Young Girl Reading

Suffused with effortless grace, the unknown model in Fragonard’s Young Girl Reading embodies the cultured lifestyle treasured by high society in Pre-Revolutionary France. She is absorbed in a small book that she holds in her delicately curled right hand – pinky extended – reflecting the vogue for portable novels that flourished among the elite late in the century (such as Voltaire’s satirical Candide, Rousseau’s sentimental Julie ou la nouvelle Héloïse, or the numerous libertine novels). The young woman’s demure self-assuredness signals the artist’s endorsement of an activity often depicted elsewhere as charged with erotic dangers. Fragonard’s astounding brushwork is as much the subject of this painting as the young woman reading. He has carefully delineated her face, but her dress, ribbons, and the cushion are loosely brushed in large, vigorous, unblended strokes. The artist’s brio is further conveyed by the summarily sketched book and the edging of the girl’s collar, the latter of which he executed – one imagines in a single, great flourish – with the handle of the brush. The vivid brushwork draws attention to Fragonard’s virtuosity, but it also suggests the mental transport experienced by the figure of the self-contained reader.