Rococo: What It Is And Characteristics Of This Artistic Movement
Known to his contemporaries as art in the taste of the century (dans le goût du temps), the so-called Rococo style was not always looked down upon. And when it emerged at the end of the 17th century, it was seen as a true artistic renewal, a modern taste, as they said then.
The Rococo style is the son of the joie de vivre, that is, the passion for life that characterized the first decades of the 18th century**. Far from the image of ridiculous and corny art that is often attributed to it, Rococo was the most genuine expression of the joy of life and the purest and most passionate beauty.
How and why did this style emerge? What marked its glory and its decline? In this article we are going to take a brief journey through Rococo art, the art of the Old Regime.
We can say that the Rococo style emerged in France (specifically, at the Versailles court) at the end of the 17th century, that is, during the last years of the reign of Louis XIV. Its period of splendor took place in the first decades of the 18th century, before dying definitively around 1765 when, slowly, a more sober, more sober style began to prevail. republicaninspired by an idealized classical antiquity.
As the art historian Águeda Viñamata indicates in her magnificent work The Rococo, The style was born in France as a reflection of the call Century of the lights In the third chapter of his work, Viñamata emphasizes how complicated it can be to relate Enlightenment ideas to Rococo art since, apparently, they are in clear contradiction. But is this really so?
The beginning of the 18th century is the beginning of the Enlightenment, there is no doubt about that. But, parallel to the new philosophy, There is an unparalleled outbreak of debauchery, pleasure, and gallantry ; in a word, of the frivolity and brilliant beauty of life.
In this sense, the festival acquires an unparalleled importance and refinement. And it is not that, obviously, in previous centuries there had not been festivals. But what makes the Rococo style unique is the conversion of celebration into something central to social life. Thus, ballets, plays, operas, masquerades, and concerts proliferate. The artists put all their effort into creating a wonderful and gallant universe, where the sets dazzle, the props shine as their own entity and the montages amaze the spectators.
A libertine and refined world
A crucial date to date the origin of the Rococo style is the death of the Sun KingLouis XIV, in September 1715 Known is the strict etiquette that reigned in Versailles during the reign of this monarch, which involved scrupulous observance of hierarchies and ceremonial schedules. Everything was solemnized; The king’s breakfast, his morning shave or his tucking into bed at night were activities that followed meticulous organization and careful detail. And, above all (and here lies the difference with Rococo philosophy) they were activities public.
The successor of Sun King It was Louis of Anjou, his great-grandson. The boy was only five years old at that time, so the nephew of the late monarch, Philip of Orleans, took charge of the regency, a being who perfectly represented the spirit of the new times: frivolous and libertine, but also very intelligent and capable.
Philip’s regency marked a before and after in the aesthetics of France. The regent endowed Parisian society with grace and refinement; To begin with, he had returned the court to Paris, to the Palais-Royal, and to continue, he greatly detested the heavy Versailles ceremony that his uncle had established. Felipe preferred a happy and dissipated life, surrounded by friends and immersed in parties, dances, operas and love affairs This joie de vivre unbridled, from this authentic love for life, the French Rococo style is born.
Philip of Orleans was an extremely intelligent being, but he allowed himself to be carried away by his debauchery and, consequently, the Regency ended up being a real disaster. When, finally, the boy-king acceded to the throne in 1723 (when he reached the necessary age of majority) the court settled again in Versailles and the country seemed to regain order. However the modern style had been imposed. There was no longer any place for the pompous and solemn apparatus of the previous century; new times were beginning.
A derogatory term
Charles Maurice de Telleyrand (1754-1836) commented that anyone who had not lived before 1789 (that is, before the Revolution) did not know the sweetness of life. With his commentary, the minister perfectly describes the meaning of Rococo art: recognizing the beautiful in all its expressions and allowing oneself to be enveloped by the gentleness of life.
In many ways, the neoclassical style that began to prevail in France during the years immediately preceding the Revolution is contrary to the joyful spirit of Rococo. Neoclassicism was inspired by classical models and reinterpreted them, taking from them the ideas (passed through the filters of a new era) of moral rectitude, sobriety and harmony.
Neoclassicism was, therefore, the perfect style for the new and austere French Republic that was born after the revolution, a style that had its heyday during the Napoleonic era. Where was Rococo art then? In the past, linked to times of the Old Regime, the living symbol of a “corrupt and abusive” aristocracy.
And, as often happens, the term by which we currently know the Rococo style derives from a derogatory name. This is a constant in the history of art, as we already know. And rococo comes from the words rocaille and coquille, which was what the rock and shell inlays in the grottoes of Baroque palaces were called, respectively. For the detractors of Rococo, this style was similar, due to its emptiness and bad taste, to the eccentricities that the rocailleurs performed in the 17th century for the “rancid” aristocracy.
Nothing to see, of course. The palatial style of the Baroque has practically nothing in common with the Rococo, since they are children of different mentalities and are born with very different characteristics. Therefore, to speak of Rococo as a mere extension of the Baroque art of the previous century is to fail to understand the scope that this style had in its time.
Characteristics of Rococo art
To fully understand the meaning of Rococo, we must delve a little deeper into its characteristics. Again taking the excellent work of Águeda Viñamata, the main idea by which we can understand Rococo in all its depth is intimacy. This may be surprising, since we are used to seeing this style as something bombastic and ostentatious, but nothing could be further from the truth. Let’s see it.
Rococo was born, as we have already noted above, during the time of the regency of Philip of Orleans. Let us remember that the regent moved the court to Paris and moved away considerably from the solemn tradition of his uncle the Sun King. During Philip’s time, gatherings between friends, petit committee parties, and intimate love affairs began to proliferate. In one word: France goes from the showcase that the Versailles court represented to a revaluation of personal privacy and the home with all the comfort and pleasure that this entailed.
Therefore, in architecture, small spaces appropriate to the human scale will proliferate, very different from the large theater-halls of the court of Versailles. We can see how, in reality, Rococo is closely connected to the ideals of the Enlightenment; It reinforces a natural space, where human beings feel comfortable and calm, also inspired by the organic forms of nature.
How to be inspired by organic? Through the curve, of course, and, in the case of painting, through the loose, vital, animated brushstroke of artists such as Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), the great standard-bearer of pictorial Rococo, or Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), whose quick and sketchy lines inevitably remind us of later Impressionist paintings.
Rococo is life, simply. All everyday objects are imbued with her spirit: salt shakers, fans, combs, vases, shoes. The interiors of the houses are a true waste of joy in life: chinoiseries (rooms decorated strictly with Chinese-inspired motifs), panneaux (panels made of wood) and, above all, profusion of colors, usually pastel, sweet and velvety tones The furniture acquires proportions more suitable for everyday life, and small secretary desks, little tables for playing cards, and couches appear. All wrapped in a delicious and flirtatious atmosphere, of course, which makes them ideal for the gallant adventures that Pierre Choderlos de Laclos captured so well in his epistolary novel Les liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons).
The plastic themes lose any semblance of solemnity. Pastoral, gallant and loving themes are taken, whose greatest exponent is the aforementioned Watteau, especially with his work Boarding to the island of Cythera (1717). In a delicious background of soft colors, which seems to be wrapped in mist thanks to the fluid touches of the brush, we observe a group of elegantly dressed men and women preparing to board. The delicate atmosphere and refined theme named an exclusive pictorial genre that, starting with this work by Watteau, became tremendously popular: the gallant parties (fêtes galantes), one of the most genuine expressions of Rococo art.
Symbol of an entire era
Although Rococo was born in France and was spurred by such important patrons as the Marquise de Pompadour (1721-1764), it soon began to spread throughout Europe as a symbol of an entire era.
In the case of Germany, the promoters of Rococo were not the nobles (as happened in Paris, which was filled with hôtels or urban mansions built in the new style), but the leaders of the states that made up the German territory.. Schönbrunn in Austria and, above all, the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, are some of the most outstanding examples of Rococo in Germany.
Italy had lost the banner of artistic capital in favor of France and, especially in Rome, a classicist style very close to Bernini continued to prevail. However, we find in the Eternal City fundamental Rococo works such as the Trevi Fountain or the stairs of Piazza Spagna. On the other hand, Italian painting was keenly interested in Rococo and it materialized in the works of two very important artists: Giovanni Battista Tiépolo (1696-1770) and Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768), better known as Canaletto.
In the case of Spain, the Rococo begins with the arrival of the Bourbons In Spanish geography we find beautiful examples, such as the Granja palace or the Royal Palace of Madrid, built in 1734 following the fire of the previous Alcázar de los Austrias. In short, Rococo was a genuine expression of a unique era, unfairly treated by later historiography and greatly mistreated by the bad press that the French Revolution gave it, which reduced it to a mere “noble” art.
