The Storm 1759

Curator: Soaked in atmosphere and drama, this oil painting, titled "The Storm," was completed in 1759 by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. The subject and handling point towards the artist engaging with the history painting genre through the Romantic style. What is your initial response to this work? Editor: It's breathtaking. It's chaotic, you feel the urgent panic of a gathering tempest. I almost want to take cover just looking at it. The way those dark clouds seem to press down... are those cherubic figures nestled above that precarious looking cart? A wonderfully strange juxtaposition of playfulness and fear! Curator: Absolutely, there's a dynamism here. It makes one question, what are they hauling and what is the great hurry? What Fragonard might have hoped to say about material anxiety of the time? One could see this as commenting on the modes of transportation available during that period or question its role as mere luxury good, beyond practical utility. Editor: A luxury good endangered by a very non-luxurious storm, love that. It's so raw and real. The vulnerability of even the finest things when nature unleashes. And you know, it reminds me, in a funny way, of those days you’re racing to finish a creative project, deadlines looming, a mess everywhere, but somehow you push through! Curator: Indeed. He employs dynamic brushwork in rendering the tumultuous weather that mirrors the anxiety felt in the movement and plight of these people to secure the goods at all cost. In an era of social upheaval, where did Fragonard situate his audience in response to scenes of daily, or possibly extraordinary, upheaval like these? What kinds of pressures was he responding to as a manufacturer of images? Editor: That thought makes it even more resonant. You know, sometimes, art speaks loudest when it’s whispering. I mean, the craft itself…the way he coaxes such a grand narrative onto canvas with frantic brushstrokes…I find it completely captivating. Curator: His expressive brushwork is what invites that connection. Through such detailed considerations of process and context, this work urges us to appreciate not just its artistic achievement but also to be alert to how history continues to repeat, through images and material things. Editor: Very well put. It’s a reminder of how closely joy and precariousness are often entwined. Thank you.