Rococo Art (1700-1760) A movement in the arts in early 18thc. France Born from the Baroque era during the Age of Enlightenment Rococo Art was a visual representation of the optimism people felt in response to the ideas promoted by the Enlightenment – particularly new ideas about human existence

Rococo art portrayed a world of artificiality, make-believe, and game-playing. Although less formal than Baroque Art, it was essentially an art of the aristocracy and emphasized what seem now to have been the unreflective and indulgent lifestyles of the aristocracy rather than piety, morality, self-discipline, reason, and heroism (all of which can be found in the baroque).

Essence of Rococo Art is light The Rococo style is characterized by pastel colors gracefully delicate curving forms fanciful figures a lighthearted mood (visually and physically)

Antione Watteau: French Player

Watteau: Harlequien,Emperor on the Moon

Francois Boucher Le Dejeuner

The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of the art. By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order and seriousness of Neoclassicism

Neo-classical Art Mid-18th c. to the late 19th c. Neoclassical Art is a severe and unemotional form of art harkening back to the grandeur of ancient Greece and Rome. Its rigidity was a reaction to the overbred Rococo style and the emotionally charged Baroque style. The rise of Neoclassical Art was part of a general revival of interest in classical thought, which was of some importance in the American and French revolutions.

Jacques-Louis David Napoleon Crossing the Alps

Jacques Louis David The Death of Marat (1793)

Anton Raphael Mengs Portrait of Charles III of Spain (1761)

Menges: Susannah and the Elders

Romanticism Around 1800, Romanticism emerged as a reaction against Neoclassicism. It did not really replace the Neoclassical style so much as act as a counterbalancing influence…and Many artists were influenced by both styles to a certain degree.

Many intellectual historians have seen Romanticism as a key movement in the Counter-Enlightenment, a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment. Whereas the thinkers of the Enlightenment emphasized the primacy of deductive reason, Romanticism emphasized intuition, imagination, and feeling, to a point that led to some Romantic thinkers being accused of irrationalism.

No other intellectual/artistic movement has had comparable variety, reach, and staying power since the end of the Middle Ages. Began in Germany – where the brothers Grimm collected popular fairy tales – and in England where local ballads were treated as high poetry One aspect of Romanticism: the belief that products of the uncultivated popular imagination could equal or even surpass those of the educated court poets and composers who had previously monopolized the attentions of scholars and connoisseurs.

The natural consequence of dwelling on creative folk genius was a good deal of nationalism.

Eugene Delacroix: Liberty Leading the People

Caspar David Friedrich (1818) Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog

J.M.W. Turner: Battle of Trafalgar

John William Waterhouse: The Lady of Shalott (1888)