Rococo Art Movement

Rococo Art Movement, History, Rococo Oil Paintings & Artists.

The Rococo Art Movement took hold in French society when Louis XIV became king and decided to move the court life away from the royal residence at Versailles. During the reign of Louis XV, the Rococo erotic-Galante and fete-Galante styles of painting became established, which was appreciated in courtly circles and was epitomized by the personal tastes of the Marquise de Pompadour. Louis XV would be a "perpetual adolescent," so the lively, playful nature and delicacy of the Rococo style were appropriate to his rule.

Madame de Pompadour, the king’s mistress and authority on all things stylish, was a major patron of the Rococo arts in France. It was unusual for a mistress to play such a role and, once known, she became associated with the style. She commissioned portraits of herself. The common people were not impressed with her lavish waste of wealth on what was beginning to be seen as decadent, degenerate art. Rococo is a word combining both "rocaille", French for "shell", and "Barocco", Italian for "Baroque," the art style that came before Rococo.

Voyeurism Becomes Mainstream in French Oil Painting.

Francois Boucher, a painter whose style was crisp, light and luminous, was the leading exponent of this genre. In Arcadian settings, far removed from the picturesque landscapes of the seventeenth-century Neoclassical artists, ladies, and gallants in peasant costumes play artificial games. There is a clear connection here with the contemporary development of pastoral plays. Greater spontaneity is found in Boucher's domestic interiors; subtle glimpses of bourgeois rooms, bedrooms, and boudoirs, where he captures the intimate, secret aspect of day-to-day existence, portrayed with a touch of pleasurable voyeurism. The fete-Galante genre portrays joyful topics: noble gatherings, dances, passionate advances, garden amusements, masked balls, theatrical entertainments, and sensual amusements, usually featuring medium-sized or small figures.

In contrast with the previous style, Rococo art reflected a lack of depth. Its depiction of a high society seeking personal amusement was in itself a response to the conventions of the Baroque style. Rococo was playful; painters showed lovey-dovey themes and aristocracy at play with light-hearted themes revolving around fun, lovers, and mischievous behavior. It used soft and bright colors in a very optimistic "life is beautiful" ambiance. Also, the artwork was profound or provocative. Even though the size of paintings passed through a drastic change, oil canvases were much smaller to make them ideal for decoration. Being decorative was the reason why Rococo art did not get much respect from art scholars.

How to Identify French Rococo Art Movement Oil Paintings.

1.  A cheerful depiction of high-society household life. Le Dejeuner or The Breakfast by Francois Boucher.

2. Well-dressed aristocrats at play are normally in tranquil pastoral settings. The Lesson of Love by Jean-Antoine Watteau.

3. Keep an eye out for courtship, beauty, romance, fun, playfulness, and sexual symbols. Young Singer With A Mandolin by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

4. Legendary themes. Diana after the Hunt by François Boucher.

5. Pastel hues, delicate and light shades, are normal for the period. A Lady in a Garden taking Coffee with some Children by Nicolas Lancret.

6. Look for cherubs hovering around the painting—chubby, nude male babies with wings. The Toilet of Venus by François Boucher.

Ponytails and Periwigs in German Oil Painting.

The Germans saw the period as that of "pigtails and periwigs". Rococo art history in central Europe, which was ravaged by wars, took a completely different look and feel. During the seventeenth century, painting in war-ravaged Central Europe was not the expression of a unified school, though there were several interesting artists. A school emerged during the following century. This was when there was a significant ferment in the fields of architecture, ornamental sculpture, and painting in Austria and the Catholic regions of Germany. This marked the beginning of a fertile period in art. On the one hand, famous artists, like the Asam brothers, painted monumental decorative schemes for princely clients and the massive reconstructed Benedictine abbeys. On the other hand, many small oil paintings, sketches for larger works, or even independent compositions, were being created with a sense of fresh immediacy. After the middle of the century, a movement for the "moralization" of art began in Germany. The country with the most original and inventive Rococo works laid the theoretical foundations for and produced concrete examples of an austere art based on classical models. Neoclassicism succeeded Rococo which after all the excess of artists sought a more harmonious art.

For the first time, neither the Church nor governments played any role in the rise of this art movement. It was a sign that French society was less devoted to religion. Not so in Catholic Central Europe.

Other Rococo Artists: Rosalba Carriera, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Alexandre-François Desportes, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Corrado Giaquinto, Jean-Marc Nattier, Giovanni Battista, and Élizabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun

Partly from: Identify This Art & TheArtist.me