Alexandre Evariste Fragonard

France · 1780–1850 · Rococo, Style troubadour · 72 artworks found

Weaves history and emotion into monumental images where Classicism meets Romanticism. With a confident hand, he builds bridges between tradition and new beginnings. more about the artist

Alexandre Evariste Fragonard

October 26, 1780 - November 10, 1850

Alexandre - Évariste Fragonard was born in the small French town of Grasse, which became world famous for its perfume production; later he lived in Italy and then in Paris until his death. From the very beginning he grew up in artistic circles: besides his parents Jean - Honoré and Marie - Anne Fragonard, he also lived with his aunt, the painter Marguerite Gérard. His father was one of the most famous painters of the late Rococo in France and his first teacher. At only 12 years old, Alexandre was accepted as a pupil by the classicist history painter Jaques - Louis David, court painter to the French royal family. He was exceptionally versatile and was later so widely appreciated probably for this reason. He created small and large paintings as well as book illustrations, fashion drawings and designs for costumes at the Paris Opera, where he was employed as a costume designer until the end of his life. He also designed new shapes and decorations for the famous porcelain of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory of Sèvres. He was a sculptor, illustrator, and lithographer, and was involved in architectural design. Barely thirteen years old, his name is found among the exhibitors in the list of the Salon de Paris, at fourteen he received first prizes. Social and political recognitions were not lacking either, and in 1817 he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor.

He was nine years old when the drastic event of the French Revolution heralded a new era with the proclamation of the Rights of Man: the end of absolutism and the corporative state. As a child of his time, he was also strongly influenced by the Romantic era that began at the beginning of the nineteenth century, with its turning away from rationality and toward emotion. In art, this development initially led away from academic classicist painting and towards the new "troubadour" style, which mostly used smaller formats and idealized motifs from the Middle Ages. Alexandre - Évariste Fragonard is considered today as one of the most famous representatives of this style; however, throughout his life he moved between the Revolution and the Restoration: while he was long committed to the academic classicist style cultivated by Jean - Auguste - Dominique Ingres, the influence of Romanticism and its greatest French representative Eugène Delacroix became increasingly visible in his paintings through greater drama and lighting effects; in his sculptural work, the artist remained more conventional and more attached to the classical period.

His paintings have been called technically masterful and can be admired today in all the world's great museums, from the Louvre to the MET and the British Museum. Anyone visiting Paris can see several of his sculptural works: the pediment of the Chamber of Deputies Chambre des Députes, the large statue of General Pichegru, Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the Rhine and the fountain in Maubert Square. Fragonard's tomb in the cemetery of Montmartre is unadorned and is covered by a plain stone slab.

Artworks by Alexandre Evariste Fragonard

72 artworks found

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72 artworks found