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18TH CENTURY ART. Rococo and Neoclassicism. Unit Concepts. 1. The 18th Century had a dual character: continuation of the Baroque style and ideas called Rococo, and the beginning of the modern world.
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18TH CENTURY ART • Rococo and Neoclassicism
Unit Concepts • 1. The 18th Century had a dual character: continuation of the Baroque style and ideas called Rococo, and the beginning of the modern world. • 2. Rococo is an art style for the aristocrats composed of fluffy, light, trivial, feminine works. • 3. Modern sets the stage for the new approach to art based on man’s learning, reasonings, and a renewed interest in the past. It introduces Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, and Realism.
18th Century Art • The 18th century is known in history as the Enlightenment. Musical geniuses such as Bach, Haydn, and Mozart were composing masterpieces. Astonishing developments in science and mathematics were shaking the world. Voltaire and Swift were literary giants of France and England. • ... And, to be honest, visual art during this time was very... weak. Rococo. Light, decorative, and shallow.
Rococo • Rococo is a word that combines the French words rocaille and coquille (meaning “rock” and “shell-” formations used to decorate Baroque gardens.) That’s what it was: decorative. • The F-word. Most F-words describe Rococo art. NO, NOT THAT ONE. Fluffy, frilly, frivolous, feminine, frou frou, feathery, fancy, flamboyant, fake, flirty, and flippant. • This is art of the Continent (France, Austria), not England.
Jean-Antoine Watteau • Most famous painter or Rococo style. • Titles include: The Seducer, Les Gamme d’Amour, The Serenader, Love in the Italian Theater, and An Embarrassing Proposal. • The theme is fun, frivolous, flirty friendships and romance.
Jean-Honore Fragonard The Swing
Balthasar Neumann The Residenz, Wurzburg, Germany
18th Century Art • This was the age just prior to the French Revolution, which was sparked in part due to the opulence of the French monarchy and nobility. • But not all art was shallow and sensual, although pretty much all art was beautiful. • Gainsborough and Hogarth are the two renowned British painters of the time.
Thomas Gainsborough Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Marriage a la ModeWilliam Hogarth Biting satirical series of paintings illustrating quite plainly and warning of the moral decay and flippant attitudes of many of the aristocracy.
* In the first of the series, he shows an arranged marriage between the son of bankrupt Earl Squanderfield and the daughter of a wealthy but miserly city merchant.
* In the second, there are signs that the marriage has already begun to break down. The husband and wife appear uninterested in one another, amidst evidence of their separate overindulgences the night before.
* The third in the series shows the Viscount visiting a quack with two women, to ascertain which of them gave him a sexual disease.
* In the fourth, the old Earl has died and the son is now the new Earl and his wife, the Countess. As was the very height of fashion at the time, the Countess is holding a "Toilette", or reception, in her bedroom.
* Next, the new Earl catches his wife with her lover, and is fatally wounded by the scoundrel. As she begs forgiveness from the stricken man, the murderer in his nightshirt makes a hasty exit through her bedroom window.
* Finally the Countess poisons herself in her grief and poverty-stricken widowhood, after her lover is hanged at Tyburn for murdering her husband.
John Singleton Copley Paul Revere
Benjamin West The Death of General Wolfe
Antonio Canova. Cupid and Psyche. Clodion. The Intoxication of Wine. One of these is Rococo and one is Neoclassical. Can you identify which is which? What clues?
