 in his painting, “The Swing”. This essay’s covered various clarifications of the same work based on understandings of different memories involving an interpretation of, “The Swing”. These individual interpretations, while clear on discussion, aren’t fully encompassing the clearly depicted entity in the artwork. This is because the interpretations rest on identity that’s formative in grasping the entity therein depicted. Various interpretations of the meaning inherent behind the entity depicted that’s loosely a powerful statement on nature, including those who have and those who lose, and hedonism. This means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. It was discussed that Steins notion of clarity in regards to entity and identity greatly enhances the ability to have a good discussion on this work of art for which her literary criticism as a tool is invaluable to doing so.
Works Cited
DeKoven, Marianne. “Gertrude Stein (1874–1946).” The Gender of Modernism: A Critical Anthology, edited by Marianne DeKoven et al., Indiana University Press, 1990, pp. 479–530. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.5501026.26. Accessed 22 July 2024.
Fragonard, Jean-Honoré. “The Swing.” Smarthistory, smarthistory.org/jean-honore-fragonard-the- swing/. Accessed 22 July 2024.