2 papers Art history visual analysis (5-7 pages)
Reborn0804
unit_2_rococo.pptART HISTORY 132
Rococo
(c. 1725-1775)
Rococo: French
- context: 18th century FR
- political: Louis XV (1710-1774)
- life-span corresponds roughly to length of Rococo
- patronage: powerful aristocratic families
- themes: aristocratic romantic pursuits
- artistic style: reaction against Baroque Classicism
- 18C example of battle between “designo”/“colore”
- shift away from Poussin’s emphasis on “grand manner”
- more of an interest in Rubens’ sensual color scheme
- lighter, airy
- delicacy & refinement
Antoine Watteau
(1684-1721)
- biography: died from TB at age of 36
- Flemish native
- Prix de Rome FR Academy (1712)
- career: invented scenes of bucolic & idyllic charm (“fete galantes”)
- patrons: never aristocratic; instead, bourgeois (e.g., bankers)
- significance: revives “colore” tradition
- reaction against official art of Louis XIV's reign
- Rubens W’s source admiration
- studied R’s Marie de Medici series at Luxembourg Palace
- brushwork: painterly
Watteau’s Pilgrimage to Cythera
(1717)
François Boucher
(1703-1770)
- Venus Consoling Love (c. 1750)
- training: began by copying W
- career:
- Director of Royal Academy
- 1st Painter to King of FR
- patron: King’s mistress (Madame de Pompadour)
- decorated her quarters at Versailles
- aesthetic: “colore” tradition
- figure: idealized
- pose: erotic frontality
- composition: dynamic
- color: pastel
- light/shadow: even distribution
- narrative: carried along by gazes
- surface textures: material richness
Boucher
- Odalisque (1745)
- patron: King Louis XV
- theme: reclining nude/Orientalism
- setting: interior
- pose: erotic
- composition: diagonal thrust
- color: pastel
- light/shadow: even distribution
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
(1732-1806)
- The Swing (c. 1765)
- patron: FR Receiver (Treasurer)
- cultural significance: ancien regime on eve of FR Revolution
- narrative: hedonism
- patron watching as mistress pushed by Cardinal
- turbulence of movement pushes her skirt up
- shoe slips off sexual pun
- cult of Venus:
- statue at left
- rose bed
- composition: dynamic
- color: pastel
- light/shadow: even distribution
- perspective: limited aerial
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin
(1699-1779)
- biography:
- born in Paris; son of cabinetmaker
- admitted to Royal Academy & exhibited regularly @ Salon
- Louis XV granted C a studio and living quarters in Louvre
- patrons: rising middle-class
- subject matter:
- still-life
- genre
- themes: moralizing, yet not w/ symbolic messages
- affirms social order & values
- hard work
- frugality
- honesty
- devotion to family
Chardin
- Back from the Market (1739)
- subject: genre
- middle-class Parisian household
- pewter platter
- wooden furniture
- fresh water basin
- spatial order: complex interior w/ opening to exterior
- composition: dynamic
- color: limited palette w/ pastels
- light/shadow: modified tenebrism
- brushwork: painterly
IMAGE INDEX
- Slide 2: CARRIERA, Rosabla. Portrait of Watteau (1721), Oil on canvas.
- Slide 3: WATTEAU. Pilgrimage to Cythera (1717), Oil on canvas, 4’3” x 6’4 1/2, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
- Slide 4: Detail of Venus in WATTEAU’s Pilgrimage to Cythera
- Slide 5: BOUCHER. Venus Consoling Love (c. 1750), Oil on canvas, 42 1/8 x 33 3/8 in., Chester Dale Collection, National Gallery, Washington, D.C.
- Slide 6: BOUCHER. The Odalisque (1753), Oil on canvas, 53.5 x 64.5 cm., Musée du Louvre, Paris.
- Slide 7: FRAGONARD. The Swing (1767), Oil on canvas, 85 x 73 in., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Slide 8: CHARDIN. Self-Portrait (c. 1770), Pastel, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
- Slide 9: CHARDIN. Back from the Market (c. 1740), Oil on canvas, 18 1/2 x 14 3/4”, Museé du Louvre, Paris.
