Consider the painting The Pursuit from The Progress of Love, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, and discuss why the patron rejected the series

What will be an ideal response?

One of the characteristics of the Rococo style is the lighthearted, playful quality of content. The Countess du Barry commissioned one of the last masterpieces of Rococo art, a set of four large paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard called The Progress of Love. The image presents a lush garden where an ardent youth chases after a girl. Above the figures a statue of two cupids seems to participate, watching for the outcome of the event. The Countess planned to decorate a new pavilion she built on her estate. Although the paintings were some of the best Fragonard painted in the Rococo style, the patron rejected them as she considered them too old-fashioned and sentimental. Rococo had run its course and seriousness was now in vogue, together with the artistic style of Neoclassicism.