Rococo Art

Fete galante

A category of painting in which the leisure pursuits of the idle rich are depicted.

Jean-Honore Fragonard

the main representative of Rococo, whose art was focused on the aristocracy and their indulgent lifestyle rather than piety, morality, self-discipline, reason, and heroism (all of which can be found in the baroque).

The last great painter of the French Rococo, Fragonard developed an exuberant and fluid manner. He abandoned the career path dictated by the hierarchical structure of the Royal Academy, working largely for private patrons.

The Swing

Fragonard. 1766. Oil on canvas.

Rococo

The word Rococo is seen as a combination of the French rocaille, or stone garden (referring to arranging stones in natural forms like shells), and the Italian barocco, or Baroque style.

The term evolved from the Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative art.

An 18th century art style, Rococo placed emphasis on portraying the carefree life of the aristocracy rather than on grand heroes or pious martyrs.

Love and romance were considered to be better subjects for art than historical or religious subjects.

The style was characterized by a free, graceful movement; a playful use of line; and delicate colors.

Chinoisere

a recurring theme in European artistic styles since the seventeenth century, which reflect Chinese artistic influences.

Pagoda at Kew Gardens

William Chambers, London, 1757-62

The English also turned to Oriental models to replace the geometric gardens of French and Italian styles; alongside neo-classical and Gothic buildings, the landscape garden came to be enriched by tea houses, pagodas, and small bridges.

François Boucher

(1700-1770) Rococo painter employed by Louis XIV to paint Madame Pompadour and his other mistresses., influenced by Watteau, favorite painter of Mme. Pompadour (Louis XV's favorite mistress).

Antoine Watteau

(1684-1721) Watteau is credited with inventing the genre of fêtes galantes: scenes of bucolic and idyllic charm, suffused with an air of theatricality. Some of his best known subjects were drawn from the world of Italian comedy and ballet. His innovative subject matter did not fit into any established category in the academic hierarchy, and he was ultimately accepted with the unprecedented title  "painter of fêtes galantes."

Pilgrimage to Cythera

1717, Jean Antoine Watteau (French, 1684-1721)Oil on canvas; 51 x 76 1/2 in. (129 x 194 cm )Musée du Louvre, Paris

submitted to the  Academy in 1717. It depicted amorous couples on the mythical island of Cythera, in various stages of their metaphoric "journey" of love.

Portrait of Marquise de Pompadour

Boucher, 1759, Oil on canvas, 91 x 68 cm. • Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (1721-1764) became marquise de Pompadour and maitresse en titre to Louis XV in 1745.

Behind her in this portrait stands the sculpture of Love and Friendship which she had commissioned from Pigalle to symbolize her later, platonic relationship with the King.

Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun

(1755-1842) Vigée-Le Brun is recognized as the most famous woman painter of the 18th century. Her style is generally considered Rococo and shows interest in the subject of neoclassical painting. Vigée-Le Brun cannot be considered a purely Neoclassist in that she creates mostly portraits in Neoclassical dress rather than the History painting.

In her choice of color and style while serving as the portrait painter to the Queen, Vigée-Le Brun is purely Rococo.

Grand Manner Portraiture

A type of 18th-century portrait painting designed to communicate a person's grace and class through certain standardized conventions, specially at full length and in life size—accompanied by settings and accessories that conveyed the dignified status of the sitters. Classical architecture, for instance, signified one's civilized demeanor, whole woodland glens implied natural sincerity.

Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, ca. 1785. Oil on canvas, approx. 7' 2" x 5'. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Thomas Gainsborough. Gainsborough's portrait, painted in a soft light with feathery brushwork, shows the sitter dressed informally and seated in a rustic natural landscape of unspoiled beauty.

In "Grand Manner portraiture" - the sitter is elevated and the refinement of her class is communicated through the scale of the figure relative to the canvas, the controlled pose, the "arcadian" landscape setting, and the low horizon line.

William Hogarth

British Rococo artist/engraver (1697 - 1764): satirized/ridiculed society in his pictures.

Breakfast Scene, from Marriage à la Mode, ca. 1745. Oil on canvas, approx. 2' 4" x 3'. National Gallery, London

William Hogarth. William Hogarth expresses the taste of the newly prosperous and confident middle class in England in his moralizing satires of contemporary life.

In his carefully detailed painting of the Breakfast Scene from Marriage à la Mode, Hogarth comments on the social evil of the arranged marriage.

Würzburg, Residenz

Balthasar Neumann, 1719-44; ceiling frescoes by Giambattista Tiepolo, 1751.

Wall Pavilion, Zwinger

Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, Dresden, Germany, 1711-22.

Joshua Reynolds

an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealisation of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy. King George III appreciated his merits and knighted him in 1769

Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces

Sir Joshua Reynolds. Lady Sarah Bunbury Sacrificing to the Graces. 1765. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago.

An example of Grand Manner is seen in this portrait of Lady Sarah Bunbury. Dressed in long robes resembling classical times instead of the intricate silks and laces of the 18th century fashion, she is shown here making a sacrifice before an altar topped by marble statues of the Three Graces.

Lady Bunbury's face shows no character or individuality. It is more like the face of a Greek statue and shows Reynold's version of the ideal beauty so highly praised in his Discourses.