4.3 — Rococo: The Art of Elegance
Rococo (early–mid 18th century) celebrates intimacy, playfulness, and ornate elegance. Born in French aristocratic interiors, it favors curved lines, pastel colors, and lighthearted themes of love, leisure, and nature.
Origins and Style
Emerging after the grandeur of the Baroque, Rococo shifted from court ceremony to private salons. Shell-like curves (rocaille), asymmetry, and delicate ornament define architecture, furniture, and decorative arts.
Key Characteristics
- Pastel Palette: Soft pinks, blues, creams, and gold accents.
- Curvilinear Forms: S-scrolls, C-scrolls, shells, and foliage motifs.
- Intimate Scale: Salon panels, boudoirs, small canvases suited to private viewing.
- Lighthearted Themes: Love, flirtation, pastoral play, theater, and myth treated with wit.
Definition: Fête Galante
A genre depicting elegantly dressed figures in outdoor leisure—dancing, music, and courtship in park-like settings.
Major Artists
- Antoine Watteau: Fête galante scenes (“Pilgrimage to Cythera”), poetic ambiguity and delicate color.
- François Boucher: Mythology with playful sensuality; pastoral fantasies and tapestry designs.
- Jean-Honoré Fragonard: Frothy brushwork and mischievous narratives (“The Swing”).
- Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin: A quieter countercurrent—domestic still lifes and genre scenes with moral poise.
Architecture and Interiors
Parisian hôtels particuliers featured mirrored panels, gilded stucco, and boiseries. Designers coordinated furniture, porcelain, textiles, and wall paintings for unified, sensorial interiors.
Decorative Arts
- Porcelain and Silver: Delicate Sèvres porcelain, silver tableware, and intricate snuffboxes.
- Furniture: Curved cabriole legs, marquetry veneers, and ormolu mounts.
- Tapestry and Textile: Pastoral and mythological scenes woven for walls and upholstery.
Note: Critiques and Shifts
Critics later saw Rococo as frivolous; Enlightenment tastes and neoclassicism pushed toward moral gravity and classical restraint by the 1760s–1770s.
Looking Ahead
Next, Chapter 5.1 turns to Neoclassicism, reviving antiquity with clarity, civic virtue, and disciplined line.