The 18th Century Rococo & Enlightenment

Table of Contents Rococo Francois Boucher, Madame de Pompadour ------ French culture was influence by the mistress of Louis XV. A woman of great intellect and beauty, she influenced state policy and dominated fashion and the arts for 20 years. Rococo is an aristocratic, international style, patronized by the elite ruling classes Rococo was an elaboration of the previous Baroque style, endowed with erotic, feminine, artificial qualities The word “rococo” comes from the French word for “shell.” Aspects of the Rococo style reflects the character of shells: pastel colors, delicacy, fragility, and curvilinear Boucher, Blonde Odalisque --------------------------------- The subject matter of Rococo art is secular, intimate, playful, and sensual The size of the paintings were reduced to accommodate display in smaller Parisian apartments Jean-Antoine Watteau, Departure from the Island of Cythera ----- Cythera was the mythical island of love Filmy, atmospheric paint effect and graceful figures Table of Contents

Table of Contents Jean-Honore Fragonard, The Swing ---- Extols forbidden love Erotic symbolism of the swing, shoe, and hat Marie-Louise Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun, Queen Marie Antoinette and Her Children ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The artist was a court painter and favorite of the last queen of France Shows the queen and her children reinforcing the lineage of the royal family The excessive and often silly style of the Rococo shows the aristocracy was holding onto their power in a world ready for change and democracy was rising The French Revolution in 1789 Table of Contents

Table of Contents Enlightenment Joseph Wright of Derby, Experiment on a Bird with the Air Pump ----- The Enlightenment believed in the separation of church and state, equality, liberty, scientific experiments, optimistic belief in human progress. The cult of reason negated the escapist frivolity of the Rococo Rational empirical science substituting for religious dogma William Hogarth, Marriage a la Mode ( The Fashionable Marriage) A satire on the fashionable French aristocratic practice of marrying for money and property The Marriage Settlement shows the fathers settling on an exchange of goods and prestige with the young wife already with a wandering eye ---------------------------------------------------------------- The Bagnio depicts the results of the husband catching the wife with her lover jumping out the window --------------------------------- Table of Contents

Madame de Pompadour François Boucher, Madame de Pompadour, 1756, oil on canvas

Boucher, Blonde Odalisque, 1752, oil on canvas

Departure from the Island of Cythera Antoine Watteau, Departure from the Island of Cythera, 1717, oil on canvas

The Swing Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing, ca. 1769, oil on canvas

Queen Marie Antoinette and Her Children Marie-Louise Elizabeth Vigée Lebrun, Queen Marie Antoinette and Her Children, 1787, oil on canvas

An Experiment Joseph Wright, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, 1768, oil on canvas

The Marriage Settlement William Hogarth, The Marriage Settlement, from “Marriage à la Mode,” ca.1744

Hogarth, The Bagnio, from the “Marriage à la Mode” series, ca.1744

Rococo characterized by an elaborately ornamental style of decoration prevalent in eighteenth-century Europe, with asymmetrical patterns involving motifs and scrollwork

Enlightenment a European intellectual movement of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. It was heavily influenced by seventeenth-century philosophers such as Descartes, Locke, and Newton, and its prominent exponents include Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith.