Fragonard and the Blindman’s Game: Interpreting representations of blindman’s buff

This article focuses on Fragonard’s five depictions of blindman’s buff painted between 1750 and 1780. The aims are twofold. Firstly, to reconsider the traditional emblematics of the subject matter in light of changing estimations of the roles of passion and love in courtship and marriage, and a revitalized interest in pastoral games as an elite alternative to gambling. Careful readings of texts by Rousseau, Diderot, Caraccioli and Dusaulx, among others, afford these new perspectives. Secondly, to explore the formal variations of Fragonard’s scenes as attempts to resist the constraints placed upon interpretation by the fixed message of an emblematic cliché inherited from Le Bas, Watteau, Pater and Lancret. Visual analyses of Fragonard’s paintings yield intriguing implications for art‐making and viewing contained within the blindman’s game. Positing a vital relationship between context, content and form, his images urge us to pay attention to multiple meanings and to contemplate the necessity of feigning blindness as part of the aesthetic experience in order to reach the imagination, to stimulate sensation and to struggle with interpretation.