Historical development[edit]

Rococo-style House of the Good Shepherd in Bratislava (Slovakia) - an example of the 18th century
bourgeoisie house.
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 (15991667) mostly in
Rome and Guarini (16241683) 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 Rgence, court life moved away from Versailles and this artistic change became well
established, first in the royal palace and then throughout French high society.

Franois Boucher, Le Djeuner, (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.
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 Franois 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.
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-Franois 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 Percke ("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 Eugne Delacroix and patrons like Empress Eugnie also rediscovered the value of
grace and playfulness in art and design.
Rococo in different artistic modes[edit]
Furniture and decorative objects[edit]

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 French 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-Aurele 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 bnistes, some of them German-born, developed a style of surfaces
curved in three dimensions (bomb), 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-Franois Oeben, Bernard II
van Risamburgh are the outstanding names.

Abstract and asymmetrical Rococo decoration: ceiling stucco at the Neues Schloss, Tettnang
French designers like Franois de Cuvillis, Nicholas Pineau and the Italian Bartolomeo Rastrelli
exported Parisian styles in person to Munich and Saint Petersburg, while Turin-born Juste-
Aurle 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
centuryin particular, mirror framesdepict rocks, shells, and dripping water in their
composition, frequently in association with Chinese figures and pagodas.
[9]

Garden design[edit]

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 la franaise
Examples designed by Andr Le Ntre:
Gardens of Versailles
Vaux-le-Vicomte
Chteau de Chantilly
Architecture[edit]
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, Brhl, the Chinese House (Potsdam) the Charlottenburg
Palace in Germany, as well as elements of the Chteau 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 Matthus Daniel
Pppelmann, 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]