Rococo

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For other uses, see Rococo (disambiguation).
"Rocaille" redirects here. It is not to be confused with Rocailles.

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 (/rkoko/ or /rokko/), less commonly roccoco, or "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century
artistic movement and style, affecting many aspects of the arts including painting, sculpture,
architecture, interior design, decoration, literature, music, and theatre. It developed in the early 18th
century in Paris, France as a reaction against the grandeur, symmetry, and strict regulations of
the Baroque, especially of the Palace of Versailles.[1]Rococo artists and architects used a more jocular,
florid, and graceful approach to the Baroque. Their style was ornate and used light colours,
asymmetrical designs, curves, and gold. Unlike the political Baroque, the Rococo had playful and witty
themes. The interior decoration of Rococo rooms was designed as a total work of art with elegant and

ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing architecture, reliefs,
and wall paintings.
By the end of the 18th century, Rococo was largely replaced 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 from around the middle of the 18th century in France. The word is seen as a
combination of the French rocaille (stone) and coquilles (shell), due to reliance on these objects as
decorative motifs.[2] The term may also be a combination of the Italian 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 describe the refined and fanciful
style that became fashionable in parts of Europe in the 18th century.[3]
The Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts led some critics to say 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". The style received harsh criticism and was seen by some to be
superficial and of poor taste,[4][5] especially when compared to neoclassicism; despite this, it has been
praised for its aesthetic qualities,[4] 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.

Contents
[hide]

1Historical development

2Rococo in different artistic modes

o

2.1Furniture and decorative objects

2.2Garden design

2.3Architecture

2.4Interior design

2.5Painting

2.6Sculpture

2.7Music
3Gallery

3.1Architecture

3.2Engravings

3.3Rococo painting
4See also

5References and sources

6Further reading

7External links

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.[6]
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
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 JacquesFranois 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.[7] 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 antiarchitectural 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 preeminence as the French upper classes sought to outfit their homes in the now fashionable style.

Italian mirror showcasing typical Rococo design with Asymmetricalpatterns

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.

An encoignure by royal cabinetmaker Jean-Pierre Latz circa 1750 is richly ornamented

with marquetry and ormolu.
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
Designers such as the Belgian Franois de Cuvillis, the French Nicolas 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 SimonPhilippe 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.[8]

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,[9] since Rococo emphasised the asymmetry of forms,[9] whilst Baroque was the opposite.
[10]
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[11] (as a matter of fact, the Baroque began in Rome as a response to
the Protestant Reformation);[12] Rococo architecture was an 18th-century, more secular, adaptation
of the Baroque which was characterized by more light-hearted and jocular themes.[11] Other
elements belonging to the architectural style of Rococo include numerous curves and decorations,
as well as the usage of pale colours.[13]
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[14] 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.[13]

Interior design[edit]

A Rococo interior in Gatchina.

Rococo staircase in Gruber Mansion, Slovenia

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 Htel Soubise). In Germany, Belgian and German artists
(Cuvillis, Neumann, Knobelsdorff, etc.) effected the dignified equipment of
the Amalienburg near Munich, and the castles
of Wrzburg, Potsdam, Charlottenburg, Brhl, Bruchsal, Solitude(Stuttgart), and Schnbrunn.
In Great Britain, one of Hogarth's set of paintings forming a melodramatic morality tale
titled Marriage 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[edit]
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 depict a sort of
naughtiness or impurity in the behavior of their subjects, indicating a departure from the Baroque's
church/state orientation. Landscapes were pastoral and often depicted the leisurely outings of
aristocratic couples.

Antoine Watteau, Pilgrimage on the Isle of Cythera (1717, Louvre) captures the frivolity
and sensuousness of Rococo painting.
Jean-Antoine Watteau (16841721) is generally considered the first great Rococo painter. He had a
great influence on later painters, including Franois Boucher (17031770) and Jean-Honor
Fragonard (17321806), two masters of the late period. Even Thomas Gainsborough's (1727
1788) delicate touch and sensitivity are reflective of the Rococo spirit. lisabeth-Louise Vige-Le
Brun's (17551842) style also shows a great deal of Rococo influence, particularly in her portraits
of Marie Antoinette. Other Rococo painters include: Jean Franois de Troy (16791752), JeanBaptiste van Loo (16851745), his two sons Louis-Michel van Loo (17071771) and CharlesAmde-Philippe van Loo (17191795), his younger brother Charles-Andr van Loo (17051765),
and Nicolas Lancret (16901743). Both Jean-Baptiste-Simon Chardin (16991779) and JeanBaptiste Greuze (17251805), 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 (16971764), in a blunt realist
style, and Francis Hayman(17081776), Angelica Kauffman who was Swiss, (17411807), Thomas
Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds (17231792), in more flattering styles influenced by Anthony
van Dyck (15991641). While in France during the Rococo era Jean-Baptiste Greuze was the
favorite painter of Denis Diderot (17131785),[15] and Maurice Quentin de La Tour (1704
1788), Alexander Roslin (17181793) lisabeth Vige-Lebrun were highly accomplished portrait
painters and history painters.

Sculpture[edit]

Tomb effigy (1773) of Amalia Mniszech in St. Mary Magdalene Church in Dukla, Poland.
Only details of her dress are rococo
Sculpture was another area where the Rococo was widely adopted. tienne-Maurice
Falconet (17161791) 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 Svres. The themes
of love and gaiety were reflected in sculpture, as were elements of nature, curving lines and
asymmetry.
The sculptor Edm 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 stylethe 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[edit]
A Rococo period existed in music history, although it is not as well known as the earlier Baroque
and later Classical forms. The Rococo music style itself developed out of baroque music both in
France, where the new style was referred to as style galante ("gallant" or "elegant" style), and in
Germany, where it was referred to as empfindsamer stil ("sensitive style"). It can be characterized
as light, intimate music with extremely elaborate and refined forms of ornamentation. Exemplars
include Jean Philippe Rameau, Louis-Claude Daquin and Franois Couperin in France; in
Germany, the style's main proponents were C. P. E. Bach and Johann Christian Bach, two sons of
the renowned J.S. Bach.
An insight into the French term "galante" can be seen through Boucher's painting Le
Djeuner (above), which 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."
In the second half of the 18th century, a reaction against the Rococo style occurred, primarily
against its perceived overuse of ornamentation and decoration. Led by C.P.E. Bach (an
accomplished Rococo composer in his own right), Domenico Scarlatti, and Christoph Willibald
Gluck, this reaction ushered in the Classical era. By the early 19th century, Catholic opinion had
turned against the suitability of the style for ecclesiastical contexts because it was "in no way
conducive to sentiments of devotion".[16]