Jean-Honoré Fragonard is, without a doubt, my favorite painter. Visiting a new museum means looking for his work before anything else. He's best-known for his piece titled The Swing, which is often used to represent the entirety of the 18th century's Rococo period:
But beyond the glowing colors, easy brush strokes, and carefully-created foliage, there's something intoxicating about a Fragonard painting that pulls me in before I even see the byline.
I feel like Sugar Kane on saxophone players--"I don't what it is, but they just curdle me!"
The she and reverie aesthetic often takes notes from the excessive, feminine details of the late Baroque period, but even more than the beautiful ladies of Rococo painters Watteau and Boucher, Fragonard's women reflect so well the spirit of the she and reverie girl herself: cheeky, playful, romantic, often full of zest, always dreaming, and beautifully-dressed, of course.
