Playful Constructions and Fragonard's Swinging Scenes PDF

Playful Constructions and Fragonard's Swinging Scenes Author(s): Jennifer Milam Source: Eighteenth-Century Studies , Summer, 2000, Vol. 33, No. 4, The Culture of Risk and Pleasure (Summer, 2000), pp. 543-559 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Sponsor: American Society for Eighteenth-C...

Playful Constructions and Fragonard's Swinging Scenes Author(s): Jennifer Milam Source: Eighteenth-Century Studies , Summer, 2000, Vol. 33, No. 4, The Culture of Risk and Pleasure (Summer, 2000), pp. 543-559 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Sponsor: American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS). Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30054162 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms The Johns Hopkins University Press and are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Eighteenth-Century Studies This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  PLAYFUL CONSTRUCTIONS AND FRAGONARD'S SWINGING SCENES Jennifer Milam Happy Hazards of the Swing is Jean-Honore Fragonard's most familiar paint- ing, held to be highly representative of its time, a paradigm of rococo pleasure and aristocratic decadence (fig.l).1 Since 1982, when Donald Posner published his com- pelling analysis of the swinging-woman motif, interpretation of the scene has been guided by iconographic readings of female fickleness and erotic love.2 An emblematic tradition denoting inconstancy partially informs depictions of swinging women. Yet, when taken as a solution to an iconographic puzzle, such an interpretation does not account for nuances of difference where significance often lies. Fragonard painted not one but three versions of a woman's ride on a swing (figs. 3 and 6). He varied his approach to the theme on each of these canvases. For this artist at least, the swing was not simply a stock motif suited to easy interpretation and execution, unaltered by compositional change. On the contrary, by elaborating on the notion of swinging as a game of visual distortion, Fragonard manipulated and transformed emblematic con- ventions in order to muse on the vertiginous experience occasioned by a playful appli- cation of paint. Fragonard and his contemporaries were familiar with a range of artistic and cultural codes relating to swings. This article considers these codes and explores how and in what ways they operate in relation to Fragonard's depictions of the amuse- ment.3 When Fragonard represented swinging women, he engaged artistic and em- blematic traditions linking the subject matter to aristocratic leisure and love. His paintings test and challenge the viewer's recognition of sources, a skill valued among eighteenth- century amateurs. To seize upon a recognized motif as an exclusive key to meaning, Jennifer Milam is Lecturer in the Department of Art History and Theory at the University of Sydney. She is currently preparing a book on the idea of play in eighteenth-century French painting. Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 33, no. 4 (2000) Pp. 543-559. This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 544 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 33 /4 however, ignores the transformative character of art making and neglects the tive effects on the artist and the viewer of specific historical and social lan Indeed, the concept of closure is inimical to the essentially open-ended character of play. Fragonard's constructions with paint are linked to concepts, some emblematic, some experienced codes of daily life, but meaning is not exhausted by one or even all of these. Instead, his images insist upon a sequence of free associations that is in the nature of play, keeping interpretation alive and presenting an imaginative exchange as central to aesthetic judgment.4 The fundamental force of play in Fragonard's approach to art making exists in tandem with the eroticism of his brush explored by Mary Sheriff in her groundbreaking monograph.5 Focusing on the artist's and the viewer's knowledge of signs and codes outside the framework of traditional emblematics, Sheriff's semiotic analyses have extended the location of meaning into Fragonard's manner of depic- tion, assigning it a privileged role in the signifying process. My proposals here are not an attempt to replace her conclusions, but rather to enhance them with an exploration of Fragonard's playful aesthetic. I will argue that his manner of constructing certain images beckons the viewer as playmate. In this signifying game, images about play become acts of creative play operating at the highest level of imagination for both the artist and the beholder. The aims of this essay are threefold. First, to reposition our understanding of Fragonard's depictions of swings within a pertinent cultural context of play. Eighteenth- century sources disclose a distinct interest in games that privilege spectatorship and optical distortion and have yet to be taken into account.6 Second, to offer a model for viewing Fragonard's scenes with swinging women through a consideration of the full range and potential of meanings. In these images ostensibly depicting the same subject matter, we will see how the artist moves between a variety of perspectives on play: from the physical and the social, to the emblematic, to the aesthetic. Third, to identify the specific and elaborate analogies between play and art that are evident in these images. I suggest that Fragonard's swinging scenes invite the viewer to participate in a visual game that not only resembles the depicted amusement, but also arouses the imagination and the senses, and operates to recommence the game at every instant. "Everyone knows the swing," wrote R6tif de la Bretonne in Monsieur Nicolas (1794-7). Throughout the eighteenth century, elaborately designed or impromptu devices were set up in the countryside, chateau garden and urban park, enjoyed by all levels of French society. Some were extravagant and grand, like the four-man swing built for courtiers at Marly, while others were piecemeal constructions of materials lo- cally available, such as the swing made out of horse harnesses and hung from an old apple tree in R6tif's native Sacy.7 Whatever the superficial differences, a common characteristic of these devices-indeed the defining quality of the game itself-is the pleasurable vertigo brought on by the oscillations of the swing. This desire for confu- sion and delirium shared by all players at this particular moment in France demands some consideration for reasons that are significant if we want to understand Fragonard's swinging scenes. According to Roger Caillois, a provocative connection ex dominant characteristics of games taken up by individual societi This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  MILAM / Playful Constructions 545 values.8 Perhaps in a culture overwhelmed by ceremony and control over the body we should not be surprised to learn that a preference for vertigo games expresses a long- ing for disorder and a desire to escape an otherwise stable perception of the world through the delirium of play. Swinging in ancien regime France stimulated confusion and permitted actions, positions and free display that were prohibited in life outside the game as violations of social propriety. In this way swings in particular, as well as other vertigo games such as blindman's buff and seesaws (subjects also popular with rococo artists), provided a space in which behavior and physical expression were given new liberties. The official reason for setting up a swing at Marly in 1691 was to provide an alternative to cards, principally for younger courtiers so that they would not become bored or foolishly spending all their time at gaming tables.9 But swinging had a more subtle function, one related to elite notions of status through display. On the one hand, swinging and other vertigo games involved disorienting motion, thereby per- mitting players greater freedom of physical expression, elsewhere strictly controlled by court etiquette. On the other hand, part of the purpose of this type of play among the aristocracy was to display natural grace in "spontaneous" action for the gathered spectators.10 The visual entertainment that swings provided for those on the ground was part of the attraction for upper- and lower-class participants alike. However, bawdy motives for watching, like those pictured in Fragonard's Happy Hazards and in Franqois Eisen's more rustic Swing of 1770 (figs. 1 and 2), were more obviously evident outside the elite space of the court. During the last decades of the ancien regime, swings were constructed ban parks, particularly in gardens that were part of commercial enterprises. The Redoute chinoise in the Foire Saint-Laurent had both a single and a double swing for well-heeled customers, while the swing in Torre's summer Waux-Hall was much less expensive and used by members of the different estates." The swings at these amuse- ment parks were not innocuous rides. They disrupted physical propriety normally observed off the swing. Within the exhiliration of vertigo play, swinging permitted occasions of sexual disorder where uninhibited positions revealed the body and specta- tors glimpsed views that were usually hidden from sight. Eighteenth-century Parisians were well aware of these moments when the rules of decorum were suspended. According to Franqois Cognel, who visited Paris in 1787, the swing in Waux-Hall's garden con- tributed to the diversions of the place, not just for the players, but specifically for the spectators: "women there assume a bearing even freer than elsewhere, and the game of the swing permits many entertaining licenses for the spectator, which nevertheless can be attributed to accidental causes."12 Expectations of propriety were not restricted to the city, and Parisians were not the only ones who valued occasions in play when decorum could be temporarily abandoned and eroticism fueled. R6tif describes such indecorous visual pleasures pro- vided by village swingers in Sacy, where girls sometimes "experienced certain unpleasantnesses when it transpired, during play, that good-for-nothings like Grand Colas were attempting to put them into highly compromising postitions.""3 R6tif's bucolic reminiscence echoes the erotic risks visualized by Fragonard and Eisen. Such views were part of the disorder caused by the vertigo game and as such occasioned moments of chance eroticism normally safeguarded by rules of modesty. The girls might protest the actions of those "good-for-nothings" who aimed to compromise This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 546 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 33 / 4 FIGURE 1. Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Happy Hazards of the Swing. Reproduced by permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London. their virtue, but they still participated and opened themselves up to this risk. The games at the Redoute chinoise, the Waux-Hall and the countryside of Sacy permitted a degree of sexual license at various levels of society within a specific setting doubly safeguarded from the decorous concerns of reality by the fantasy frames of play and the garden. In addition to offering moments that suspended the control of decor ing was recommended as an exercise becoming to an elite class in need of r their languid illnesses, often characterized as the vapors or melancholia.14 Several This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  MILAM / Playful Constructions 547 FIGURE 2. Franqois Eisen, The Swing. Courtesy of Musee de Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse, France. treatises on physical education appeared around mid-century, written with the goals of curing these privileged disorders and improving the pleasure of life. Medical texts intended for upper-class readers, such as Joseph Raulin's Traite des affections vaporeuses du sexe (1769), identified the causes of the vapors as a sedentary life and encouraged exercise as a means for prolonging youthful vigor.s Raulin and others like him spe- cifically recommended easy, amusing activities that could take place in nature, where the beauty of the landscape, the fresh air, the natural sights and smells could stir the senses and refresh both body and soul. Samuel Tissot summed up the perceived benefits in his Gymnastique medicinale et chirurgicale (1780): "In a word, the countryside This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 548 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 33 /4 offers a thousand delights and a multitude of objects suitable for the relief, treatment and cure of sick people who are sent there."16 Nature was a space associated with relaxation and the improvement of health. For the nobility, however, exercise could not involve much physical exerti or endanger delicate constitutions. Further disdain for forceful, physical sports led to a preference for pleasant games that provided opportunities for good company, p conversation, and a handsome presentation of the self. Noble rank could not be com- promised by activities that produced anything other than pure leisure.17 Swinging, customarily an outdoor game, was an ideal amusement to satisfy these requirements, providing a pleasing combination of movement (necessary for good health) and ease (required by elite status). As Tissot noted, the body was always partly at rest while the player remained seated on the swing. When put into motion, the labor of the swing (and not of the swinger) exposed the body to a variety of postures and caused the muscles to react by force of habit. The swinger received the physical benefits of exer- cise without an unbecoming expression of effort, having the "double effect" of being both active and passive at once.'8 Moreover, the sudden and uncertain motion inher- ent to swinging was recognized as stimulating a cheerful reaction on the part of the player, inspiring a gaiety that made the diversion truly desirable. The Encyclopedie mentions a vertige momentane that a whirling b produce. More importantly, the entry identifies this temporary and sometimes plea- surable vertigo, caused in play, with "a defect in the exercise of vision" caused by internal forces that can affect the optic nerves. Somewhat curiously, the author de- scribes a parallel between certain processes of vision and the vertiginous effects pro- duced by exterior objects set in circular motion.19 Swinging was not only enjoyed and popular because it occasioned erotic views, liberated the body and provided appropri- ate exercise for the elite. Players also aimed to stimulate pleasure through visual dis- tortion-an aim that is not dissimilar to Fragonard's manner of representing the subject. A comparison of Fragonard's three versions of this theme-The Happy Haz- ards of the Swing, The Little Swing, and The Swing (figs. 1, 3, and 6)-demonstrates his playful approach and dedication to interpretive invention. The type of emblem- atic, narrative agenda that Posner first proposed for Happy Hazards is not apparent in the other two images.20 Despite similarities like the swinging figures (all female, dressed predominantly in pink, acting as the focal point for the composition) and the setting (within gardens and parks), differences between the paintings start to become evident in the relationship between the figures and their natural environment. Most obviously, the size of the figures in proportion to the natural elements of the land- scape vary in each depiction. The figures are small in The Little Swing and The Swing, either enclosed by dense hedges or set within expansive horizons. In contrast, the figures in Happy Hazards are quite large, and in significant areas the tree, leaves, and flowers are carefully delineated. Seemingly existing to support and enhance meaning in the figures' actions, the garden setting in this painting appears artificial and stage- like. Even the overgrown bushes in which the young man hides himself appear more like a prop than a convincing feature of landscaped nature, so much so that his hat is positioned to cap part of the flowering bush. This emphasis on artifice foregrounds symbols within the painting, making it impossible for the initiated viewer to ignore This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  MILAM / Playful Constructions 549 emblematics or the erotic content of the scene. The male hat, as Posner has shown, was commonly used in rococo art to hide an erection. Here, the hat is off, indicating male abandon to excitement and passion.21 The opening of the cap conveniently catches up some of the rose bush (a conventional symbol of female sexuality) and with this fitting of parts quite literally makes a visual pun on sexual engagement.22 Happy Hazards' iconographic and formal structure accords with the well- known story of its commission. "A gentleman of the Court" was sent to Fragonard after approaching another artist to paint his mistress "on a swing that a bishop would set in motion." The patron asked to have himself included in the scene, positioned so that he "would be able to see the legs of this beautiful girl" or even more, so he says, if the painter wanted "to enliven" his picture.23 Conventional iconography and en- coded motifs build upon the patron's erotic intentions. Swinging alludes to the fickle- ness of women in the emblematic tradition, but also, with its rhythmic motion, to the act of lovemaking. More specific symbols-a tossed shoe (female abandon to pas- sion), an unshod foot (lost virginity), an eager lap dog (impatient desire), a statue of Cupid who silences with one hand and pulls arrows from his quiver with another (love at work), and a hat that caps a budding bush (sexual engagement)-all collude with the primary emblem of the swing to create an encoded, erotic scene.24 Apparently, this risque painting was intended for the gentleman's from which the commission was first proposed. Such a setting was meant to excite amorous passion, and could be designed and decorated with this purpose in mind.25 It is tempting to believe that the "accidental" views commonly glimpsed at public fairs inspired the patron's initial request. An amusement that allowed women "to balance themselves in positions conforming to their intentions"26 certainly seems the obvious choice for a subject, since the painting would adorn a space in which the rules of decorum were regularly abandoned in favour of the delirium of passion and physi- cal expression. This patron was no doubt hoping for a decorative work that would encourage a similar degree of sexual license, albeit safeguarded for propriety within the superimposed frames of emblematics, artifice, play, and a secluded locale. Happy Hazards responds to a commission for a distinctive erotic picture in- tended for an intimate retreat with the general players and their positions and relation- ships already defined. Confined to a private space for specific viewers who would recognize themselves as the players, the image would have stimulated both memories of past trysts and the anticipation of future surprises and pleasures.27 The figures appearing in the scene might even be generic or actual portrayals of the patron and his mistress.28 If so, the painting functioned as a scene of unbridled passion in which the principles of play and mimesis are compounded and confused with reality. Like swings that permitted the accidental exposure of sexual parts, symbolic motifs are deployed throughout as mere accidents of representation. And like those spectators who antici- pated the licentious displays allowed within the frame of this amusement, the knowl- edgeable viewer enjoyed the overt eroticism of Happy Hazards contained within dis- crete symbols and sanctioned by the framework of art. Happy Hazards can be approached as a puzzle to be solved by piecing to- gether the commission, the emblem, and the symbolic motifs. As convincing as this type of reading might be, it excludes the possibility that Fragonard's use of the This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 550 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 33 / 4 FIGURE 3. Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Little Swing, Private Collection. Photograph Courtesy of Max Williams. iconographic schema is playful rather than controlling, motivated by erotic func and aiming at complex aesthetic concerns rather than limited to an illustration of a specific erotic event. Moreover, the motifs that build the emblematic structure and demand to be read in Happy Hazards remain unresolved in Fragonard's other depic- tions of swings. In The Little Swing (fig. 3), for instance, the amorous associations of the fountain sculpture of putti and dolphins recall those in Happy Hazards. Here, however, the putto with his bow and arrow out has no real target, the line of his aim falling well short of the swinger into the pool of water. Unlike the silencing Cupid in Happy Hazards, who faces and responds to the major action of the scene, this putto remains part of the fountain and hence narratively inactive. In Fragonard's two later depictions, none of the conventional iconographic structures that define the swing as a symbolic motif are to be found. The man and woman that propel the device in The Swing (fig. 4), for example, cannot be easily read as suitors competing for the affections of the swinging woman. This threesome makes little sense as a traditional emblem of fickleness, inconstancy or sexual engagement. Likewise, the realization that the woman on The Little Swing propels herself unaided through space comes as a surprise to those viewers searching for an unmistakable sign of courtship (fig. 5). Even the figure closest to the swing is another female, as are the majority of the figures in the garden. The most prominent male figure in the scene reclines in the foreground, yet unlike the suitor with an all-knowing, all-seeing gaze in Happy Hazards, he does not reveal a titillating motive to the beholder. His position serves only to direct the viewer's eye back through the painted garden. In neither image is a man the sole figure responsible for the woman's ride, nor is the swinging female isolated with a male figure as a couple. Such breaks with emblematic expectations disrupt legibility and indicate that other interpretive strategies must be employed. This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  MILAM / Playful Constructions 551 FIGURE 4. Jean-Honor4 Fragonard, The Swing (detail), Samuel H. Kress Collection. Photograph © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. FIGURE 5. Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Little Swing (detail), Private Collection. Photograph Courtesy of Max Williams. This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 552 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 33 /4 Nature takes on a greater role in these images. Amorous motifs are held to a minimum and do not carry the weight of emblems, receiving less emphasis and giving less direction than those in Happy Hazards. Rather than being part of a precise icono- graphic program, the individual figures, the sculptural pieces, and the swing combine with the appeal of the landscape to contribute to an unforced, unhurried scene of leisure, exercise and pleasure. The viewer follows gestures and poses from figure to figure, taking in the details of each scene, unhindered by emblematics. Meaning is not located for the viewer. Like the aimless arrow of the sculptural putto in The Little Swing, it is liberated from a fixed target. The structure of this image encourages an involved response. Fragonard's Little Swing is a representation of a specific amusement in nature that provokes similar and related reactions of pleasure on the part of the viewer. Significantly, the image is not a mere reflection of play, but acts as a p ence of leisure. Viewing the painting is both active and passive, stimulat responses that recreate the feelings of a familiar pastime. The viewer en position through the central figure of the swinging woman, passes with the bright light falling on the sculptural group, follows the general aim of the putto's arrow, around the edge of the pool, to the groups of figures scattered throughout the scene, and back to the swing via the woman in the blue dress with her arm raised. Returned to a central position in this way, the eye is not left to languish but is pulled by the motion implied in the taut rope of the swing through the arch to the light-infused space of untamed nature beyond the hedge. The viewer's eye is kept in constant mo- tion, attempting to make out forms in the shadows and to complete the shapes that the artist merely suggested. The predominance of shade in the scene creates the sensa- tion of being out in the late afternoon, yet none of the figures prepare to leave. They relax in the recess of nature. And the viewer relaxes too, unable to make out specific features, directional gazes, or to decode specific motifs. The viewer considers parallels between the fictive world in The Little Swing and his or her own experiences. Through the faculties of imagination, he or she recalls the experience of swinging and watching other swingers, motivated not by erotic glimpses but the memory of an outdoor game befitting elite status. Active and passive sensations, the feelings caused by unforeseen fluctuations in movements, the desire for disorder that frees expression, all are re-experienced without apparent effort, en- ticing the viewer to internalize the subject matter. Fragonard structured his composition, brushwork, and light effects in The Little Swing around the theme of an ideal amusement that specifically linked physical movement and ease in order to draw parallels with an ideal viewing process that can be simultaneously beneficial and elite. Similar to the body seated on a moving swing, the eye that contemplates the painting is both active and passive. First, the viewer comes upon the picture, passively noting its existence. Then the image sets the eye in motion, in a manner analogous to the mechanism of a swing, destabilizing perception through confusion and euphoria. The painting's vertiginous forms cause the viewer to experience the visual surprises of putting together loose brushwork within areas dif- fused by light or hidden by shadows to create a unified image, picking out details and uncovering every element of the composition. Like the ropes that transport the figure out of the shaded enclosure, through the arch, to the fully-lit expanse of the landscape beyond the garden, the image transports the viewer past the awareness of paint, color, and brushwork, through the metaphor of light, to the realm of the imagination. This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  MILAM / Playful Constructions 553 FIGURE 6. Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Swing, Samuel H. Kress Collection. Photograph © Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The recreation of the game re-created in the mind of the viewer also seems to be the aim of The Swing (fig. 6), but the elicited response varies from The Little Swing specifically in relation to the expansive natural setting. On a canvas more than twice the size of Fragonard's other swinging pictures, the setting assumes a greater signifi- cance, causing the viewer to linger in the spaciousness of the garden and extended landscape, guided through a number of figural and formal elements to consider the relationship between nature, culture, and play from an insistently physical perspective. Here, the swing has longer ropes, pulled by not just one person but two, seemingly able to move higher and wider than the swings in the other two pictures. Surrounding the figures are huge trees, wondrous clouds, high cliffs, and distant vistas. Everything appears to encourage the viewer to look out, to expand his or her horizons, not to be limited by the view within the frame. In this respect, one element of the composition should not be overlooked. The female figure sitting on the very This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 554 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 33 /4 edge of the park extends her normal vision with a telescope. Yet she does not look out to the vastness of nature, but in toward the woman on the swing. Both figures (like the viewer) willingly alter their otherwise stable perceptions of the objective world: one through distorted vision, the other through disorienting motion. V link is emphasized. The woman with the telescope is a counterpoint to the swinger, wearing the same colors and style in her outfit, in a position that is her reverse. The swinger leads the viewer across to the right of the canvas, the figure with the telescope directs the viewer back to the left. Together they explore the pleasures of their subjec- tive worlds. For the beholder, vision and interpretation oscillate between these two figures, causing the imagination to trace the motion of the swing as if it were moving back and forth across the canvas. The manner in which the viewer is led through the image thus joins with the idea of visual distortion provoked by the swing and the telescope. All three are occasions of temporary vertigo stimulating pleasure through a corruption of vision. In this image, the swing becomes a vehicle of physical serving to move the figure and the viewer into the alterna art. The viewer interacts with the visual elements of the scene to derive pleasures similar to those represented in the subject: effortless recreation, an enjoyment of nature, the psychological and even medicinal benefits of a late afternoon spent outdoors. The subject matter might locate the place and value of leisure in eighteenth-century life for the twentieth-century viewer; however, the playful image resonates with additional associations and parallels. Just as the garden and game move inhabitants or players into an imaginary world where an otherwise stable perception is altered by a swing or a telescope, the representation of amusements removes the viewer from the immediate social surroundings and absorbs him or her within the context of the painting. The social function of gardens, games, and art are not far removed from one another. Each provides a means for escape and for pleasure. In light of the variety of meanings evidenced by The Little Swing and The Swing, viewer response to Happy Hazards was not and should not be limited to a consideration of iconography. Even the commission clearly stipulating a picture that will titillate through voyeurism remains ambiguous, making no explicit reference to the emblematic significance of the swing and failing to provide explanator However, what the commission requests in essence and what the image assures in practice is an erotic game involving imagination, sensation, and open-ended interpre- tation, induced by the subject and the materials of art making. Significantly, all ele- ments of the composition do not lead to a single idea. Like the structure of a game, viewers are guided toward numerous possibilities and combinations. Exploring the image-following diagonals and spirals around the tion, into and out of spatial recesses-the viewer is effectively put on a swing, where vision is distorted by the painted vertigo game. First, the eye focuses on the swinging woman and the bright, thick impastos of paint that form her dress. Light effects are brightest here, the center of the composition. Following this figure's gaze to the lower left corner of the painting, the viewer spots a man lying in the bushes. The impastos delineating the ruffles of his coat match those fashioning his companion's dress and connect these figures, as nowhere else in the picture is paint so thick. At this corner, This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  MILAM / Playful Constructions 555 the eye moves back up along the extended arm of this man, noting his hat, following his gaze to the feminine skin peeking out above her stocking. Back at the central figure, the viewer follows the strong light up the spiralling rope to the gnarled tree branch and down the brightly lit trunk to the older figure at the right who pulls the swing's ropes. Once in this shaded corner of the composition, the viewer begins to take in the details: the bench on which the older man sits, the sculptural group of putti riding a dolphin, the little barking dog up on its hind legs against a small fence. Each of these forms (man, putto, dog) guide the eye back across the canvas in diagonal lines to the sculpted god of love. In turn, the direction of Cupid's gaze leads the viewer once again to the woman on the swing, catching sight of the tossed shoe along the way. Returned to this center point, the eye moves back through the diffuse light to puffs of trees that repeat shapes first formed by the fabric of the swinger's dress. In this natural recess, the eye surveys the foliage, following the curves of branches and leaves in a circular motion. Throughout the image, variations in brushwork and thickness of paint move the viewer back and forth in the fictive, three-dimensional space. The movement of the swing becomes synonymous with the act of viewing. Once the subject matter is registered, the pictorial qualities of the painting urge the viewer to consider the erotic potential of the scene. The female figure sits on a swing, legs parted, the center of attention, an object of desire. Her body and dress are the most carefully built up parts of the composition. The man at her feet is half hidden in an overgrown bush, but his pose, his profile, his eye, all emphasize the importance of looking in the painting. Through his gaze, the viewer is directed toward the mystery of female sexuality and experiences the eroticism of their game. The sexual motifs discussed above confirm this perceived purpose, but not all elements can be so easily interpreted, leaving questions for the viewer. Is the woman on the swing demonstrating her passionate engagement with a lover hidden in the bushes, or is she displaying her fickle nature, going back and forth between the two men? Is the man who pulls the ropes a friend conspiring with the young couple, or is he the woman's duped guardian or cuckolded husband? Does the gesture of Cupid relate to the secrecy of the lovers' relationship and meeting, or does it more generally symbolize the mysteries of love? Is the dog a sign of fidelity, calling his mistress back, or is it a motif of sexual excitement, urging her forward? These various meanings circulated in Fragonard's day, but no one reading is certain for this painting. Even if the represented players are portraits of the patron and his mistress, the image encourages the viewer to guess, to elaborate his or her own anecdote in addition to that of the artist, which is never secure. The idea of the swing excites these fluctuating conclusions: the disoriented viewer slipping back and forth between a variety of suppositions and possibilities. If Fragonard programmed his scene, he did so with areas of open-ended signifiers that elicit both erotic and imaginative responses. Recall that the commission was associated with a petite-maison, a place that intentionally disrupted the rules of propriety to accommodate clandestine liaisons. This space existed for the free expression of erotic behavior uninhibited by the objective world. Similarly, in the swinging game, the player's normal sense of gravity is disrupted to accommodate a desire for disorder, to destabilize the player's control over his or her own body. As the accounts of the swinging women at the Waux-Hall make clear, this play took place at times exclu- sively for sexual expression usually not permitted. The eroticism of the subject is This content downloaded from 31.10.157.68 on Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:47:06 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 556 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES 33 /4 superimposed on the eroticism of the space to suspend propriety indefinitely, to encour- age the continuation of private pleasures and freed sexual passions inside the nonob- jective worlds of art and erotic love. The aim of swinging is to become intoxicated with motion. As movement does not result from the intellectual labor or concentration of the swinger, play is free, unencumbered by effort. This parallels the process of viewing that Fragonard initiates in Happy Hazards: enjoyment results from the vertiginous composition and the whirling brushstrokes and light that create an altered perception of reality. Viewing is easy rather than labored, and the viewer is stimulated by the illusion. Thus, Fragonard's manner in the context of his subject is as much about playful art making as about eroticism and private pleasures. His amusing representation of a ride on a swing invites the viewer to consider the function and character of amorous and erotic games be- tween the sexes, the physical joys of play outdoors and indoors, stylistic stimulation of the eye, and artistic play with meaning. Fragonard's three depictions of swings are playful because they do not control the viewing process by leading to a single solution. Instead, manner o destabilize meaning through formal disequilibrium, altering an otherwise stable of a familiar scene. They exist as puzzles to be understood-but not solved- interactions between artist, image and viewer, an activity that takes on the i associative character of play, circumventing and complicating immediate legibility. Representing social games within constructions of visual games implies that Fragonard's process was a kind of play with iconographic structures, with form, and with meaning. Artist and viewer become players competing for and collaborating on the production of meanings and the heightening of aesthetic judgment. Play is more than subject matter in the art of Fragonard-it is a stimulating artistic concept that extends to theme, to man- ner, and to vision. In the final analysis, these images draw the viewer into the interpre- tive game of art via an engaging visual experience that is akin to a ride on a swing. NOTES Partial funding for the preparation of this article was provided by grants from the Uni the Australian Research Council. I would like to thank Mary Vidal, Louise Marshall, for their comments on earlier versions of this article, as well as Julian Pefanis for his h 1. See Jules and Edmond de Goncourt, Fragonard (Paris: E. Dentu, 1865), 16; Geo The Paintings of Fragonard, trans. C. W. Chilton and A. L. Kitson (London and New York: Phaidon, 1960), 13; Hans Wentzel, "Jean-Honore Fragonards