The Influence of Enlightenment Beliefs Is Visible in the Art Style of Rococo Which

Extravagant Ornament: French Rococo Fine art as an Expression of Pleasurable Pursuits

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Abstract

Watteau's Love Feast

In 18th century Europe, Enlightenment ideas shaped people�s thoughts; in 18th century French art, the Rococo art manner influenced painting, sculpture and architecture. Before the early 1700s, Baroque art, with its accent on motion, degrees of lite and atmosphere, dominated the fine art scene. The death of Louis XIV, King of France, in 1715 changed perspectives on fine art, especially in France, resulting in the ancestry of the Rococo movement. What started as a movement in interior decoration gradually became incorporated into art, altering the outlook on art for much of the 18th century. Jean-Antoine Watteau ushered in the Rococo motility, and Francois Boucher and Jean-Honore Fragonard followed as two of the most influential Rococo painters in France. With the start of the French Revolution the French people turned toward more serious subjects and the frivolity of Rococo art no longer seemed appropriate. From offset to finish, Rococo art provided a new outlook on painting and reflected the attitudes of the patrons who deputed and exhibited the works.

Historical Background

From 1590 � 1700, Baroque fine art dominated European fine art. The French artists Nicolas Poussin, Charles Le Brun and Jules Hardoin-Mansart exemplified the Baroque style of fine art and architecture in French republic. Under Louis XIV, Le Brun helped pattern the Palace of Versailles, while Mansart later on added the Galerie des Glaces or Hall of Mirrors (Adams 660-662). Poussin�s work combined Bizarre and Classical styles, and he is nearly well-known for his series on the life of Phocion, a 4th-century B.C. Athenian pol (Adams 702). Although the death of Louis XIV is usually regarded as the end of the Baroque menses, some art historians regard Rococo every bit simply an extension of that menstruum. Poussin and Peter Paul Rubens, another Bizarre artist, connected to influence artists to come; however, there are primal differences between Baroque and Rococo fine art that establish Rococo every bit its ain phase in art history (Janson).

When Louis XIV died in 1715, Louis XV was simply five years old, and by the time he was installed at Versailles as King of France he had gained a reputation as �intelligent, cultured, great lover of the arts,�essentially a lover, and nothing more� (Palacios viii). The death of the �Dominicus King� relaxed the obligations of the French aristocrats, many of whom moved back to Paris to alive in their hôtels, elegant boondocks houses, which needed intimate, delicate interior decorations (Janson). The change in ruler also acquired a change in patronage. Royalty was no longer the main commissioner of fine art; that responsibility now lay with the aristocrats and bourgeoisie (Adams 706). These changes in apply and patronage, along with shifts in social and moral paradigms, shaped the art of the early 18th century.

As Louis Xv took over as Male monarch of France the attitudes of French society changed. Strict piety was no longer as important and pleasure was emphasized more than power. Although the elite was still a main component of the triangle of power, the bourgeois class was offset to emerge and the church building was receding farther into the groundwork. As Enlightenment ideas gained in popularity, women played larger roles than before, although they still did non have many rights or privileges. Rococo fine art reflected some of these ideological shifts. With the relaxation of moral standards came more erotic paintings; some paintings were overtly sexual while others remained subtle. The Rococo artists, peculiarly Watteau, focused on aristocratic subjects and deemphasized religion, reflecting the shift away from the Church as a patron. Enlightened aristocratic women began holding salons to facilitate and promote conversation and the spread of Enlightenment ethics. As women began to influence other aspects of club, the paintings became more feminine and lighthearted.

Research Report

In subject and in mode, Rococo art reflected these changes in society. Frivolous subjects reigned supreme and featuring aristocrats and mythical subjects became the focus of French painters. For example, Watteau�due south painting Fête venitienne (pictured at left) depicts French aristocrats in an idyllic garden setting. The nude statue in the groundwork adds an erotic sense to the painting as well as an innuendo to nudes from famous paintings of the past. Boucher focused on mythical subjects, including his famous work Venus Consoling Love of 1751. Fragonard�s The Swing represented a deliberate delineation of an erotic discipline, every bit it was deputed by a courtier specifically with the intention of provoking erotic ideas (Jarasse 92).

The style employed past Rococo painters also reflected the tendencies of society. Rocaille, meaning �stone,� and coquille, meaning �shell,� combine to form the proper noun of the manner, and are used considering rocks and shells were oft used to decorate gardens and were then portrayed in the paintings of the time equally well (Adams 706). A departure from the dramatic contrasts of light and nighttime institute in Baroque art, Rococo featured shimmering pastels. To form a light blueish colour, for case the color plant in the apparel of the dancer in Watteau�s painting, the painter began with an underlay of a pearly white, opalescent color. He would then add together thin layers of blue and tiptop information technology with white highlights. This technique allowed for visible brushstrokes, another difference between Rococo and Bizarre, and gave the paintings a sense of texture.

In The Idea of Rococo, Park explains the key differences between Bizarre and Rococo, the reason why Rococo is not considered merely an extension of Bizarre:

For on the 1 manus, as Wolfflin defined it, rococo continued the amorphousness, the blurring of contours, the breaking up of forms, their dissolution in the magic spell of lite, the fluidity, the softness and suppleness of bizarre, only on the other hand, information technology carried the baroque and so far that information technology became subversive and destroyed the illusion, the epiphany, and the overarching hierarchy upon which the bizarre depended (Park 16) .

Beyond color, some characteristics of Rococo fine art include South-curves, C-curves, shells, mosaic, bat wings, falling water, miniaturization and asymmetrical cartouches (Park 17). The figures portrayed were dressed in fashionable apparel with slim head, throat and feet, and were set in rural scenery (Geitman). Painters divers their figures using color, equally opposed to drawing them in showtime, which appealed to the senses, also important in this era of frivolity (Janson). Rococo fine art also emphasized that all moments are equal and the paintings nigh resembled snapshots in that respect, capturing random moments, not merely the virtually of import ones. Artists as well tried to portray �nature as it ought to be,� idealizing the landscapes in which the figures were gear up (Park 86).

These changes in artistic style had dramatic effects on both art and society of the 18th century in France. Park says:

The cumulative result of this light, delicate, and playful, style is nothing less than the creation of a second structure � one is tempted to say a second world � fabricated of decoration that partially conceals or masks the actual construction on which information technology depends. When i showtime enters a rococo interior, one may feel overwhelmed. Such feelings result from a kind of puritan horror in experiencing so much art � the exact contrary of the horror vacui that motivated the rococo artist � and a disorientation acquired past experiencing the totality of rococo fine art (Park 24).

Just every bit Rococo art was itself overly decorative, so too was interior decoration. French aristocrats decorated their entire hôtels in the same style as the paintings were executed, resulting in somewhat over-decorated homes. The erotic scenes pictured in the paintings reflected the attitudes of French citizens. Just every bit the artists cast bated previous rules of fine art, French citizens cast aside many of the rules fix by the Church. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Rococo art, although adequate in areas of the church such as the sacristy, is not by and large conducive to religious devotion and should non be placed in prominent areas of the church (Gietmann). The Church�s rejection of Rococo art in prominent places did non deter the French artists Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard from creating paintings in this manner.

Without Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), the Rococo move in painting may not accept gained the attention it did. According to Michael Levey in Rococo to Revolution, Watteau was of import for two main reasons. First, he developed the idea of an individualistic artist, not dependent on anyone else to shape his personality. Second, he developed the painting genre of fete galante, the portrayal of Italian comedians (Levey 56). Watteau�s paintings focus on a unmarried psychological moment,and commonly center on musicians and lovers or the theater. None of his subjects were related to religion or serious subject matters. For French painters of the 1700s, Watteau showed that a painter could choose frivolous subjects and still be regarded as a significant artist (Levey 83).

Watteau�s fetes galantes showed aristocrats in a variety of settings. Pilgrimage to Cythera (at right) , the painting he presented for acceptance to the Academy in Paris in 1717, portrays a group of aristocratic couples on a journeying. Showcasing Rococo style, this painting features extravagant, pastel wear and figures that are miniature in comparing to the landscape in the background. The statue covered in flowers reflects the frivolity of the time (Adams 706). Fete venitienne contains a cocky-portrait of Watteau in the course of the bagpipe thespian at the right edge of the painting. By setting himself apart from the rest of the society pictured in the painting, Watteau emphasizes his personal state of mind and identifies himself more than with the lower class than the aristocrats (Levey 76).

After Watteau, the next cracking artist of the Rococo era was his student Francois Boucher (1703 � 1770). In Boucher�southward paintings, mythological subjects, non aristocrats, took the focus. Venus Consoling Love (below) , 1751, features a nude Venus in the center of the painting with Cupid, her son, at her side. The frontal pose of Venus, with her breasts fully exposed and simply aniridescent, almost transparent slice of material roofing her other individual parts, exemplifies the erotic tendencies of the Rococo. The two love birds contribute to the sensual atmosphere too. The pastel colors and visible brushstrokes are typical of the way, as is the Due south-shape of Venus� body (Adams 713). Liselotte Andersen says in Bizarre and Rococo Art, �Here, every bit with Watteau, is a dream earth; but Boucher�south world is more arbitrary, more than sensual, and without the melancholy that repeatedly touches Watteau�south works,� (Andersen 180). Venus Consoling Honey is a painting meant to be cute, a painting with no redeeming moral value, typical of Rococo art.

In 1745, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764), became Louis 15�s mistress. Boucher enjoyed success as de Pompadour�s favorite Rococo artist. He painted Portrait of Madame de Pompadour in 1756 and prior to that, The Toilet of Venus in 1751 (Jarrasse 82). De Pompadour deputed The Toilet of Venus for her private retreat. In this Venus, �inappreciably any essence of divinity remains�instead, information technology has the temper of �salon art.� In an enchanting alloy of colors, a society adult female is shown as, absorbed in idle entertainment, she sits on a sofa, daydreaming� (Andersen 180). Boucher combines a portrayal of the easy life of the aristocrats with a depiction of Venus, a mythological character, to create something the upper classes loved. Although his paintings lacked emotional depth, he made up for this in taking the fantasies that humans accept and bringing them to life on the canvas (Janson).

Boucher�southward pupil, Jean-Honore Fragonard (1732 � 1806) is considered past some to be the best of the 18th century French painters. In 18th Century French Painting, Dominique Jarasse praises Fragonard proverb:

With Fragonard, the purely imaginary world of the rococo gave mode to a sensitivity to what the latter one-half of the century was to define every bit �Nature.� The artist wavered betwixt titillating erotic scenes destined for the love nests of great courtesans and idyllic landscapes in the Dutch style (Jarasse 89).

While the rest of the Rococo artists focused a great deal on texture and emotion, Fragonard is more romantic in his approach. His figures are animated, but oft do non have faces, and his textures are not always realistic (Levey 116).

The Swing, 1766 (below) , is Fragonard�south nearly famous work. Working in the Rococo style, Fragonard presents a frivolous subject in a pastoral setting. He uses pastel pinkish and makes the light smoothen through the openings of the trees, highlighting sure surfaces, making them shimmer. Although at get-go glance it appears every bit cypher more than than an aristocratic woman in an idyllic nature setting, the painting contains several erotic undertones. Get-go, the cleric in the back, well-nigh completely hidden byshadow, symbolizes the clergy being �in the night� to the sexual escapades of the time. 2d, the swinging action itself has a sexual connotation, equally does the fact that the man in the left of the picture is positioned then that he tin can see up the skirts of the woman. Adams explains several other erotic symbols in the painting: �His lid and her shoe are sexual references in this context � the former a phallic symbol and the latter a vaginal one. They complement the setting: an enclosed yet open garden, where amorous games are played� (Adams 714).

In the early on 1770s, Madame du Barry commissioned a series of paintings called �Progress of Dearest� from Fragonard for her pavilion at Louvenciennes, which were eventually returned to him, some say marking the beginning of the end for Rococo art. The four paintings were titled The Pursuit, The Meeting, Love Letters and The Lover Crowned (Biebel 54-55). Showcasing flowers and foliage, pastel colors and the frivolous theme of chasing beloved, these paintings demonstrate of import qualities of the style. In the final scene as the man receives the wreath of flowers from the woman, an creative person sits to the side painting the episode (Biebel 55). Information technology seems that this could be a reference either to himself, or just to artists in general recording events in history, something painters would practise in the styles of art to come. �The Progress of Dearest� was exhibited for a short menstruum of time before Madame du Barry returned them to Fragonard only to commission Joseph Marie Vien to paint the same discipline. She never disclosed her reasons to anyone, non even Fragonard (Biebel 56).

Historical Significance

Toward the end of Fragonard�s career, the French attitude began to shift dorsum toward moral sensitivity, and Rococo art � with its erotic subjects and lack of redeeming moral value � was no longer the style of pick in French gild. The French Revolution played a large office in the decline of Rococo, which was followed by a revival of classical ideas, or the Neo-Classical menstruation. The painters of this catamenia rejected Rococo ethics and developed exemplum virtutis (Jarrasse 168). With Neo-Classicism, artists combined classical themes with political propaganda to emphasis loyalty to the state. Their paintings also offered redeeming moral values, in direct contrast to the frivolity of Rococo art.

Until the 18th century, fine art independent no frivolous subjects; every piece of art had a redeeming moral value to it, and many focused on religious themes. The reign of Louis Xv loosened moral codes, and Rococo art reflected this change. Park says, �the rococo was not simply a straw of revolution but also a kind of revolution� (Park 94). Unfortunately for the Rococo artists, the French Revolution inverse the paradigms of society in one case over again, forcing artists to adapt their piece of work to fit the nature of the times, bringing an stop to the Rococo period in the belatedly 1780s. Although some art historians claim that Rococo was actually just an extension of Bizarre, the qualities of Rococo presented hither show that it is a unique style with characteristics all its own.

References

Adams, Laurie Schneider. Art Across Time: The Fourteenth Century to the Present. 2nd ed. Boston: McGraw Colina, 2002.
Andersen, Liselotte. Baroque and Rococo Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1969.
Biebel, Franklin M. �Fragonard and Madame du Barry.� Rococo to Romanticism: Fine art and Architecture 1700-1850. Ed.
    James Southward. Ackerman, Sumner McKnight Crosby, Horst W. Janson and Robert Rosenblum. New York: Garland Publishing,
    1976. 51-70.
Gietmann, 1000. �Rococo Fashion.� The Catholic Encyclopedia, Book 13. 1999. Robert Appleton Company. fifteen April 2002
 <http://arthistory.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.knight.org%2Fadvent%2Fcathen%2F13106a.htm>
Janson, Horst Woldemar. History of Fine art. 6th ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2001.
Jarrasse, Dominique. 18th-Century French Painting. Paris: Finest SA/Editions Pierre Terrail, 1998.
Levey, Michael. Rococo to Revolution: Major Trends in Eighteenth-Century Painting. New York: Frederick A. Praeger
    Publishers, 1966.
Park, William. The Idea of Rococo. Newark: Academy of Delaware Press. 1992.

Web Resources

http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg54/gg54-main1.html - This is the National Gallery of Art spider web tour of several of Watteau�s Rococo-manner art works, including a timeline of the 18th Century.

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/rococo.html - The Artcyclopedia includes introductory data about the Rococo catamenia, a timeline and links to related artists and their exhibits at museums around the world.

http://world wide web.kfki.hu/~arthp/tours/french/18_cent.html - The Spider web Gallery of Art provides information about the Rococo manner and links to artists of the time menses with examples of their works.

http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/r/rococo.html - This site gives express information about the subject, but information technology has an extensive list of example works and links to more information about those individual works.

http://www.tigtail.org/TVM/M_View/X1/yard.Rococo/rococo.html - The Tigertail Virtual Museum offers examples of paintings by various Rococo artists, including 13 by Watteau, 3 by Boucher and ix by Fragonard.

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