Feminist Interventions
The French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard painted the perceived masterpiece of Rococo art, The Swing, (c.1767-1768).
The painting illustrates a covert type of sexual voyeurism known as upskirting, and is rich with erotic symbolism; exploring desire, adultery, love, and power. The woman is both subject and object: she is central in the composition, and is also the object of desire for the men. She is held in place between both and yet just out of their reach, suspended in mid-air.
"The woman is a symbol of desire and infidelity.... with her lover in the bushes gazing up at her, peeking into her open dress. The voyeur behind her, possibly her husband, is holding on to her through the ropes attached to the swing, which could also imply his power."
This decadent celebrated painting was commissioned by a Baron who wanted a portrait of his mistress, and so it a meta representation for objectification of the female body and the male gaze.
The contemporary artist Yinka Shonibare was inspired to re-enact this painting in a multi media installation called The Swing (after Fragonard), (2001).
By recreating the painting in three dimensions, Shonibare offers us the option to upskirt, but also to place ourselves in the position of either male in the painting.
"The sensuality of the original painting is maintained and critiqued in Shonibare’s version. The opulence of her dress and the frivolity of her gesture, swinging languidly across the gallery, make Shonibare’s figure a direct translation of the Fragonard original. However, Shonibare’s coquette has no head, which may allude to the literal fate that awaited the aristocracy after the French Revolution; only twenty-five years after Fragonard painted The Swing, the guillotine was introduced in Paris to more efficiently execute royalist sympathisers."
The work is both unfamiliar and instantly recognisable; and this generates a sense of discomfort in the viewer similar to that evoked by the sexist and toxic themes highlighted so clearly in the original painting.
