Rococo developed during a time of economic prosperity when France dominated court culture across Europe and everyone in France was subject to the king of France.
Rococo style reflects the aristocratic class of the Ancien Régime, and may have helped its downfall.
The Rococo style began in France in the 1730s, coming from the French word "rocaille'" which means rock or broken shell.
With its sensuous, theatrical curves and excessively ornamental style, Rococo was a rebellion against French Classicism, with its order, refinement and many rules.
Rococo style spurned rigidity and with its asymmetry and curving lines creating an illusion of motion, it was expressed in interior design, painting, sculpture, and music.
It was an art style that was playful and which, echoed the organic lines of nature and the transience of beauty.
Rococo avoided religious and political themes but changing social norms are reflected in The Swing (1767), a famous painting by Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806).
An elderly gentleman, pushing the swing, represents the old school of gallantry, while a young man, hidden in the shade of a bush, looks up the woman's skirt, as she raises her left leg.
However, the style began to decline by the 1750s, and order and seriousness returned.
Criticized for its emphasis and association with decadent grandiosity and aristocratic customs, Rococo style fell out of fashion and by the 1760s, austere Neoclassicism, a less extravagant and more discreet style, dominated after various philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, called for a restoration of moral values in society.
The Rococo style began in France in the 1730s, coming from the French word "rocaille'" which means rock or broken shell.
With its sensuous, theatrical curves and excessively ornamental style, Rococo was a rebellion against French Classicism, with its order, refinement and many rules.
Rococo style spurned rigidity and with its asymmetry and curving lines creating an illusion of motion, it was expressed in interior design, painting, sculpture, and music.
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| Desk for the Munich Residenz by Bernard II van Risamburgh (1737) |
Rococo avoided religious and political themes but changing social norms are reflected in The Swing (1767), a famous painting by Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806).
An elderly gentleman, pushing the swing, represents the old school of gallantry, while a young man, hidden in the shade of a bush, looks up the woman's skirt, as she raises her left leg.
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| The Swing, 18th-century oil painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard in the Wallace Collection in London. |
Criticized for its emphasis and association with decadent grandiosity and aristocratic customs, Rococo style fell out of fashion and by the 1760s, austere Neoclassicism, a less extravagant and more discreet style, dominated after various philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, called for a restoration of moral values in society.
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| The Brühl Palaces a masterpiece of German Rococo. The Augustusburg and Falkenlust Palaces form a historical building complex in Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. |