Rococo Art Movement

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Rococo Art Movement

(ACADEMIC SCRIPT)

Introduction

Hello everyone!!!

I welcome you all to this episode where we would study the Rococo art
movement.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Baroque style of art was
replaced by the Rococo style, which was concerned with capturing the
beauty, wealth, and gaiety of a carefree, aristocratic society. The Rococo
style made France a leader in the art world, and France maintained that
position for the next three centuries.

In this lesson our focus would be on the origin of the term "Rococo"; the
political and social context in which the Rococo art originated; its stylistic
characteristics; and finally the famous Rococo artists and their works.

The Eighteenth Century in Europe

The dawn of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century brought a new

way of thinking critically about the world and about humankind—
independently of religion, myth, or tradition. Enlightenment thinkers
rejected baseless beliefs in favour of empirical evidence and promoted the
questioning of all assertions. Thus, the Enlightenment encouraged and
stimulated the habit and application of mind known as the “scientific
method” and fostered technological invention. The scientific advances of
the Enlightenment era affected the lives of everyone, and most people
enthusiastically responded to it.

At the same time, in 1700 A.D., when Enlightenment—also called as the Age
of Reason—was questioning the traditional authority and embraced the
notion that humanity could be improved through rational change; Louis
XIV ruled France, from his palatial residence at Versailles. The French
king’s palace inspired the construction of many other grandiose homes on
the Continent and across the English Channel during the early eighteenth
century.
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By 1800 A.D., however, revolutions had overthrown the monarchy in

France and achieved independence for the British colonies in America. The
eighteenth century also gave birth to a revolution of a different kind—the
Industrial Revolution, which began in England and soon transformed the
economies of continental Europe and North America and eventually the
world.

Against this backdrop of revolutionary change, social as well as political,

economic, and technological, came major transformations in the arts. On
one hand is Antoine Watteau’s Pilgrimage to Cythera, painted between
1717–1719 A.D., which unfolds in a lush landscape and celebrates the
romantic flirtations of the moneyed elite, and on the other is Jacques-Louis
David’s Oath of the Horatii, painted in 1784 A.D., which is set in an austere
Doric hall and glorifies the civic virtue and heroism of an ancient Roman
family. The two works have little in common other than both are French oil
paintings and exemplify that in the eighteenth century, shifts in style and
subject matter were both rapid and significant.

The Term - Rococo

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, a new style of art and

architecture became evident in France. The royal court of France had
become increasingly important, and the aristocracy—persons of high rank
and privilege—took their place in the pageantry of court life. The new style
reflected this luxurious and idle way of life. It was marked by a free,
graceful movement, a playful use of line, and delicate colours. Sometimes
referred to as Late Baroque, the style differed enough from the Baroque
that it deserved its own label. It received one when artists at the beginning
of the next century—during the Neoclassical era—disrespectfully called it
"Rococo".

The word is derivative of the French term rocaille, which means a

decorative arrangement of rocks and seashells, plants and vines. (Fig.1)
These natural forms were copied literally in eighteenth century
ornamentation. Their basic lines and rhythms were carried into figurative
art, landscape painting, and architectural designs. Thus, the Rococo ‘spiral’
came to replace the Baroque ‘oval’, which in turn had replaced the
Renaissance ‘circle’.
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The Palace of Versailles

At Versailles, a short distance from Paris, King Louis XIV embarked on the
greatest building project of the age. It was to be the largest, most elegant
palace in the world—the King's home as well as the capital of France.
(Fig.2) The royal family moved into it in 1682 A.D., but the palace
continued to undergo numerous changes. Louis and his successors lavished
money, time, and attention on the palace, constantly making improvements
and adding new decorations.

Versailles was considered to be an example of the Baroque style in France.

However, in this elegant, aristocratic setting, which was under constant
renovation during Louis XIV's long reign, lay the seeds of the new Rococo
style. It began in A.D. 1699, after Louis XIV called for more youthful art to
be produced under his reign—both by the Royal Academy of Painting and
Sculpture and by the artists commissioned for restorations and new
projects at Versailles. Just as Baroque was the style of the Roman Catholic
Church in the 17th century, Rococo was the style of the French court in the
18th century. The palace of Versailles, which had earlier subscribed to
elegant Classicism and lively Baroque, became the birthplace of the new
Rococo style that found its first expression in the delicate interior
decorations here.

Rococo art placed emphasis on the carefree life of the aristocracy rather
than on grand heroes or pious martyrs. Love and romance were thought to
be more fitting subjects for art than history and religion. At a time when
poets were creating flowery phrases of love, painters were using soft,
pastel colours to express the same sentiment. Both showed a zest for
describing a light-hearted world, filled with people seeking little more than
pleasure and happiness.

Architecture

The new Rococo sensibility materialized first in French architecture. The

exterior of French Rococo palaces and private residences were most often
simple, or even plain, but Rococo exuberance took over the interior. French
Rococo interiors were lively works of art. Exquisitely shaped furniture,
enchanting small sculptures, ornamented mirror frames, delightful
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ceramics and silver, small paintings, and decorative tapestries

complemented the architecture, relief sculptures, and mural paintings.
Rococo architecture retained the Baroque rhetorical aspect of enjoyment
and illusion, but emphasized the importance of ornament, gracefulness, and
elegance.

The Rococo style in art and architecture is mainly associated with the last
years of Louis XIV's rule; the regency following his death; and with the
reign of Louis XV. The death of Louis XIV in A.D. 1715 brought many
changes in French high society. The elite quickly abandoned the court of
Versailles for the pleasures of town life. Although French citizens were still
loyal to monarchy, the early eighteenth century revived the social, political,
and economic power of aristocracy. In the cultural realm, aristocrats once
again re-established their predominance as art patrons. The townhouses
(hotels) of Paris soon became the centres of the new, softer style - Rococo.
Paris also became the social capital of Europe, and the Rococo salon was
the centre of Parisian society. Wealthy, ambitious, and clever society
hostesses competed to attract the most famous and accomplished people to
their salons. These women, whether in Paris or elsewhere in Europe,
referred to themselves as femmes savants—learned women.

Parisian salons (Fig.3) became the centre of Rococo social life and usurped
the role Louis XIV’s Versailles palace had played in the seventeenth
century. Instead of the grand palace-based culture, a much more intimate
and decentralized culture based in private homes was introduced by these
salons. The new architectural style mirrored this social and cultural shift.
The strong architectural lines and panels of the earlier style were softened
into flexible, sinuous curves luxuriantly multiplied in mirror reflections.
Painting, architecture, and sculpture combine to form a single ensemble.

Architecturally speaking, the Rococo had no particular meaning: it was

mainly a style of ornament and interior decoration. Nevertheless, Rococo
spaces do have a distinctive look. Most obvious is the heavy reliance on
painted ornament as opposed to architectural relief and deeply carved
effects. (Fig.4) The decorative element acquired a life of its own and was no
longer subordinated to the architecture. Colour harmonies based on gold
and white, or pink, blue, green, and white, are used to generate the sunny,
light-hearted feeling which is the chief aim of Rococo decoration. Rococo
scrolls, rosettes, and acanthus leaves were beautifully executed but were
not meant to be taken seriously as expressive form.
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In the eighteenth century, furniture became a major concern of the middle

and upper classes. Both, Rococo furniture and architecture was defined by
a move away from the austere, religious, and symmetrical designs of the
Baroque. Instead, they focused on secular, more light-hearted,
asymmetrical design, while continuing the Baroque penchant for
decorative flair. Interestingly, Rococo made generous use of mirrors
framed with stylized botanical forms covered with gold leaf. (Fig.5) These
mirrors and their reflections created a world of bouncing light and playful
space. Eventually, as in the Hall of Mirrors at Palace of Versailles, built in
A.D. 1680, the mirror transcended decorative usage: It turned into a device
for generating dazzling illusions—so dazzling that large paintings were
almost superfluous. One side of this long hall is covered with tall mirrors;
the other side consists of windows facing the immense park of Versailles.
Thus, the King and his courtiers could move back and forth in a
sumptuously decorated tunnel poised between two kinds of illusion—one
of nature permanently subordinated to the sovereign's will; the other of
themselves splendidly and endlessly repeated in glass. The mirror became
the perfect symbol of the Rococo spirit: it expressed the ideals of an
essentially narcissistic culture—a culture that enjoyed looking at itself.
(Fig.6)

Baroque and Rococo

Rococo is at times referred to as Late Baroque and also occasionally

considered to be degeneration of Baroque. But it was a style in its own right
with its own identifiable characteristics. If the Baroque is described as
exuberant, in the Rococo that exuberance becomes self-conscious. Like the
Baroque it was open, dynamic, and convoluted. Beyond that, it was
asymmetrical and somewhat sketchy. It developed when the Baroque
artists moved away from fixed centres, symmetrical outlines, and dark,
heavy forms to lighter colour palettes, curvaceous forms, and fluid designs.
Many Late Baroque motifs flowed into Rococo, but they were reinterpreted
in a different way. Usually aristocratic in its patronage and realistic in
appearance, the Rococo differed from the Baroque in that it was almost
always decorative in effect.

Unlike Baroque, Rococo preferred different materials for different uses:

lead for fountain sculptures (because with water its delicate shine creates
precious light effects); porcelain, Chinese lacquer, and precious materials
for small sculptures (because they are glossy, fragile, and rich in light); and
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stucco for interior decoration (because its softness and ductility could well
express the gracefulness dear to Rococo).

Poussinistes and Rubenists

The Rococo movement is historically important, as it addressed the most

important artistic controversy of the time. It was essentially a dispute
among the members of the French Royal Academy of Painting and
Sculpture that erupted near the end of the 17th century. The conflict can
very simply be described as drawing v/s colour, similar to the debate
during the Renaissance in Italy, over disgno and colore.

The Poussinistes, a group of French artists, who took their name from the
artist Nicolas Poussin (b. 1594 - d. 1665) and the Rubenists, from the
Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens (b. 1577 - d. 1640), were convinced of
the supremacy of one specific element of the craft of painting, over another.
The Poussinistes believed that very specific adherence to the rules of
drawing were more important than the colour that was applied later.
Whereas, the Rubenists were arguing, that colour underlines and enhances
our instincts as humans, and we respond to the image with our hearts, not
our heads. They promoted the idea that the enjoyment of a work of art was
not strictly an intellectual experience to be analyzed, reserved only for the
educated elite, but it is an instinctive, human response to what the viewer
is experiencing in the colour and light of a subject.

The new Rococo style, reflected this controversy, but at times also made an
attempt to combine these two elements to create aesthetically engaging
works of art.

Rococo Painting

In the Rococo style of painting, the dramatic action of the seventeenth

century gave way to the new, carefree style. The constant movement of the
baroque lost its force in Rococo art, which favoured greater control and
elegance. Paintings made great use of delicate colours and curved graceful
patterns. When seen in the palaces and chateaus for which they were
intended, these paintings added a final touch of gaiety and elegance.
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It almost seems as if French painting had become a branch of interior

decoration. The Rococo artists moved away from the intense dramatics of
the Baroque period and became more playful in their works. They used
loose brush strokes, pastel colours, and flowing lines and forms in their
compositions, regardless of a painting's subject matter. Rococo
composition is frequently off-centred, and the figures are often spiralling
and dance-like in their movement. There are few visual tensions. Subjects
are often of aristocratic lovemaking in settings that are outdoors, idyllic,
and lush. (Fig.7)

The French Rococo produced many artists; but the most renowned of them
are Jean-Antoine Watteau, Francois Boucher, and Jean-Honore Fragonard.
These painters converted decorative painting into a type of visual music.

Antoine Watteau (A.D. 1684-1721) was the Rococo painter-poet of

bittersweet romance. Scholars have closely associated him with French
Rococo. Watteau began his career as an interior decorator and rose to
become the court painter to King Louis XV. He was largely responsible for
inventing a specific type of Rococo painting, called a fête galante (amorous
festival) painting. These paintings depicted the outdoor entertainment or
amusements of French high society. The subject matter compelled the
painters to invent newer places of love, like - the Grove and the Bower.
Such places of love offer comfort not just for those lovers within it, but for
all the beholders who are watching.

If we compare his fetes galantes, or garden parties, with Rubens' gardens of

love, it is also clear that love has undergone a profound transformation.
Watteau prefers clothed figures and his pictures show a great deal of silk
and crinoline but not much flesh. Secondly, Watteau does not pretend, like
Rubens, that his aristocrats are Greek gods and goddesses at play; instead
they are beautifully dressed, contemporary ladies and gentlemen strolling
and chatting in natural settings that resemble painted theatrical sets.
Rubens' gardens were more natural; they showed few signs of human
cultivation. The relationship between men and women, in his paintings,
appeared more physical—touching and grabbing. Watteau’s men gain their
objectives through conversation. Everyone flirts and someone makes an
occasional pass. Just as nature has been subdued in the carefully manicured
gardens of Versailles, similarly the natural passions have been tamed too.
In Watteau, love has become a game rather than a war between the sexes.
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The best example of Watteau’s fetes galantes painting is his masterpiece

Pilgrimage to Cythera. (Fig.8) The painting shows a group of happy, young
aristocrats about to set sail from Cythera, the legendary island of romance.
Recent interpretations have pointed out that they are not sailing to the
island, but, in fact, are departing from the mythical island of eternal youth
and love, sacred to Aphrodite. Luxuriously dressed lovers depart from
Cythera—the island that not only provided them with privacy and
isolation, but also with freedom.

Watteau was Flemish and Rubens’s coloristic style heavily influenced his
work. The soft, dreamlike atmosphere, dainty figures, and silvery colours
give the picture its dreamy feeling or mood and establish Watteau as a
Rubenist, a devotee of colour rather than line. But, unlike Rubens, his
people are slimmer, clothed and more elegant. They move with graceful
ease.

After Watteau’s premature death, Francois Boucher (A.D. 1703–1770)

rose to the dominant position in French painting, in large part because he
was Madame de Pompadour’s—mistress of Louis XV of France—favourite
artist. Compared to Watteau, Boucher is more openly erotic. He usually
paints nudes, whereas Watteau's people are always fashionably
overdressed. Though, Boucher painted realistic portraits, landscapes, and
genre scenes, his most distinctive contribution to eighteenth century have
been the mythological allegories he painted. Art historians often credit him
as the most famous decorative artist of the eighteenth century. (Fig.9)

In the painting Autumn Pastoral by Boucher, a shepherd and shepherdess

display their tender feelings and sweet voices while lounging and eating
grapes. (Fig.10) The Pastoral or Arcadian paintings were viewed by
sophisticated aristocrats who longed for less complicated times when
human relations were not so compromised by the competing demands of
social living. These paintings also appealed to those who loved the games of
life. Role playing and gamesmanship constituted a large part of the rituals,
protocols, etiquette, and enjoyment of daily life for the aristocrats and
newly rich who populated the salons of eighteenth-century Paris. Similarly,
Otium, the Latin word for ease and tranquillity, suggests that one takes up a
spot, languishes, sings, and makes love. Another of Boucher's paintings,
Rape of Europa, where languid, groggy, and inert figures doze or relax their
lives away in various pastoral contexts, is evocative of otium. (Fig.11)
There are numerous traditions of love, one is the stressful and troubled,
another is the more wildly erotic, and a third is the light-hearted and
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casual. It is this last form that seemed to interest Boucher the most. His
figures generally recline. Love entails no exertion, but is free from stress,
worry, or work.

Boucher's sense of decoration is apparent from the use of dimpled cheeks,

fluttering draperies, pale blue skies, white foam, and green waves. With the
help of these elements he created the theatre of sweet sensuality. Boucher
represented love as healthy, innocent fun, and was perhaps the first
European painter to advance the idea that sex has nothing to do with sin or
guilt.

The new French taste quickly spread to neighbouring regions. Artists in

England and Spain responded in different ways to the elegant and
decorative Rococo style that emerged in France. In England the artists
made use of the delicate, light-washed painting techniques of Watteau to
paint portraits, scenes and events from daily life, and still life.

Sir Joshua Reynolds (A.D.1723-1792) was one of a number of English

artists who painted the fashionable portraits that the English nobility
desired. (Fig.12) He was especially skilful in capturing on canvas the
sensitive and fleeting expressions of children. Thomas Gainsborough was
another leading English painter of the eighteenth century, who found
success as a portrait painter—depicting a world of aristocrats, merchants,
and landowners aware of their country's increasing wealth and power.
(Fig.13) At the same time, Gainsborough's love of landscape painting made
him a forerunner of the Romantic Movement. He preferred to paint
landscapes, but that genre of painting was neither well-respected nor very
profitable in the England of his day. (Fig.14) He turned to portraiture, the
genre in greatest demand, primarily as a way of making a living.

Other artists in England at this time refused to cater to the tastes of the
aristocracy in the manner of Reynolds and Gainsborough. William
Hogarth was one of these. Born in A.D. 1697, William Hogarth was an
English artist who became best-known for his sequential art. Aside from his
success as a painter, Hogarth was also a printmaker, engraver, and popular
cartoonist. His work often contained elements of satire and social criticism.
He was more interested in painting the common people he found on
London streets and in taverns than he was in painting portraits for wealthy
patrons. Nothing gave him more pleasure than exposing the immoral
conditions and foolish customs of his time.
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Hogarth used his art to tell a story, scene by scene, picture by picture, with
great wit and attention to detail. His pictures were a stage filled with
colourful performers from every level of society: lords, ladies, lawyers,
merchants, beggars, and thieves.

Hogarth’s reputation as an artistic genius began with a series of “moral”

works called A Harlot’s Progress (A.D. 1731) which depict a prostitute’s life
beginning with her country girl beginnings to her death from venereal
disease. (Fig.15) The six scenes of the work were shocking to audiences,
but also proved immensely popular. Another popular moral sequence of
work is Marriage a-la-mode (A.D. 1743-1745) which depicted eighteenth
century aristocratic society and its marriages based on money rather than
love. (Fig.16) The series was popularly circulated and remains one of the
artist’s best known artistic sequences. Other sequences depict the lives of
apprentices, alcoholism, and cruelty.

While Rococo continued to spread through other European countries,

where it would prevail for some years, France was the first to decree its
end. In the 1770s and 1780s, the new Neo-classical taste was already
making many of the most exquisite Rococo creations seem outdated.

Conclusion
This episode has made clear the origin and the meaning of the term
'Rococo'. An eighteenth century art movement that first emerged in France,
spreading its influence quickly to artists and architects in England, Italy,
and Germany, preferred decoration, light and bright colours and graceful
and playful use of line.

Relaxation, tranquillity, and peacefulness are elements found throughout

European art and literature in the eighteenth century. The enjoyment of art
involved no struggle, just as the subjects of that art were also at ease. This
indolence and peacefulness of our being in the world is a remarkable
vision; drastically different from the spectacle of the Baroque vision.