Rococo

Question 1

French Rococo - Background

Answer 1

1. death of Louis XIV brought changes to French high society
2. Louis XV reigned
3. aristocrats abandoned Versailles for town houses of Paris
4. favored a cheerful and lighthearted decorative style
5. rise of culture salon - learned women hosted salons and dominated the art trend - feminine taste
6. end of rococo due to rise of Enlightenment

Question 2

Rococo art - characteristic

Answer 2

1. rocaille + coquille (stone debris + seashell)
2. decorative style based on arabesque patterns (sinuous and spiraling) and gold filigree (fine delicate jewelry work using gold and silver) work
3. “C” and “S” shape sometimes in asymmetrical layout, imitating forms of organic objects, e.g. seashell,sea waves and leaves etc
4. themes - adopted from minor categories of art
   — e.g. italian theatre, comedies, love, country parties, fete galantes
5. style - bright light, iridescent color, pastel color, cold and silvery cones
6. format - small in scale to fit cozy intimate interiors of town houses

Question 3

Antoine Watteau

Answer 3

1. influenced by Antwerp School, peter paul rubens and anthony van dyck - delicate shiny tones, rosy pink flesh
2. transformed the grandiosity of baroque art into light-hearted, playful scenes

Question 4

Antoine Watteau -Pierrot (formerly known as Gilles)

Answer 4

1. stereotyped figure of a sad clown from the Commedia dell’Arte (Italian Comedy)
2. 4 other stock characters are hidden in the foilage

Question 5

Antoine Watteau - La Gamme d’Amour (the scale of love)

Answer 5

1. idealized, enclosed landscape for the drama
2. iridescent quality of the palette - use of a wide spectrum of colour

Question 6

Antoine Watteau - Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera

Answer 6

1. submitted for the admission into Royal Academy
2. scenes of gallantry - new genre of painting created for Watteau
3. combination of history painting, genre scene, landscape, portrait and theatrical subject
4. plot
   — 1. beginning to wooing her
   — 2. made some advance and the man is helping her on her feet
   — 3. man has won her love and is allowed to touch her body
   — groups of lovers waiting to embark a gondola

Question 7

Antoine Watteau - Gersiant’s shop sign

Answer 7

1. painted for his good friend, an art dealer
2. paying homeage to peter paul rubens and anthony van dyck (Antwerp school), critical against the academic style (Nicolas Poussin)
3. typical rococo colours: pastel colours, cold silvery tones

Question 8

Francois Boucher

Answer 8

1. french rococo painters
2. typical works - cheerful shepherds, cupids, nymphs, and goddess in idyllic pastoral scenes (sensual and flirtatious)
3. reflection of life of wealthy french - hedonic and immoral life without concern of social reality
4. received patronage from Madame de Pompadour

Question 9

Jean Honore Fragonard

Answer 9

1. french rococo painters
2. student of francois boucher

Question 10

Francois Boucher - Breakfast

Answer 10

1. modern and fashionable home - interiors in rococo style, large windows, buddha statue, tin/pewter ware
2. family having breakfast, drinking chocolate (or coffee(
3. sensitive to fashion - typical of rococo art

Question 11

Francois Boucher - Madame de Pompadour

Answer 11

1. mistress of Louis XV, a woman of style and cultivation, dominated the taste of time
2. rococo style = pompadour style
3. perfect woman - beautiful, elegant and has refined taste
4. french fashion - magnificent flower-and-ribbon-bedecked satin gown
5. cultivated person - drawings, books, maps, manuscripts, etchings
6. supporter of advanced thinkers - encyclopaedia reflected in the mirror behind her

Question 12

francois boucher - toilet of Venus

Answer 12

1. implied portraiture of Madame de Pompadour
2. artificial doll-like beauty
3. cool rosy flesh tone resembles porcelain

Question 13

francois boucher - porcelain figure

Answer 13

1. flirting scene of shepherds

Question 14

francois boucher - cupid a captive

Answer 14

1. sensual playfulness
2. lively and light-hearted
3. criticized as lack of depth (no didactive value, no reference to classical art)

Question 15

Francois boucher - nude lying on a sofa

Answer 15

1. provocative pose of an innocent girly nude
2. libertine attitude of the girl

Question 16

jean honore fragonard - the ring biscuit

Answer 16

1. libertine scene reminiscent of boucher of “nude lying on sofa”

Question 17

jean-honore fragonard - the swing

Answer 17

1. emblematic work of rococo frivolity
2. story of infidelity
   — shoe - object of seduction
   — flirting with her secret lover without her husband knowing
3. caters for voyeuristic desire of the patron - put in the position of the secret lover
4. satire of the hypocrisy of french noble society

Question 18

jean-honore fragonard - the meeting (or storming the citadel)

Answer 18

1. theme of love is indicated by the sculpture group of Venus and Cupid and the lush vegetation of nature
2. “implied portraiture” of louis XV and Madame du Barry - last mistress of the King
3. returned to the painter in 1773 - end of rococo era

Question 19

Criticism against Baroque and Rococo painting

Answer 19

1. luxurious and superficial - reflects the taste of the ruling classes
2. idealized and manipulated sceneries - against the traditional value of naturalism
3. deprived of philosophical and moral reflection
4. against rococo
   — representative of the “ancien regime”
   — indulgent in hedonic pleasure, decadent and escapist