AMOUR DANS LES PLIS (L)

LE VERROU (1775-1777), JEAN-HONORÉ FRAGONARD - COLLECTION PALETTES

of JAUBERT Alain

FRANCE, 1991, 00:30:00

Production : DELTA IMAGES, PAINI Dominique, MUSEE DU LOUVRE, FR3, LA SEPT, REUNION DES MUSEES NATIONAUX, MUSEE D'ORSAY
Collection : Musée du Louvre
Genre : Documentary
Keyword : Art, Eroticism, History of art, Louvre Museum, Painting

Summary :
Choosing key-works in the imaginary of the Western culture, the series called “Palettes” tells in each episode the story of a different painting. In a word, it tells the genealogy of the painting. For a painting has its ancestors and its descendants. A double technical and philosophical knowledge, fed on by a long tradition, gave birth to the painting. And the painting itself gave birth, year after year, to a multitude of other images…
Assuming the idea that the deep meaning of a painting is conveyed by the choice of colours and themes, we dissect the canvas from its most visible composition to its deepest significance.

A young man and a young woman are standing between a bed and a door. A scene that could be mundane, since the man is wearing boxer shorts. an apparantly ordinary image that has a quite explicit subject and that could be the messenger of many ulterior motives. Strange fact "Le Verrou" (The Bolt) would have been painted as the matching piece of a religious scene, "l'Adoration des bergers"(The Adoration of the Shepherds). this ultimate variation on the opposition between sacred and profane love brought several centuries of religious paintings to a close and opened a new era: eroticism was not the prerogative of the antique gods any longer. It is shared here and now in the scenary of the daily life.
The painting shown as an engraving was very famous at the end of the 18th century whereas the original had disappeared. Found during the 20th century, "Le verrou" has been the subject of different controversies: for some persons, it would not have been painted by Fragonard, for others, like the curators of the Louvre museum, the painting represents a stylsitic break in the painter's work. The analysis in laboratory brings doubts to an end.

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