Hubert Robert & Fragonard. The feeling of Nature

Catalog of the exhibition Hubert Robert & Fragonard. The feeling of nature, presented at the Museum of Valence (March 7 - June 21, 2026).

The book addresses the artistic relationship between Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1734-1806) and Hubert Robert (1733-1808) by studying their respective perspectives on nature.

The two artists met at the Palazzo Mancini in Rome in 1756. Robert had been staying at the French Academy for two years, while Fragonard, after winning the Prix de Rome, stayed there as a resident. After two years of discouragement, Fragonard was able to rediscover the taste for drawing, in the company of the energetic Robert. They drew together on the motif in the most prestigious sites of Rome and its surroundings.

When the two men continued their careers in Paris, after 1765, each knew how to develop his own sensitivity by taking a different path: Robert by achieving a diverse professional ascension within the king’s buildings; Fragonard by breaking with the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture to turn to an exclusively private clientele.

The book allows us to present the complementarity of the two men, in particular the intellectuality of Robert and the sensuality of Fragonard which their respective favorite themes favor: ruin and pastoral. Each develops a very personal sensitivity to history and anecdote, to minerals and plants, to ochre tones and shades of green, which mingle with an intense work of emulation.

Particular attention is paid to the way in which the productions of Fragonard and Robert clearly stand out from their contemporaries thanks to the increase in dimension of the paintings. These reach gigantic formats that favor the immersion of the viewer in a fantasized nature.

The challenge is to understand how the works of the two artists dominated the artistic landscape during the second half of the 18th century in France.

Exhibition details