The Little Park

Fragonard's The Little Park from around 1763, in the Wallace Collection, is one of his most atmospheric landscape paintings, depicting a secluded garden with towering cypresses and overgrown vegetation. The painting reflects the Rococo fascination with gardens as settings for romance and reverie, though Fragonard's treatment is more wild and romantic than the manicured gardens of Watteau's fêtes galantes. The energetic, almost violent brushwork anticipates the Romantic landscape tradition of the following century.

Fragonard's bravura brushwork creates a sense of dense, overgrown vegetation through rapid, energetic strokes. The warm palette of greens and golds and the atmospheric handling of light filtering through the foliage demonstrate his mastery of landscape painting.