Not Your Average Female Portrait
Ways in which you wouldn't normally view a woman
Curated by Lily Johnston

Jean- Honore Fragonard, Stolen Kiss, 1780s

Frivolous. Forbidden. Flippant.

All of these F words are not something one would associate with the average painted female. Fragonard however, had something else in mind for his heroines. He liked these F words. His women often had a sensual air that was in favor of female empowerment. They held just as much as the scandal as the man. In Stolen Kiss, by Fragonard, even though it seems the gentleman steals his woman away from her scene, she encourages him. She wants him just as badly. However worried her face may seem, the want is more. She fears her love being found out by the women occupying the next room. Her body leans into the doorway, towards her lover. Our heroine wants a life full of scandal, not that of the proper puppet in one of Moliere's "Salon des Femmes."

While this paintings is for the benefit of male, because he gets his way, it is not anything forceful. He has a sweet demeanor, almost that of a young boy. His boy like presence shows her power over him to manipulate him how she pleases. What has now turned into a cougar complex, strips the man from any power he was seeking to hold. By now, I hope you see the conventional stealing of a cheek idea is completely subversive. The viewer sees what they want to see. In other words, the man finds pleasure in the painting how he wants or deems truthful, that does not mean it's correct.

Don't get me wrong though, I may not always be correct in my assumptions either, but I hope you see this painting differently now.