The couple, arm-in-arm, hold a length of fabric (perhaps her dress or overskirts) over their heads as they run for cover from a storm. This painting, The Storm, has come to be known as Springtime ’s “spiritual pendant” and it depicts a young couple-perhaps even the enamored youths from Springtime- dashing through the woods, he in a state of half-dress and she in a similar gown as depicted in Springtime. John Wolfe, the painting’s first owner, took immense pleasure in hanging the work prominently in his Manhattan home, and his cousin Catharine Lorillard Wolfe was so besotted by the scene, she commissioned her own composition from Cot. With the Salon of 1873, Springtime became an immediate public sensation. Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Painting Has a Counterpart in The Storm “One marvels at the degrees of eroticism tolerated (or excused) in the name of classicism by a clientele who generally wanted nothing faintly overt of this sort,” wrote a later critic. In Cot’s case, he adds one more layer of reassuring distance between his viewers and the potentially transgressive scene by placing his figures in an ancient past. “With the exhilaration of vertigo play, swinging permitted occasions of sexual disorder where uninhibited positions revealed the body and spectators glimpsed views that were usually hidden from sight,” observed art historian Jennifer Milam in her essay “Playful Constructions and Fragonard’s Swinging Scenes.” Other examples of this popular genre include Nicolas Lancret’s The Swing (1730) and Francisco Goya’s interpretation from 1779. Fragonard’s frothy image depicted an aristocratic woman ensconced in a voluminously ruffled pink dress as she is pushed on a swing by a man-perhaps her unassuming husband-while her inamorato peeks scandalously upwards from below. These scenes of frivolity allowed for a spirit of playful transgression, hinting at courtship and intimacy through seemingly innocent revelry. Fragonard, in fact, painted not one but three unique depictions of women on swings. While harkening back to the Arcadian idylls made famous by Nicolas Poussin, Springtime also references the flirtatious French genre of swing scenes, embodied most famously by Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Rococo masterpiece The Swing (1767). Courtesy of the Wallace Collection, London, United Kingdom. Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing (ca. 1767). It’s Part of a Long Line of Flirtatious Swing Scenes As the season of rebirth begins, we’ve taken a closer look at the image and located three fascinating facts that just might change the way you see it. An iconic painting of young romantic love, Springtime has a fascinating backstory, too. In the 150 years since its creation the rapturously sensual image has been popularized the world over, through prints, postcards, cups and all other manner of reproduction. The image is unreal in its beauty one can see that while the young woman’s dress is flowing from the movement of the swing, the couple themselves are still. Springtime is both a celebration of the beauty of youth and an allegory of rebirth and splendor of the season. There the painting was displayed with the accompanying lines, “O primavera! gioventù dell’anno! / O gioventù! primavera della vita!!!” (Oh spring! youth of the year! / Oh youth! spring of life!!!). Cot, a student of French academic painter William-Adolphe Bouguereau, painted Springtime in 1873 and exhibited it at the Salon in Paris that year. Pierre-Auguste Cot’s Springtime (1873) is an unapologetically romantic painting, and one that is immediately recognizable-even if the painting’s name and story may not be readily familiar. Their bodies lean provocatively toward each other with palpable tension.
He gazes down tenderly toward the woman’s face, and raises his leg as thought about to push the swing forward.
Meanwhile, the young man sports a historically inspired, rustic tunic with a red sash at his waist. The girl, beautiful and coquettish, wears a diaphanous and luminously white gown, reminiscent of an ancient Grecian peplos, which winkingly reveals her idealized figure. In a lush green forest, these lovers sit side by side on a rope swing that hangs suspended from the unseen branches above. A young maiden stares deeply into the eyes of her beloved, wrapping her arms languidly around his neck.
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