Everything about Rococo totally explained
Rococo is a style of
18th century French art and
interior design. Rococo style 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. It was largely supplanted by the
Neoclassic style.
The word Rococo is seen as a combination of the French
rocaille, or shell, and the Italian
barocco, or
Baroque style. Due 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 fashion; interestingly, when the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a
colloquialism meaning "old-fashioned". However, since the mid 19th century, the term has been accepted by
art historians. While there's 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
Rococo developed first in the decorative arts and interior design.
Louis XV's succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of the old king's 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 regime.
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 spread with French artists and engraved publications. It was readily received in the Catholic parts of
Germany,
Bohemia, and
Austria, where it was merged with the lively German Baroque traditions. German Rococo was applied with enthusiasm to churches and palaces, particularly in the south, while
Frederician Rococo developed in the
Kingdom of Prussia. Architects often draped their interiors in clouds of fluffy white stucco. In
Italy, the late Baroque styles of
Borromini and
Guarini set the tone for Rococo in Turin, Venice, Naples and Sicily, while the arts in Tuscany and Rome remained more wedded to Baroque.
Rococo in England was always thought of as the "French taste." The architectural stylings never caught on, though silverwork, porcelain, and silks were strongly influenced by the continental style.
Thomas Chippendale transformed English 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 England 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
(External Link
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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 riduculed 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 English 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
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
The lighthearted themes and intricate designs of Rococo presented themselves best on a smaller scale than the imposing Baroque architecture and sculpture. It isn't surprising, then, that French Rococo art was at home indoors. Metalwork, porcelain figures,frills 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 from 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 (ca. 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.
For small plastic figures of
gypsum,
clay,
biscuit,
porcelain (
Sèvres,
Meissen), Rococo isn't unsuitable; in wood, iron, and royal metal, it has created some valuable works. However,
confessionals,
pulpits,
altars, and even facades lead ever more into the territory of the architectonic, which doesn't easily combine with the curves of Rococo, the light and the petty, with forms whose whence and wherefore baffle inquiry.
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,
François Oeben,
Bernard II van Risenbergh are the outstanding names.
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-Philippenis Poirier.
In France 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 (for example plant motives, stalactitic representations, grotesques, masks, implements of various professions, badges, paintings, precious stones).
English 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 English Rococo was probably
Thomas Johnson, a gifted carver and furniture designer working in London in the mid 1700s.
Interior design
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.
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 England.
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 England, 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
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.
Sculpture
Sculpture was another area that Rococo artists branched into.
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.
The sculptor
Bouchardon represented
Cupid engaged in carving his darts of love from the club of
Hercules; 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,
Robert le Lorrain,
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 isn't 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 (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
A critical view of the unsuitable nature of Rococo in ecclesiastical contexts was taken up by the
Catholic Encyclopedia:
Further Information
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