The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard
(sometimes titled, The Happy Accidents of The Swing)
The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806)
L’Escarpolette, its original French name or The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard is one of the world’s most treasured Rococo paintings. Risqué for its time, it’s cited as a veiled reference to Cuckolding. (A cuckold is a man whose wife is, or has been unfaithful, who historically, was regarded as an object of derision.) For me, it also has obvious femdom connotations when you interpret its visual clues.
A Cuckolding Tableau
A young woman bathed in light, and dressed resplendently in a vibrant sensual peach dress, is with joyous abandon, swinging back and forth, her shoe flying off in the process. Possibly a reference to her rocking back and forth on ‘something else’ with joyous abandon. In the 18th Century a ‘swing’ was a known symbol for infidelity. Here she is literally swinging between the two men in her life. (Well we all know what ‘swinging’ is these days.)
Her much older husband is happily holding his wife’s reins, at the back in the shadows. Her younger lover, secretly hiding in the bushes, is looking up her skirt, right at her ‘lady parts’. His phallic like arm pointing up to the oval opening in her dress; which to me, with its colour, shape and frills, is very much like the opening of a woman’s vulva. Her ankle the clitoris, that with orgasmic delight has lost a shoe. There is a little white dog down next to his master (bottom right), a sign of fidelity and faithfulness who is barking, sounding the alarm. No one is noticing, they are all too engaged in their own hedonistic pleasure. Except the statue of Cupid (top left), the Roman god of desire and erotic love, his finger to his lips shushing the pooch. He is telling us this is a clandestine rendezvous, that her husband is blissfully ignorant and perhaps hinting at the racy secrets in this painting.
A Femdom Goddess
In the overall composition – they together make a triangle. A three-way relationship. From a femdom perspective she is at the top of this triangle, possibly a reference to being ‘on top’ sexually. Not just for intercourse and queening, but in the whole relationship set-up. She is above them all. An acknowledgement of the power of female sexuality. She’s a dominant goddess like Venus controlling everything. (Artistic representations of Venus are often paired with a dolphin, as she emerged from the sea, and notably there is a figurine of a dolphin beneath her.) Both men are captivated by her, visually (the composition & colour) she is at the centre of the painting eclipsing everything around her. She embodies a sence of freedom and abandonment of societal norms. Uncharacteristic for women of this time.
Despite the obvious male smutty jokes, it still resonates, it’s still beautiful -her joy and freedom as she rushes through the air, feels infectious. She’s bounding out of the painting – restricted by nothing.
Currently hanging in Wallace Collection, a national museum in London,UK
See also: Cuckolding – An Age Old Story
;
