The Representation of Games in 18th-Century Rococo Painting: Differences in the Discourse Between Children and Adults

This essay explores the significance of depicting children's games in 18th-century Rococo painting and the differences in intended meanings when applied to children versus adults. More specifically, the focus of my research is on the use of these games to exhibit moral lessons among adolescents and expose the connotations of fickleness, courtship, and eroticism when directed at aristocratic adults. The specific images that will be included in my discussion are Jean-Honoré Fragonard's Happy Hazards of the Swing (1767) and Blind Man's Bluff (c.a. 1750-1752), Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin's Soap Bubbles (1733-34) and The Young Schoolmistress (ca. 1735-36), Jacques-Phillipe Le Bas's Blind Man's Buff (1737), and Nicolas Lancret's Blind Man's Bluff (c. 1728). I will also discuss the relevance of these paintings within their time period and the cultural politics of the eighteenth-century that would have had an impact on the development and interpretation of these images