[Year]

[Type the document

title]
[Type the document subtitle]
[Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically a short
summary of the contents of the document. Type the abstract of the document
here. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the
document.]

urvi patel
[Type the company name]
[Pick the date]
ALPHA INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTURE STUDIES

SUBJECT: HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE V

ROCCO ARCHITECTURE
 HISTORY
Rococo or "Late Baroque" is an 18th-century artistic movement and style, which affected
several aspects of the arts including painting, sculpture, architecture, interior design,
decoration, literature, music and theatre. The Rococo developed in the early part of the 18th
century in Paris, France as a reaction against the grandeur, symmetry and strict regulations of
the Baroque, especially that of the Palace. In such a way, Rococo artists opted for a more
jocular, florid and graceful approach to Baroque art and architecture.
Rococo art and architecture in such a way was ornate and made strong usage of creamy,
pastel-like colors, asymmetrical designs, curves and gold. Unlike the more politically focused
Baroque, the Rococo had more playful and often witty artistic themes. With regards to
interior decoration, Rococo rooms were designed as total works of art with elegant and
ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing
architecture, reliefs, and wall paintings. The Rococo additionally played an important role in
theatre.
Towards the end of the 18th century, Rococo started to fall out of fashion, and it was largely
supplanted by the neoclassic style. In 1835 the Dictionary of the French Academy stated that
the word Rococo "usually covers the kind of ornament, style and design associated with Louis
XV's reign and the beginning of that of Louis XVI". It includes therefore, all types of art
produced around the middle of the 18th century in France. The word Rococo is seen as a
combination of the French rocaille, meaning stone, and coquilles, meaning shell, due to
reliance on these objects as motifs of decoration.
The term Rococo may also be interpreted as a combination of the Italian word "barocco" (an
irregularly shaped pearl, possibly the source of the word "baroque") and the French "rocaille"
(a popular form of garden or interior ornamentation using shells and pebbles), and may be
used to describe the refined and fanciful style that became fashionable in parts of Europe
during the eighteenth century. Owing to Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on
decorative arts, some critics used the term to derogatively imply that the style was frivolous
or merely modish.
When the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning "old-
fashioned". As a matter of fact, the style received harsh criticism, and was seen by some to
be superficial and of poor taste, especially when compared to neoclassicism; despite this, it
has been praised for its aesthetic qualities, and since the mid-19th century, the term has
been accepted by art historians. While there is still some debate about the historical
significance of the style to art in general, Rococo is now widely recognized as a major period
in the development of European art.
Italian architects of the late Baroque or early Rococo were wooed to Catholic (Southern)
Germany, Bohemia and Austria by local princes, bishops and prince-bishops. Inspired by their
example, regional families of Central European builders went further, creating churches and
palaces that took the local German Baroque style to the greatest heights of Rococo
elaboration and sensation.
An exotic but in some ways more formal type of Rococo appeared in France where Louis XIV's
succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of
the king's long reign, rich Baroque designs were giving way to lighter elements with more
curves and natural patterns. These elements are obvious in the architectural designs of
Nicolas Pineau. During the Régence, court life moved away from Versailles and this artistic
change became well established, first in the royal palace and then throughout French high
society.
The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is often seen as perfectly in tune with the
excesses of Louis XV's reign. The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in
France.

PAINTING
Rococo style in painting echoes the qualities evident in other manifestations of the style
including serpentine lines, heavy use of ornament as well as themes revolving around
playfulness, love, and nature.

Painting during the Rococo period has many of the same qualities as other Rococo art forms
such as heavy use of ornament, curved lines and the use of a gold and pastel-based palette.
Additionally, forms are often asymmetrical and the themes are playful, even witty, rather
than political, as in the case of Baroque art. Themes relating to myths of love as well as
portraits and idyllic landscapes typify Rococo painting.

Jean-Antoine Watteau François Boucher

Jean-Antoine Watteau

Antoine Watteau is considered to be the first great Rococo painter. His influence is visible in
the work of later Rococo painters such as Francois Boucher and Honore Fragonard. Watteau
is known for his soft application of paint, dreamy atmosphere, and depiction of classical
themes that often revolve around youth and love, exemplified in the painting Pilgrimage to
Cythera.

Francois Boucher

Francois Boucher became a master of Rococo painting somewhat later than Watteau. His
work exemplifies many of the same characteristics, though with a slightly more mischievous
and suggestive tone. Boucher had an illustrious career, and became court painter to King
Louis XV in 1765. There was controversy later in his career as Boucher received some moral
criticism from people such as Diderot for the themes present in his work. The Blonde
Odalisque was particularly controversial, as it supposedly illustrated the extra marital affairs
of the King.

Pilgrimage to Cythera
by Antoine Watteau
Watteau’s signature soft application
of paint, dreamy atmosphere, and
depiction of classical themes that
often revolve around youth and love is
evident in his work Pilgrimage to
Cythera.

Blond Odalisque

by Francois Boucher
Blond Odalisque was a highly
controversial work by Francois
Boucher as it was thought to depict an
affair of King Louis XV. The work
employs serpentine lines, a reasonably
pastel palette and themes of love
indicative of Rococo artwork.

SCULPTURE

In sculpture, the work of Etienne-Maurice Falconet is widely considered to be the best

representative of Rococo style. Generally, Rococo sculpture makes use of very delicate
porcelain instead of marble or another heavy medium. Falconet was the director of a famous
porcelain factory at Sevres. The prevalent themes in Rococo sculpture echoed those of the
other mediums, with the display of classical themes, cherubs, love, playfulness, and nature
being depicted most often as exemplified in the sculpture Pygmalion and Galatee.

Rococo still maintained the Baroque taste for complex forms and intricate patterns, but
by this point, it had begun to integrate a variety of diverse characteristics, including a
taste for Oriental designs and asymmetric compositions. The Rococo style was spread by
French artists and engraved publications.

In Great Britain, Rococo was always thought of as the "French taste" and was never
widely adopted as an architectural style, although its influence was strongly felt in such
areas as silverwork, porcelain, and silks, and Thomas Chippendale transformed British
furniture design through his adaptation and refinement of the style. William
Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not
intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his book, Analysis of Beauty (1753),
that the undulating lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace and
beauty in art or nature.
The development of Rococo in Great Britain is considered to have been connected with
the revival of interest in Gothic architecture early in the 18th century. The beginning of
the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François
Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of the art.
Blondel decried the "ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants" in
contemporary interiors. By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by
the order and seriousness of neoclassical artists like Jacques-Louis David. In Germany, late
18th century Rococo was ridiculed as Zopf und Perücke ("pigtail and periwig"), and this
phase is sometimes referred to asZopfstil.
Rococo remained popular in the provinces and in Italy, until the second phase of
neoclassicism, "Empire style", arrived with Napoleonic governments and swept Rococo
away. There was a renewed interest in the Rococo style between 1820 and 1870. The
British were among the first to revive the "Louis XIV style" as it was miscalled at first, and
paid inflated prices for second-hand Rococo luxury goods that could scarcely be sold in
Paris. But prominent artists like Eugène Delacroix and patrons like Empress Eugénie also
rediscovered the value of grace and playfulness in art and design.