Boy with a Peep Show, sounds like a scroll through a pervy dude’s IG feed. And given the reputation of its painter, Jean-Honorè Fragonard, it’s not an outrageous conclusion.  

The artist is known for pumping out rococo paintings depicting the escapades and frivolity of the overly flamboyant French Court, elaborate renderings of being carefree and cheerfully irresponsible. But by 1780, we see the artist has calmed his ass down (he got married, had kids, spent some time in Italy and ended up back in Paris just before the French Revolution, a disgusting and depressing time to be alive unless you are the bourgeoisie) and eventually lost his entire harem of wealthy patrons to executions which may have contributed to this shift in style… or maybe he was simply over painting dudes in tights.

Needless to say, by the time Boy with a Peep Show was painted, everything had started to change for the artist and his style. This painting is brown. Gorgeous browns. There’s nothing wrong with brown, or ochre, or umber, or khaki. But compared to the bright pastel palette of Rococco paintings, this palette is is a visual representation of the quality of life for a boy living in Paris in 1780. His only thrill is this wooden box with no less than one image of a sexy lady inside. The boy would spend his last dennier on one more look inside that box just to be outside his dull existence. What’s less obvious about the painting, is that same loose brushwork that the artist is known for; the pleasure, albeit fleeting, on the boy’s face as he looks out of the frame engaging potential comrades in his perversion; being absolutely present, there is nothing for the boy outside of this box full of lusty pleasure. “Fragonard’s men and women do not escape reality by their adventures, for the world is nothing but the ever recurring instant of intimacy of pleasure, of carefree realization.”

Fragonard may have gotten hip to the ridiculousness of rococo, that over-the-top mentality of trying to sleep with your best friend’s wife. And maybe he shifted to a more neo-classical style complete with a depressing palette. But this boy, the one with the peep show, is no less depraved than the girl in The Swing. It’s just the circumstances have changed. But the motivation, that desire for instant gratification, is the same. And let’s be honest, in today’s world of social media and immediate connection, escaping into our phones for a moment of sheer pleasure, aren’t we all that boy?