Gardens

    Fragonard was a gifted landscapist who combined his knowledge of earlier Dutch painting, notably the dramatic light effects and craggy trees of artists like Jacob van Ruisdael, and his experience in Italy, including its formal gardens and ancient ruins.
    He returned repeatedly to the subject of a long alley of overscaled trees that creates a dark tunnel at the end of which a bright light illuminates a figure or, as here, a fountain.

Schloss Milkel in Moonlight

    The Baroque manor house at Milkel, near Dresden, is depicted from its rear garden in an atmosphere of deep calm.
    While nature's fecundity is illuminated by the moon, two windows glow softly, revealing a human presence - the sign of someone awake late at night.

Reciting Poetry in a Garden

    A lush landscape provides the setting for a picnic, complete with fruit and beverages in Chinese-style blue-and-white vessels.
    Two men sit in conversation, one writing and holding a safina (an oblong format book typically containing poetry), flanked by a man standing on the left and a woman on the right carrying a covered bowl decorated with Chinese designs.
    The patterned robes, silk sashes, and striped turbans resemble costumes depicted in seventeenth-century Persian drawings and paintings.