Dr. Schiller: AP History of Art
Rococo Art
This PowerPoint is a compilation of slides and information from
PowerPoints created by Matt Curliss, Avneesh Kohli, Jade
Nguyen, and William V. Ganis, PhD, and from books by Marilyn
Stokstad
“Rococo”
•Style that was mainly used in smaller works, often containing
furniture, utensils, and other delicate accessories
•Rococo interiors were lively works of art with elegant furniture,
enchanting small sculptures, and plenty cheerful light
•A characteristic of Rococo architecture was its union of various
arts
•Many of the accessories that were once in these interiors have
been removed or stolen and all that remains are the exquisite
relief sculptures and gilded moldings
•Good acoustics for the chamber of music that was played within
them
•Born in Paris during the reign of Louis XV
•The style was a special display ground for curvilinear, delicate
ornamentation with complicated patterns
•Artists avoided straight lines
•Figures were slender
•Like an extreme Baroque, or baroque gone wild
Germain Boffrand
Salon de la Princesse
with painting by CharlesJoseph Natoire and
sculpture by J.B.
Lemoine
Hôtel de Soubise, Paris,
France
1737-1740
Gardner plate 24-80
•This room is comparable to the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles
•The only difference is that it is a more softened style and the panels are flexible sinuous
curves that adapt to the mirror’s reflections
François de Cuvilliès
the Amalienburg
Nymphenburg Palace
Park, Munich, Germany
early 18th C.
•Exhibits the curving flow of lines and planes that cohere in a sculptural unity that
conveys a sense of great elegance
•The most famous room is also the circular hall of mirrors which has a silver and blue
theme color of architecture, stucco relief, bronze mirrors, and crystal
François de
Cuvilliès
Hall of Mirrors,
the Amalienburg
Nymphenburg
Palace Park,
Munich, Germany
early 18th C.
Gardner plate 24-81
François de Cuvilliès
Hall of Mirrors, the Amalienburg
Nymphenburg Palace Park, Munich, Germany
early 18th C.
Francis Mansart
Orléans wing of the Château de Blois
Blois, France
1635-1638
•Portrayed the pompous majesty in
supreme glory
•Portrait of Louis XIV as a young boy as
the common heavy or staid style
•It is much more delicate
•The mincing minuet that the king is
being depicted doing portrays his playful
manner
Antoine Watteau
L’Indifferent
ca. 1716
oil on canvas
10 x 7 in.
Gardner plate 24-82
Antoine Watteau
Return from (or
Pilgrimage to
)Cythera
1717-1719
oil on canvas
4 ft. 3 in. x 6 ft. 4 in.
Gardner plate 24-84
•This painting was used for artist’s admission to the royal academy
•It portrays his style as a derivative of Ruben’s style
•The painting represents a group of lovers departing from an island of youth and
love, sacred to Aphrodite
•There is an elegant and tender sense of contentment. There is also a carefully
crafted attitude of the different figures
•The artist was credited with the creation of fete galante painting
•This picture does not depict every day life as most Rococo paintings
usually do
•It has soft and feathery brush strokes, dainty figures, and muted
colors
Antoine Watteau
View through the Trees in the Park of Pierre Crozat
(La Perspective)
ca. 1715
oil on canvas
18 3/8 x 21 3/4 in.
Francois Boucher, Cupid a Captive, 1754
Gardner plate 24-85
Boucher was a follower of Watteau and the
painter for Madame de Pompadour ( the
influential mistress of Louis XV)
His fame was gained through his paintings
of graceful allegories, with Arcadian
shepherds, nymphs, and goddesses
cavorting in shady glens engulfed in pink
and sky blue light.
“Boucher’s paintings are highly caloric with
little nutritional value”
•This painting presents viewers with a rosy pyramid of
infant and female flesh set off against a cool and leafy
background
•Conveys a sense of masterly composition combined
with the dynamic use of criss-crossing diagonal and
curvilinear forms
•A common subject of Rococo paintings is the pursuit of
love
Francois Boucher, Marquise de
Pompadour 1756.
Jean-Honré Fragonard,
The Swing, 1766
Gardner plate 24-86
Fragonard was a student of
Boucher and is considered by
many to have surpassed the
genius of his master.
This is a typical “intrigue” picture.
A young gentleman has managed
an arrangement whereby an
unsuspecting old bishop swings the
young man’s pretty sweetheart
higher and higher, while her lover
(and the work’s patron), in the
lower left-hand corner, stretches
out to admire her ardently from a
strategic position on the ground.
The young lady flirtatiously and
boldly kicks off her shoe at the little
statue on the god of discretion,
who holds his finger to his lips.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Bathers, 1766.
Giambattista Tiepolo
The Apotheosis of the Pisani Family
1761-1762
fresco
Gardner plate 24-79
A “painted festival for the imagination”
Tiepolo was the last great Italian painter
to have an international impact until the
20th century
bright, cheerful colors and relaxed
compositions
this fresco shows airy populations
fluttering through vast sunlit skies and
fleecy clouds, making dark accents against
the brilliant light of high noon
the Pisani members are elevated to the
rank of gods in a heavenly scene
•The difference between quadro riportato and di
soto in sù paintings is that di sotto in sù
paintings have figures that are placed as if they
were over your head
•Ceiling fresco in the Villa Pisani at Stra in
Northern Italy
•Depicts airy populations flying in bright clouds
and skies
•This shows how the Pisani family members are
being elevated to the rank of the gods
•In his future paintings, Tiepolo painted with less
symbolic rhetoric and more with elegance and
grace
•used to create ceiling paintings into the Rococo
period.
Di sotto in sù
•This sculpture has an open and vivid
composition suggestive of its dynamic
roots
•There’s an overarching source of erotic
playfulness
•To energize him, his eager nymph pours
wine into his mouth
•The sculpture’s medium is terracotta
•It is a masterly display of Rococo’s style
of sensual exhilaration
Clodion
Nymph and Satyr
ca. 1775
terracotta
1 ft. 11 in. high
Gardner plate 24-87