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Laughter and Enjoyment: La Fontaine and Fragonard

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Enjoyment

Part of the book series: Analecta Husserliana ((ANHU,volume 56))

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Abstract

In illustrating Jean de La Fontaine’s fables and tales, the eighteenth-century French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard brought to life the immensely popular works of the seventeenth-century author. Although La Fontaine — upon the recommendation of a priest, who threatened the dying old poet with the fires of hell — recognized the unchristian licentiousness and sexual allusions of his Contes, they regained popularity in the eighteenth century and were read with fervor.1 It is no surprise that Fragonard — also known for depicting sensuality in painting and drawing — chose to portray his perspectives and perceptions of La Fontaine’s works. Both men enjoy great reputations today and have a wide appeal, whether it be among the intellectual elite or in the common, popular world: Fragonard is studied as a master of rococo painting and a precursor to romantic art. His paintings are depicted on objects ranging from book covers to chocolate boxes. La Fontaine’s poems are learned and studied by the French, from school children to university students; they are quoted in television advertisements as well. The morals of his fables have entered the world of aphorisms. As all great art and literature do, the never-ending attraction and beauty of La Fontaine and Fragonard’s works enlighten the soul of spectator and reader, providing him or her with aesthetic and spiritual edification as well as visual delight.

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Notes

  1. Fragonard et le dessin français du XVllle siècle dans les collections du Petit Palais: Musée du Petit Palais, 16 octobre 1992–1914 février 1993 ( Paris: Paris-Musées, 1992 ), p. 191.

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  2. Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, in Fragonard (Geneva: La Palatine, 1946), p. 3, describe Fragonard as “... le Chérubin de la peinture érotique”; this can be translated as “the cherub” (the winged child who shoots arrows of love directly to the heart of those he wishes to enchant with passion), or “the Cherubino” (the young man in The Marriage of Figaro, who is infatuated with every woman he sees) “of erotic painting” (my translation).

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  3. Jean de La Fontaine, “Fables,” in Oeuvres complètes ( Paris: Seuil, 1965 ), p. 122.

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  4. Jean de La Fontaine, The Fables of La Fontaine, trans. Marianne Moore ( New York: Viking Press, 1954 ), pp. 155–156.

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  5. The painting for this study is reproduced in Pierre Rosenberg, Fragonard ( New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988 ), p. 305.

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  6. La Fontaine, Oeuvres complètes, op. cit., p. 122, and The Fables of La Fontaine, op. cit., p. 156.

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  7. Jean Chevalier et Alain Gheerbrant, Dictionnaire des symboles ( Paris: Laffont-Jupiter, 1982 ), p. 250.

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  8. Ibid., p. 556.

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  9. Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 306.

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  10. Etienne Joliet, “Gravity in Painting: Fragonard’s Perrette’ and the Depiction of Innocence,” in Art History, Vol. XVI (1993), p. 247.

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  11. Picrochole is referred to in chapters 26 to 49 in François Rabelais’ Gargantua, in Oeuvres complètes ( Paris: Seuil, 1973 ).

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  12. Ibid., p. 124.

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  13. François Rabelais, Gargantua and Pantagruel: The Five Books, trans. Jacques LeClercq ( New York: The Heritage Press, 1942 ), p. 78.

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  14. This aphorism is repeated in the book of Ecclesiastes, in the Bible.

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  15. C. A. Kincaid, Successors of Alexander the Great: Ptolomy I, Pyrrhus, Hier o, Antiochus III ( Chicago: Argonaut, 1969 ), p. 103.

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  16. For this study, Fragonard’s illustrations “L’oraison de Saint Julien” (illustration 153), “L’anneau d’Hans Carvel” (illustration 155), and “Le villageois qui cherchait son veau” (illustration 154) were found in Fragonard et le dessin français du XVllle siècle dans les collections du Petit Palais: Muséee du Petit Palais, 16 octobre 1992–1914 février 1993, op. cit.

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  17. La Fontaine, “Contes,” in Oeuvres complètes, op. cit., pp. 200–203.

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  18. For more details about this story see Flaubert’s “Saint Julien l’Hospitalier” in Trois contes.

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  20. Jean de La Fontaine, The Tales and Novels of Jean de la Fontaine, op. cit., p. 50.

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  26. Ibid.

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  27. Dictionnaire des symboles, op. cit., p. 637.

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  28. For a more detailed explanation of fire and sexuality, see Mircea Eliade, The Forge and the Crucible, trans. Stephen Corrin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978 ) and Gaston Bachelard, Psychoanalysis of Fire, trans. Alan Ross ( Boston: Beacon Press, 1964 ).

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  29. La Fontaine, Oeuvres, op. cit., p. 203.

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  30. La Fontaine, The Tales and Novels of Jean de la Fontaine, op. cit., pp. 48, 49.

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  31. Pierre de Ronsard, Les Amours ( Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1981 ).

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  33. La Fontaine, The Tales and Novels of Jean de la Fontaine, op. cit., p. 49.

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  34. Rabelais, Tiers Livre, in Oeuvres complètes, op. cit., p. 476.

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  35. Rabelais, The Third Book, in Gargantua and Pantagruel: The Five Books, op. cit., p. 102.

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  36. Le Petit Robert I: Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française (Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert), p. 84.

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  37. It is not my intention to do a feminist analysis of the poetry and art of La Fontaine or Fragonard; however, the works of each artist lend themselves to such an interpretation.

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  38. Jacques Thullier, Fragonard ( New York: Rizzoli, 1987 ), p. 72.

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  39. Ibid., p. 88.

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  40. Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, French Eighteenth-Century Painters: Watteau, Boucher, Chardin, La Tour, Greuze, Fragonard ( Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981 ), p. 261.

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  41. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Logos and Life: Creative Experience and the Critique of Reason ( Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988 ).

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  42. Ibid., p. 99.

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  43. Ibid., p. 103.

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  44. Ibid., p. 140.

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  45. Mary D. Sheriff, Fragonard: Art and Eroticism ( Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1993 ), p. 140.

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  46. Denis Diderot, Second entretien sur le fils naturel, in Sheriff, ibid.

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  47. Sheriff, ibid., p. 141.

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  48. Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Fragonard, op. cit., p. 3, my translation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Michigan State University, USA

    Mary Elisabeth Mccullough

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  1. Mary Elisabeth Mccullough
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. The World Institute for Advanced Phenomenological Research and Learning, Belmont, Massachusetts, USA

    Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka

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© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Mccullough, M.E. (1998). Laughter and Enjoyment: La Fontaine and Fragonard. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Enjoyment. Analecta Husserliana, vol 56. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1425-9_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1425-9_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4889-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-017-1425-9

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