A Woman With a Dog

A Woman With a Dog

Hi everyone, 

Recently I visited The Metropolitan Museum of Art, (The MET), and spent a good three to four hours wandering around the museum. During my visit many pieces of art caught my eye, but one in particular stood out to me and I couldn’t seem to figure out why. The piece that caught my eye was a painting by French artist Jean Honore Fragonard, titled “A Woman With a Dog.”

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  “A Woman With a Dog”
  Jean Honore Fragonard (1769)

The first thing that caught my eye was the ostentatious frame that seemingly enveloped the entire painting. After getting past the gaudiness of the frame, I began to look at the painting itself, and the details that were included by the artist. At first I noticed the excessive amounts of pearls that adorned the woman’s hair and neck, then I began to think more in depth about the woman herself and her life. She clearly is holding a puppy, but to me that was insignificant because for some odd reason I wanted to focus on the woman. It interested me how this woman, unnamed, could have been any aristocrat at that time. I then began to think how any wealthy person tried to dress similarly, men with wigs and women with frilly outfits, and found it odd that people would do such a thing. If it was me, I’d like to stand out and be different if I was of that type of wealth and fame. But then, as I continued to think, it came to me that these people didn’t care about standing out amongst their peer, but instead they wanted to make it known that they were of a wealthy class, and wanted to ensure that no one would confuse them for a working class person, or even worse a serf. The wardrobe of these wealthy aristocrats became the focus of my infatuation with this painting and realized that they only cared about not being poor, which to me is a terrible way to live life but, hey I guess it worked for them. 

-Anthony Damon