“A rehang at the exquisite Wallace Collection means this eccentric Renaissance work is now displayed near Fragonard’s saucy frolic The Swing. The comparison is instructive. Both are provocative and funny. This painting’s moralising title and the symbolism attributed to it – contrasting, we are told, wise chaste love with carnal sin – have almost nothing to do with the experience of looking at it. Either Renaissance courtiers were incredibly hypocritical, enjoying this scene of an unbuttoned picnic while pretending to tut, or they were in on a game in which the real meat was, and is, a Rabelaisian delight in the sensual.“
No comments:
Post a Comment