Life Through Paintings

Jade Heliin
Huma 100
11/01/14

Paintings reveal moments of life. Everything that has ever been painted
shows an aspect of lifes many intricacies. The Complexity of Life by Himanshu
Choudhary exposes the different sides that every person has. At one time, people
can be happy and sad or angry and sad. Humans are complex and complicated
creatures. Ren Magrittes The False Mirror brings to light the way that life reveals
itself in peculiar ways. Sometimes in bad situations, there is a glimmer of light that
can change ones outlook. Like people, there is no easy and simple way to see things.
People and life can be viewed in numerous forms. The Swing by Jean-Honor
Fragonard also conveys a single moment that represents a part of life. The painting
expresses how life is a mosaic of moments and that every human has experienced
one or more of them.
The controlled painting of this scene shows the fragility of intimacy between
humans at a single moment in their lives. The surrounding trees and bushes give the
painting a sense of security. They are completely away from everyone while they are
in their own little world in this secluded spot. The painter fabricated this landscape
to express the intimacy between these people and their surroundings. People on the
outside will never understand because they are not part of the intimacy of this
moment. They will never be able to capture what happened in this moment between
these three people. He gave it a sense of complete seclusion from the outside world.
Although they are unable to decipher each others feelings, it is easy to see the

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emotions because the painter is allowing us to see a part of their true, inner selves.
On the pillar on the left side, the carvings of people are turned away. Their backs are
toward the people. The carving of the man in the middle has his arms on the two
around him, turning them away from the scene. They are unable to look upon this
very intimate moment between a woman, her husband, and her secret lover who is
hiding in the bushes. This intimacy cannot be shared with anyone else. The rope tied
multiple times around the tree on the top right of the painting represents their
complete trust in each other and their surroundings. They wrapped the rope around
several times to show their complete faith in their hidden relationship. The couple
trusts that their love is safely concealed from her husband. Although they are taking
necessary precautions to protect themselves, they are taking risks in all of their
decisions. They are putting their trust into a fragile moment that can be shattered at
any time. The woman is not perfectly connected to anything stable. Only one hand is
loosely holding onto the rope, which shows how easily she could fall off the swing.
She is taking a huge risk by getting on this swing in the first place. The husband
holding the ropes is smiling and sitting calmly, believing that everything is fine. He is
unaware that the ropes tying him to her are frayed and are easy to break, which
would result in everything wavering in the three peoples lives. When this moment
is over, her husband would be a gentleman and retrieve her shoe, resulting in him
finding the man in the bushes. This could potentially change everything. The lines of
the womans dress show the movements that are going on. The volume and
puffiness of her dress displays the extravagance of her swings. She is rapidly
swinging, showing how tight the husband is holding on to the ropes. This reinforces

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the way the ropes that connect them are frayed. Her movements on the swing and in
life are roughly testing the stability of her marriage. This stability also shows itself in
the colors of the painting. Fragonard uses many blues and greens to lull them into a
false sense of security and control. Usually when painters use blues and greens in
their paintings, they are trying to convey stability. In this painting, Fragonard shows
how in this moment, nothing is going to change. It is a controlled setting. In reality,
after this fragile moment is over, there could be unpredictable consequences.
Nothing can last forever, not even this single instant. The intimacy of this moment
connects the whole scene together and gives each person in the painting a different
voice.
The painter uses the painting to portray this moment through many different
perspectives. The two men are both irrevocably in love with the woman, and are
blinded by her light. It is intense and makes the lover forget that it is wrong to be
with a married woman and the light covers up the husbands eyes to the affair. In
the painting, Fragonard clearly shows the attraction between the woman and her
lover. The woman is staring straight at the man and subtly waving at him, showing
her total awareness of him. The man is waving back to her with his right hand and
trying to reach towards her with his left. He longs to be with her, to touch her, and to
have her in his arms. His expression exposes his direct line of sight up the womans
dress, hinting to an attraction between them that has been there long before this
painted moment. There is something more going on between them because of the
slight blushes on both of their faces and their wide eyes as they look at each other.
While the husband is completely in the dark and has no part of the woman, the lover

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is partially lit up because he has a part of the womans heart. The woman and lover
only see each other. Neither of them cares about the repercussions of their actions
on the people around them. Her husband is of no importance to them. Their
obsession with each other blinds them to the feelings of her husband. From the way
the woman is sitting, she is thinking about jumping off of the swing because her
hand is barely holding onto the rope that is connecting her to her husband. Her
lovers arms are wide open, willing the woman to come into his arms. He loves her
and is wholly ready to have a life with her. If she decides to be with her lover, the
woman is taking a huge risk and putting her trust into her feelings towards this man
to guide her. In the lower right corner of the painting, there is a small, white dog
barking at the woman. It is trying to get her attention away from her lover and warn
her from making the wrong decision. The woman clearly does not hear the dog or
its warning because she is blinded by her love for the man. The lone angel on the
pillar just sits and watches the whole scene. It does not act or intervene on this
moment. The angels hand is pointing at its mouth, showing how it is patiently
waiting to see what the woman will do, who she will pick. It looks at the womans
face, and the angel sees the rebellion and challenge in it. The woman knows the
angel is watching her and she does not care. She is kicking her shoe towards the
angel in an act of defiance. She will do exactly what she wants, when she wants, and
she could not care less whether the angel knows or not. Her husband is certainly not
noticing any of this because he is calmly sitting, oblivious to what his wife is doing.
He is unknowingly pushing her farther away from him on the swing, and into her
lovers open arms. For a moment, on the swing, the woman is free. She is a child that

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does not have any cares in the world. Sooner or later, she will have to grow up and
make a choice that will change her life. She can either choose to stay with her
husband and their well-off life, or jump off the swing into the bright light of the
unknown. Her husbands hands are clenched around the ropes he is holding,
showing his complete attachment to her. He will not let her go. The blues and greens
of the painting also show the security of her life with her husband. Her husband
seems to be older than the woman and her lover, representing the time this was
painted. Back when this painting was made, it was common for women to marry
older men for money and stability, and their fathers usually arranged it. Their fancy
clothes also show that they have a good amount of money that could sustain them
for their whole lives. The painter makes each person in this painting resonate
throughout the whole scene.
These relationships between them strongly change the way their
surroundings interact. Fragonards decision to make their surroundings a fictional
place abled him to put some of the emotions of the people into the emotions of the
scene around them. He was able to play around with the scene and make it echo the
humans. The influences of the humans on the scene around them are especially
significant to the whole of the painting. From the outside to the inside of the
painting, the colors get brighter and more vibrant. The painter wants the focus to be
solely on the woman in the middle and her relationship to the men and the nature
surrounding her. The flowers bordering this scene are mimicking the rich color of
her dress and are showing the way she catches attention utterly and completely.
The pink of both her dress and of the flowers show how her feminine charms and

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beauty are exquisitely mixed with the beauty of nature. Everything and everyone
around her longs to have or be like her. They want her dazzling and bold light.
Fragonards painting of the woman and her surroundings had people noticing
Fragonard all around the world. Doyen was almost struck speechless by the
proposition which his devout religious picture had prompted, and received the offer
with ill grace. He merely mentioned Fragonards name and took his leave (Thuiller
28). This effectively supports the fact that the time this was painted had heavily
shaped how it was created. Back then, the Church majorly dominated culture so
there were many restrictions on morals and behaviors. Many painters did not go
against the Church and would only take projects that were customary. The
proposition for The Swing was initially offered to the painter Doyen, but he rejected
it and passed it on to Fragonard because of his religious beliefs. Fragonard was
willing to paint this intimate scene even if he went against the Church and he was
instantly recognized by that choice. The woman and how she influenced the scene
around her mesmerized even the people that looked at the painting. The woman is
the main source of light for the men and the whole scene. As the surroundings get
farther and farther away from the woman, the trees are less touched and influenced
by the outward glow of her. Although she is glowing, she is not bright enough to
reach the more dull and slightly subdued corners of the painting. The branches at
the top are reaching for the light. They want to be noticed and be a part of
something radiant. The branches are the humans in the painting: they are gnarled
and complex, but all they want in the world is happiness. They are all stretching for
something more that will be their source of meaning in life. As the trees at the top

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are hidden by the darkness, the womans secret relationship is hidden from her
husband. He is totally in the dark, oblivious to what is really going on. The branches
of the trees are sharp and rigid, showing the tensions between each person. The
connections between them can be attraction, love, and even ignorance. The two men
love the woman but she only loves one, and the other is nave to her true feelings.
These feelings of the people directly correspond to the amount of colors and shades
in the painting. They are both very vast and complex. Fragonard puts all of these
colors and emotions into the painting because he wants all aspects of it to be seen
and thought about. The two angels clutching in the dark are the woman and her
husband. The angel on the left is staring longingly at the woman, wanting to be like
her. It is unhappy and wishes to get out of the arms of the other angel. The right
angel, like the husband, is content and happy, but is blinded completely by its love
that it cannot see the others true feelings. It does not want to let go at all, while the
left angel wants to be free. The tree twisting up the right side of the painting
represents their lives being intimately intertwined even though not everyone may
know it. They are connected to each other in ways and they can never change that.
Although life will go on after this moment, they will not be able to alter the past.
The painting expresses how life is a mosaic of moments and that every
human has experienced one or more of them. At a point in a persons life, they can
experience a specific moment where they can feel that time has stopped. The
fragility of this one moment is tangible and it can be easily broken. This can happen
when someone falls in love. When they see that special someone, that person is all
they see. They are captivated and it feels like time has ceased to work. Once time has

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started again, this flash will be over and life will go on. Life, like people, cannot be
looked at in one way. To get a sense of a single complex moment requires one to get
a multitude of viewpoints and angles. When a woman gives birth, there is love in
that moment because she has given life, but there is also worry that she will not be
able to give her child everything. The mother has many emotions towards her child.
Nothing is as easy and simple as it looks. Every person is changing reality every
single moment of each day. Humans strongly impact the people and the
environment around them. Everything they do has repercussions. Whether it is love
that brings people together, wars that bring ruin to nations, or planting trees to help
nature grow, every second humans are changing the world.