Rococo style summary

Rococo style, or Late Baroque, Style in interior design, the decorative arts, painting, architecture, and sculpture that originated in Paris in the early 18th century. The word Rococo is derived from French rocaille, denoting the shell-covered rockwork used to decorate artificial grottoes. Reacting against the ponderous Baroque that had become the official style of Louis XIV’s reign, the Rococo was light, elegant, and elaborately ornamented. Several interior designers, painters, and engravers—among them Pierre Le Pautre, Juste-Aurèle Meissonier, Jean Berain, and Nicolas Pineau—developed a lighter and more intimate style of decoration for the new residences of nobles in Paris, and the style was disseminated throughout France by means of engravings. In these designers’ work, walls, ceilings, and moldings feature interlacings of curves and countercurves based on S and C shapes as well as on shell forms and other natural shapes. Chinese motifs were also employed (see chinoiserie). Rococo painting was characterized by easygoing treatments of mythological and courtship themes, delicate brushwork, and sensuous colouring; notable practitioners included Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. The Rococo style spread throughout France and other countries, principally Germany and Austria. Among the finest German examples of Rococo architecture is the church designed by Balthasar Neumann at Vierzehnheiligen, near Lichtenfels, in Bavaria. In Italy the Rococo style was concentrated primarily in Venice, where it was epitomized by the large-scale decorative paintings of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.