Personal reflection by Loes van Damme-Rietvelt
What caught my attention?
At first glance, I see a charming Rococo scene.
A young woman in an enormous pink dress swings through a beautiful, almost dreamlike garden. Everything appears light, playful and romantic.
But then I look more closely.
Hidden in the bushes below her is a young man — positioned at exactly the right angle to look beneath her billowing skirt.
Suddenly the painting becomes much less innocent.
The woman seems to know perfectly well that he is there. She looks towards him while playfully kicking off one of her shoes.
Behind her, an older man controls the swing. Who is he? Her husband? A guardian? We do not really know.
But he appears completely unaware of the secret game taking place in front of him.
A secret hidden in plain sight
Even the statues seem to participate.
The stone Cupid on the left holds a finger to his lips, as if telling us:
Shhh… keep the secret.
The flying shoe, the lifted skirt, the hidden admirer and the woman’s expression all give the painting an unmistakably erotic undertone.
What first looked like an innocent young woman enjoying a swing has become a carefully staged game of desire, secrecy and flirtation.
And that makes me smile.
Because fashions change, social rules change and centuries pass — but human attraction, temptation and secret affairs certainly do not seem to disappear.
Perhaps people have changed less than we like to think.