What is it?
Rococo Immediately after the death of Louis XIV of France in 1715 there
was a reaction of relief against the excessive splendours and pomps of Versailles
and the whole ceremonious Roi Soldi way of life. One of the results was to
transfer the centre of French life back to Paris, so that new town houses were
built which were both smaller and much more comfortable than the older
Baroque palaces. Rococo — which comes from the French word rocaille, meaning
rock-work - is basically a style of interior decoration, and consists principally
in the use of C scrolls and counter-curves, and, in its fullest form around 1730,
asymmetrical arrangements of curves in panelling and elsewhere. Porcelain,
and goldsmiths' and silversmiths' work of the first half of the 18th century,
exemplify the tendencies admirably. The characteristics of small curves, prettiness, and gaiety can also be found in painting and sculpture of the
period
- Watteau and Boucher, and even, in a very modified form, in Hogarth.
Nevertheless, England did not take to Rococo (though it influenced the
decorative arts, for instance, silverware) and in France it fell out of fashion in
the 1740s to be decisively superseded by the earnest ideals and Republican
Roman virtue of Neoclassicism, which was largely propagated by Germans.
Yet the one country in which the Rococo produced numerous great works of
art (and not merely amusing interiors) was Germany, or rather, Germany and
Austria. There, in the Catholic South, the style produced scores of joyously
beautiful churches and statues, by artists like Ignaz Gunther and the Asam
brothers, which are elegant, modish, and also deeply moving. Guardi, Tiepolo
and Goya all produced masterpieces, but Rococo had relatively little currency
in Italy and Spain other than in the works of those artists.
Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)
Search Site
| Art Rarities in Stock