1. The 18th Century Rococo & Enlightenment

2. 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
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3. 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
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4. 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
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5. Madame de Pompadour
François Boucher, Madame de Pompadour, 1756, oil on canvas

6. Boucher, Blonde Odalisque, 1752, oil on canvas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

14. 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.