Blank page; verso: Composition Study c. 1758

Curator: This is a page from a sketchbook by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, a "Composition Study," it's called, and is housed at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: It feels so light, almost hesitant. A flurry of possibilities, barely tethered to the page. Curator: Exactly. Fragonard was working during a time of great social and political change, and the fluidity of his lines here really speaks to that feeling of uncertainty and transition. Editor: Do you think that his rococo style served to either challenge or uphold the established order of his time, in that era of upheaval? Curator: Well, the aristocracy certainly embraced his work... Perhaps his art offered an escape, a momentary reprieve from the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. Still, these raw sketches, unbound, hint at a searching for something new. Editor: A quiet revolution on paper, maybe? Curator: Perhaps. It definitely gives a lot to think about regarding his process.