Venus c. 1808 - 1810

Alexandre Evariste Fragonard made this drawing called Venus using graphite and stumping sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century. It depicts the goddess Venus on a rock in the water, holding a transparent sheet. Above her, a white dove is flying. The Fragonard family was part of the French aristocracy, which lends a particular perspective to their art. The goddess Venus, a popular subject during that time, was often portrayed as an allegory for female beauty. The whiteness of the figure as well as the dove flying above her evokes the idea of purity. But as historians, we must ask how the purity and beauty of the aristocracy was maintained through exclusion and suppression. What were the politics of such imagery? Was this an attempt by the artist to maintain conservative social norms? These are the questions that a social art historian asks, using the tools of archival research and historical contextualization. We can interpret art as more than just an aesthetic object, but as a product of social and institutional forces.