Many years ago I had the good fortune of working not far from the National Gallery. Thanks to a flexible schedule I would often stop in to sit in front of favorite paintings. Two were by Fragonard: The Swing and Blindman's Buff. The struck me as having a sadly prophetic note, and not just because, as Kissel says, "we know how brutally the world they reflected was destroyed." What struck me at the time was the contrast between the smallness of the figures and the huge, menacing storm clouds on the horizon, of which the figures seem oblivious. I couldn't help thinking that Fragonard may have sensed something about the vulnerability of his society that few others of his day did. I now sometimes feel as if the obliviousness that afflicted his society has come to affect our own as well.
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