rococo

Pair of lovers group of Nymphenburg porcelain, c. 1760, modelled by Franz Anton Bustelli

The Rococo Basilica at Ottobeuren (Bavaria): architectural spaces flow together and swarm with life

Rococo (/rəˈkoʊkoʊ/ or /roʊkəˈkoʊ/), less commonly roccoco, also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century artistic movement and style, which affected several aspects of the arts including painting, sculpture, architecture, interior design, decoration, literature, music and theatre. The Rococo developed in the early part of the 18th century in Paris, France as a reaction against the grandeur, symmetry and strict regulations of the Baroque, especially that of the Palace of Versailles.^[1] In such a way, Rococo artists opted for a more jocular, florid and graceful approach to Baroque art and architecture. Rococo art and architecture in such a way was ornate and made strong usage of creamy, pastel-like colours, asymmetrical designs, curves and gold. Unlike the more politically focused Baroque, the Rococo had more playful and often witty artistic themes. With regards to interior decoration, Rococo rooms were designed as total works of art with elegant and ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing architecture, reliefs, and wall paintings. The Rococo additionally played an important role in theatre. In the book The Rococo, it is written that there was no other culture which "has produced a wittier, more elegant, and teasing dialogue full of elusive and camouflaging language and gestures, refined feelings and subtle criticism" than Rococo theatre, especially that of France.^[2]

Towards the end of the 18th century, Rococo started to fall out of fashion, and it was largely supplanted by the Neoclassic style. In 1835 the Dictionary of the French Academy stated that the word Rococo "usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis XV's reign and the beginning of that of Louis XVI". It includes therefore, all types of art produced around the middle of the 18th century in France. The word Rococo is seen as a combination of the French rocaille, meaning stone, and coquilles, meaning shell, due to reliance on these objects as motifs of decoration.^[3] The term Rococo may also be interpreted as a combination of the word "barocco" (an irregularly shaped pearl, possibly the source of the word "baroque") and the French "rocaille" (a popular form of garden or interior ornamentation using shells and pebbles), and may be used to describe the refined and fanciful style that became fashionable in parts of Europe during the eighteenth century.^[4] Owing to Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts, some critics used the term to derogatively imply that the style was frivolous or merely modish. When the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning "old-fashioned". As a matter of fact, the style received harsh criticism, and was seen by some to be superficial and of poor taste,^[5][6] especially when compared to neoclassicism; despite this, it has been praised for its aesthetic qualities,^[5] and since the mid-19th century, the term has been accepted by art historians. While there is still some debate about the historical significance of the style to art in general, Rococo is now widely recognized as a major period in the development of European art.

Historical development

Although Rococo is usually thought of as developing first in the decorative arts and interior design, its origins lie in the late Baroque architectural work of Borromini (1599–1667) mostly in Rome and Guarini (1624–83) mostly in Northern Italy but also in Vienna, Prague, Lisbon, and Paris. Italian architects of the late Baroque/early Rococo were wooed to Catholic (Southern) Germany, Bohemia and Austria by local princes, bishops and prince-bishops. Inspired by their example, regional families of Central European builders went further, creating churches and palaces that took the local German Baroque style to the greatest heights of Rococo elaboration and sensation.

An exotic but in some ways more formal type of Rococo appeared in France where Louis XIV's succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of the king's long reign, rich Baroque designs were giving way to lighter elements with more curves and natural patterns. These elements are obvious in the architectural designs of Nicolas Pineau. During the Régence, court life moved away from Versailles and this artistic change became well established, first in the royal palace and then throughout French high society. The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is often seen as perfectly in tune with the excesses of Louis XV's reign.^[7]

The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France. The style had spread beyond architecture and furniture to painting and sculpture, exemplified by the works of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. Rococo still maintained the Baroque taste for complex forms and intricate patterns, but by this point, it had begun to integrate a variety of diverse characteristics, including a taste for Oriental designs and asymmetric compositions. The Rococo style was spread by French artists and engraved publications.

François Boucher, Le Déjeuner, (1739, Louvre), shows a rocaille interior of a French bourgeois family in the 18th century. The porcelain statuette and vase add a touch of chinoiserie.

In Great Britain, Rococo was always thought of as the "French taste" and was never widely adopted as an architectural style, although its influence was strongly felt in such areas as silverwork, porcelain, and silks, and Thomas Chippendale transformed British furniture design through his adaptation and refinement of the style. William Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty (1753) that the undulating lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace and beauty in art or nature (unlike the straight line or the circle in Classicism). The development of Rococo in Great Britain is considered to have been connected with the revival of interest in Gothic architecture early in the 18th century.

The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of the art. Blondel decried the "ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants" in contemporary interiors.^[8] By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order and seriousness of Neoclassical artists like Jacques Louis David. In Germany, late 18th century Rococo was ridiculed as Zopf und Perücke ("pigtail and periwig"), and this phase is sometimes referred to as Zopfstil. Rococo remained popular in the provinces and in Italy, until the second phase of neoclassicism, "Empire style", arrived with Napoleonic governments and swept Rococo away.

There was a renewed interest in the Rococo style between 1820 and 1870. The British were among the first to revive the "Louis XIV style" as it was miscalled at first, and paid inflated prices for second-hand Rococo luxury goods that could scarcely be sold in Paris. But prominent artists like Eugène Delacroix and patrons like Empress Eugénie also rediscovered the value of grace and playfulness in art and design.

Rococo in different artistic modes

Furniture and decorative objects

Rococo mirror and stuccowork in Schloss Ludwigsburg reflect the style's characteristic anti-architectural integration of materials and forms

The lighthearted themes and intricate designs of Rococo presented themselves best at a more intimate scale than the imposing Baroque architecture and sculpture. It is not surprising, then, that French Rococo art was at home indoors. Metalwork, porcelain figures and especially furniture rose to new pre-eminence as the French upper classes sought to outfit their homes in the now fashionable style.

Rococo style took pleasure in asymmetry, a taste that was new to European style. This practice of leaving elements unbalanced for effect is called contraste.

During the Rococo period, furniture was lighthearted, physically and visually. The idea of furniture had evolved to a symbol of status and took on a role in comfort and versatility. Furniture could be easily moved around for gatherings, and many specialized forms came to be such as the fauteuil chair, the voyeuse chair, and the berger en gondola. Changes in design of these chairs ranges from cushioned detached arms, lengthening of the cushioned back (also known as "hammerhead") and a loose seat cushion. Furniture was also freestanding, instead of being anchored by the wall, to accentuate the lighthearted atmosphere and versatility of each piece. Mahogany was widely used in furniture construction due to its strength, resulting in the absence of the stretcher as seen on many chairs of the time. Also, the use of mirrors hung above mantels became ever more popular in light of the development of unblemished glass.

In a full-blown Rococo design, like the Table d'appartement (c. 1730), by German designer J. A. Meissonnier, working in Paris (illustration, below), any reference to tectonic form is gone: even the marble slab top is shaped. Apron, legs, stretcher have all been seamlessly integrated into a flow of opposed c-scrolls and "rocaille." The knot (noeud) of the stretcher shows the asymmetrical "contraste" that was a Rococo innovation.

Design for a table by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, Paris ca 1730

Most widely admired and displayed in the "minor" and decorative arts its detractors claimed that its tendency to depart from or obscure traditionally recognised forms and structures rendered it unsuitable for larger scale projects and disqualified it as a fully architectural style.

Dynasties of Parisian ébénistes, some of them German-born, developed a style of surfaces curved in three dimensions (bombé), where matched veneers (marquetry temporarily being in eclipse) or vernis martin japanning was effortlessly complemented by gilt-bronze ("ormolu") mounts: Antoine Gaudreau, Charles Cressent, Jean-Pierre Latz, Jean-François Oeben, Bernard II van Risamburgh are the outstanding names.

Abstract and asymmetrical Rococo decoration: ceiling stucco at the Neues Schloss, Tettnang

French designers like François de Cuvilliés, Nicholas Pineau and Bartolomeo Rastrelli exported Parisian styles in person to Munich and Saint Petersburg, while the German Juste-Aurèle Meissonier found his career at Paris. The guiding spirits of the Parisian rococo were a small group of marchands-merciers, the forerunners of modern decorators, led by Simon-Philippe Poirier.

In French furniture the style remained somewhat more reserved, since the ornaments were mostly of wood, or, after the fashion of wood-carving, less robust and naturalistic and less exuberant in the mixture of natural with artificial forms of all kinds (e.g. plant motives, stalactitic representations, grotesques, masks, implements of various professions, badges, paintings, precious stones).

British Rococo tended to be more restrained. Thomas Chippendale's furniture designs kept the curves and feel, but stopped short of the French heights of whimsy. The most successful exponent of British Rococo was probably Thomas Johnson, a gifted carver and furniture designer working in London in the mid-18th century.

The word 'Rococo' is derived from the French "rocaille", a word used to describe the rock and shell work of the Versailles grottoes. Many pieces of carved furniture dating from the 18th century—in particular, mirror frames—depict rocks, shells, and dripping water in their composition, frequently in association with Chinese figures and pagodas.^[9]

Garden design

The Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo is one of the northernmost Rococo buildings

the Queluz National Palace in Portugal was one of the last Rococo buildings to be built in Europe.

Main: Garden à la française

Examples designed by André Le Nôtre:

• Gardens of Versailles
• Vaux-le-Vicomte
• Château de Chantilly

Architecture

Main: Rococo architecture

Rococo architecture, as mentioned above, was a lighter, more graceful, yet also more elaborate version of Baroque architecture, which was ornate and austere. Whilst the styles were similar, there are some notable differences between both Rococo and Baroque architecture, one of them being symmetry,^[10] since Rococo emphasised the asymmetry of forms,^[10] whilst Baroque was the opposite.^[11] The styles, despite both being richly decorated, also had different themes; the Baroque, for instance, was more serious, placing an emphasis on religion, and was often characterized by Christian themes^[12] (as a matter of fact, the Baroque began in Rome as a response to the Protestant Reformation);^[13] Rococo architecture was an 18th-century, more secular, adaptation of the Baroque which was characterized by more light-hearted and jocular themes.^[12] Other elements belonging to the architectural style of Rococo include numerous curves and decorations, as well as the usage of pale colours.^[14]

There are numerous examples of Rococo buildings as well as architects. Amongst the most famous include the Catherine Palace, in Russia, the Queluz National Palace in Portugal, the Augustusburg and Falkenlust Palaces, Brühl, the Chinese House (Potsdam) the Charlottenburg Palace in Germany, as well as elements of the Château de Versailles in France. Architects who were renowned for their constructions using the style include Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, an Italian architect who worked in Russia^[15] and who was noted for his lavish and opulent works, Philip de Lange, who worked in both Danish and Dutch Rococo architecture, or Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, who worked in the late Baroque style and who contributed to the reconstruction of the city of Dresden, in Germany.

Rococo architecture also brought significant changes to the building of edifices, placing an emphasis on privacy rather than the grand public majesty of Baroque architecture, as well as improving the structure of buildings in order to create a more healthy environment.^[14]

Interior design

A Rococo interior in Gatchina.

Solitude Palace in Stuttgart and Chinese Palace in Oranienbaum, the Bavarian church of Wies and Sanssouci in Potsdam are examples of how Rococo made its way into European architecture.

In those Continental contexts where Rococo is fully in control, sportive, fantastic, and sculptured forms are expressed with abstract ornament using flaming, leafy or shell-like textures in asymmetrical sweeps and flourishes and broken curves; intimate Rococo interiors suppress architectonic divisions of architrave, frieze, and cornice for the picturesque, the curious, and the whimsical, expressed in plastic materials like carved wood and above all stucco (as in the work of the Wessobrunner School). Walls, ceiling, furniture, and works of metal and porcelain present a unified ensemble. The Rococo palette is softer and paler than the rich primary colors and dark tonalities favored in Baroque tastes.

Integrated rococo carving, stucco and fresco at Zwiefalten

A few anti-architectural hints rapidly evolved into full-blown Rococo at the end of the 1720s and began to affect interiors and decorative arts throughout Europe. The richest forms of German Rococo are in Catholic Germany (illustration, above).

Rococo plasterwork by immigrant Italian-Swiss artists like Bagutti and Artari is a feature of houses by James Gibbs, and the Franchini brothers working in Ireland equalled anything that was attempted in Great Britain.

Inaugurated in some rooms in Versailles, it unfolds its magnificence in several Parisian buildings (especially the Hôtel Soubise). In Germany, French and German artists (Cuvilliés, Neumann, Knobelsdorff, etc.) effected the dignified equipment of the Amalienburg near Munich, and the castles of Würzburg, Potsdam, Charlottenburg, Brühl, Bruchsal, Solitude (Stuttgart), and Schönbrunn.

In Great Britain, one of Hogarth's set of paintings forming a melodramatic morality tale titled Marriage à la Mode, engraved in 1745, shows the parade rooms of a stylish London house, in which the only rococo is in plasterwork of the salon's ceiling. Palladian architecture is in control. Here, on the Kentian mantel, the crowd of Chinese vases and mandarins are satirically rendered as hideous little monstrosities, and the Rococo wall clock is a jumble of leafy branches.

In general, Rococo is an entirely interior style, because the wealthy and aristocratic moved back to Paris from Versailles. Paris was already built up and so rather than engaging in major architectural additions, they simply renovated the interiors of the existing buildings.

Painting

Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage on the Isle of Cythera (1717, Louvre) captures the frivolity and sensuousness of Rococo painting.

Though Rococo originated in the purely decorative arts, the style showed clearly in painting. These painters used delicate colors and curving forms, decorating their canvases with cherubs and myths of love. Portraiture was also popular among Rococo painters. Some works show a sort of naughtiness or impurity in the behavior of their subjects, showing the historical trend of departing away from the Baroque's church/state orientation. Landscapes were pastoral and often depicted the leisurely outings of aristocratic couples.

Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) is generally considered the first great Rococo painter. He had a great influence on later painters, including François Boucher (1703–1770) and Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), two masters of the late period. Even Thomas Gainsborough's (1727–1788) delicate touch and sensitivity are reflective of the Rococo spirit. Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun's (1755–1842) style also shows a great deal of Rococo influence, particularly in her portraits of Marie Antoinette. Other Rococo painters include: Jean François de Troy (1679–1752), Jean-Baptiste van Loo (1685–1745), his two sons Louis-Michel van Loo (1707–1771) and Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo (1719–1795), his younger brother Charles-André van Loo (1705–1765), and Nicolas Lancret (1690–1743). Both Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699–1779) and Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), were important French painters of the Rococo era who are considered Anti-Rococo.

During the Rococo era Portraiture was an important component of painting in all countries, but especially in Great Britain, where the leaders were William Hogarth (1697–1764), in a blunt realist style, and Francis Hayman (1708–1776), Angelica Kauffman who was Swiss, (1741–1807), Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), in more flattering styles influenced by Antony Van Dyck (1599–1641). While in France during the Rococo era Jean-Baptiste Greuze was the favorite painter of Denis Diderot (1713–1785),^[16] and Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1704–1788), and Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun were highly accomplished Portrait painters and History painters.

Rococo painting

• 

  Antoine Watteau, Pierrot, 1718–1719

• 

  Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage to Cythera , 1718–1721

• 

  Jean-Baptiste van Loo, The Triumph of Galatea, 1720

• 

  Jean François de Troy, A Reading of Molière, 1728

• 

  Francis Hayman, Dancing Milkmaids, 1735

• 

  Charles-André van Loo, Halt to the Hunt, 1737

• 

  Gustaf Lundberg, Portrait of François Boucher, 1741

• 

  François Boucher, Diana Leaving the Bath, 1742

• 

  François Boucher, The Toilet of Venus, 1751

• 

  Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Death of Hyacinth, 1752

• 

  François Boucher, Marie-Louise O'Murphy, 1752

• 

  Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Full-length portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour, 1748–1755

• 

  François Boucher Portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour, 1756

• 

  Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, 1767

• 

  Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Inspiration, 1769

• 

  Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Denis Diderot, 1769

• 

  Jean-Honoré Fragonard The Meeting (Part of the Progress of Love series), 1771

• 

  Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Marie Antoinette à la Rose, 1783

Rococo era painting

• 

  Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Still Life with Glass Flask and Fruit, c. 1750

• 

  Thomas Gainsborough, Mr and Mrs Andrews, 1750

• 

  Jean-Baptiste Greuze, The Spoiled Child, c. 1765

• 

  Joshua Reynolds, Robert Clive and his family with an Indian maid, 1765

• 

  Angelica Kauffman, Portrait of David Garrick, c. 1765

• 

  Louis-Michel van Loo, Portrait of Denis Diderot, 1767

Cupid fashioning his bow from Hercules' club, by Edmé Bouchardon, 1747–50: rococo in subject and treatment

Sculpture

Sculpture was another area where the Rococo was widely adopted. Étienne-Maurice Falconet (1716–1791) is widely considered one of the best representatives of French Rococo. In general, this style was best expressed through delicate porcelain sculpture rather than imposing marble statues. Falconet himself was director of a famous porcelain factory at Sèvres. The themes of love and gaiety were reflected in sculpture, as were elements of nature, curving lines and asymmetry.

Tomb effigy of Amalia Mniszech in St. Mary Magdalene Church in Dukla by Jan Obrocki, 1773: only details of her beribboned costume are rococo

The sculptor Edmé Bouchardon represented Cupid engaged in carving his darts of love from the club of Hercules (illustration); this serves as an excellent symbol of the Rococo style—the demigod is transformed into the soft child, the bone-shattering club becomes the heart-scathing arrows, just as marble is so freely replaced by stucco. In this connection, the French sculptors, Jean-Louis Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, Robert Le Lorrain, Louis-Simon Boizot, Michel Clodion, and Pigalle may be mentioned in passing.

Music

The Galante Style was the equivalent of Rococo in music history, too, between Baroque and Classical, and it is not easy to define in words. The rococo music style itself developed out of baroque music, particularly in France. It can be characterized as intimate music with extremely refined decoration forms. Exemplars include Jean Philippe Rameau and Louis-Claude Daquin.

Boucher's painting Le Déjeuner (above) provides a glimpse of the society which Rococo reflected. "Courtly" would be pretentious in this upper bourgeois circle, yet the man's gesture is gallant. The stylish but cozy interior, the informal decorous intimacy of people's manners, the curious and delightful details everywhere one turns one's eye, the luxury of sipping chocolate: all are "galante."

Rococo "worldliness" and the Roman Catholic Church

An interesting illustration of the hostility sometimes aroused by this style (similar to that of early Modernists to High Victorian style) can be found in the critical view of Rococo taken by the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, especially on the unsuitable nature of Rococo for ecclesiastical contexts.^[17] due to the style's lack of simplicity, its outwardness and its frivolity, all of which tend to distract from prayer and recollection.

When the outwardness of the style was toned down it became more acceptable in religious environments and contexts. As such, Rococo decoration was able to be incorporated in sacred architecture, although, due to the style's garishness, even when religious motifs were used the results might not have always been pleasing.

In the interiors of churches the style could be tolerated, especially when its elements were small or did not command too much attention. It was more consonant with the sacristy and other not-for-worship areas than with the church proper. Rococo is incompatible with the solemnity of the Divine Office, nor is it suitable for the elements of worship such as the Tabernacle, the altar or the pulpit. In regards to larger structures and objects, Rococo might be appealing –although perhaps only because of its baroque roots that eventually become apparent–, but its fantastic overtones and features are not suitable for the large walls of most churches.

Architecture

• 

  Igreja de São Francisco de Assis in São João del Rei, 1749–1774, by the Brazilian master Aleijadinho

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  Czapski Palace in Warsaw, 1712–1721, reflects rococo's fascinations of oriental architecture

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  St. Andrew's Church in Kiev, 1744–1767, designed by Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli

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  The Rococo staircase of Gruber Palace in Ljubljana

Engravings

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  Unknown artist. Allegories of astronomy and geography. France (?), ca. 1750s

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  A. Avelin after Mondon le Fils. L′Heureux moment. 1736

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  A. Avelin after Mondon le Fils. Chinese God. An engraving from the ouvrage «Quatrieme livre des formes, orneė des rocailles, carteles, figures oyseaux et dragon»1736

See also

Visual arts portal

• Rococo in Portugal
• Cultural movement
• Gilded woodcarving
• History of painting
• Timeline of Italian artists to 1800
• Illusionistic ceiling painting

Notes

References

• Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. French Eighteenth-Century Painters. Cornell Paperbacks, 1981. ISBN 0-8014-9218-1.
• Marilyn Stokstad, ed. Art History. 3rd ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2005. Print.

Further reading

• Kimball, Fiske (1980). The Creation of the Rococo Decorative Syle. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-23989-6. 
• Arno Schönberger and Halldor Soehner, 1960. The Age of Rococo Published in the US as The Rococo Age: Art and Civilization of the 18th Century (Originally published in German, 1959).
• Levey, Michael (1980). Painting in Eighteenth-Century Venice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-1331-1. 
• Kelemen, Pál (1967). Baroque and Rococo in Latin America. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-21698-5. 

External links

Look up rococo in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rococo

• Examples
• Rococo in the "History of Art"
• "Rococo Style Guide". British Galleries. Victoria and Albert Museum. http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/british_galleries/bg_styles/Style04a/index.html. Retrieved 2007-07-16.