Annotated Mona Lisa, The - Strickland, Carol [49]
In Watteau’s “Pilgrimage to Cythera,” romantic couples frolic on an enchanted isle of eternal youth and love. Boucher also painted gorgeously dressed shepherds and shepherdesses amid feathery trees, fleecy clouds, and docile lambs. Boucher’s style was artificial in the extreme; he refused to paint from life, saying nature was “too green and badly lit.” His pretty pink nudes in seductive poses earned him great success among the decadent aristocracy. Fragonard’s party paintings were also frilly and light-hearted. In his best known, “The Swing,” a young girl on a swing flirtatiously kicks off a satin slipper, while an admirer below peeks up her lacy petticoats.
WOMAN’S DAY
The pre-French-Revolution eighteenth century was a period when women dominated European courts. Madame de Pompadour was virtual ruler of France, Maria Theresa reigned in Austria, and Elizabeth and Catherine were monarchs of Russia. Female artists, too, made their mark, the most notable being two portrait painters to Queen Marie-Antoinette, ELISABETH VIGÉE-LEBRUN (1755-1842) and ADÉLAIDE LABILLE-GUIARD (1749-1803). The Venetian painter ROSALBA CARRIERA’s (1675-1757) fashionable portraits pioneered the use of pastels (chalklike crayons later used by the Impressionists).
Watteau, “Pilgrimage to Cythera,” 1717, Louvre, Paris. Watteau idealized his delicate fantasy landscapes, inhabited by graceful aristocrats engaged in amorous flirtation, with fuzzy color and hazy atmosphere.
ROCOCO ART
MOOD: Playful, superficial, alive with energy
INTERIOR DÉCOR: Gilded woodwork, painted panels, enormous wall mirrors
SHAPES: Sinuous S- and C-curves, arabesques, ribbonlike scrolls
STYLE: Light, graceful, delicate
COLORS: White, silver, gold, light pinks, blues, greens
FRENCH BUZZWORDS: la grâce (elegance), le goût (refined taste)
Cuvilliés, Mirror Room, 1734-39, Amalienburg, Germany. The best example of a Rococo interior, the Mirror Room was designed by François de Cuvilliés (1698-1768), who was originally hired as a court dwarf. This “maison de plaisance, ” or pleasure house, is profusely but delicately decorated. A series of arched mirrors, doors, and windows is surrounded by carved plants, cornucopias, animals, and musical instruments — all silver-gilt on a cool-blue background. The rising and sinking curves of the ornamentation make this a tour de force of Rococo style.
Gaudí, Casa Milà, 1907, Barcelona. Although Rococo love of artifice was alien to the Spanish architect Antonio Gaudí (1852-1926), his work incorporated sinuous, Rococo curves. Goudí’s work grew out of Art Nouveau and was based on his desire to jettison tradition and assume the random forms of nature. In its avoidance of straight lines and rippling effect — with windows shaped like lily pads — this apartment house is heir to the Rococo.
ROCOCO ARCHITECTURE: INTERIOR DECORATING. In eighteenth-century France, the exteriors of buildings continued to be Baroque, gradually giving way to Neoclassical. But inside private townhouses of Paris and the churches and palaces of Germany, Austria, Prague, and Warsaw, fanciful Rococo ornamentation ran wild.
The Nineteenth Century: Birth of the “Isms”
For Western civilization the nineteenth century was an age of upheaval. The church lost its grip, monarchies toppled, and new democracies suffered growing pains. In short, tradition lost its luster and the future was up for grabs. Unfamiliar forces like industrialization and urbanization made cities bulge with masses of dissatisfied poor. The fast pace of scientific progress and the ills of unrestrained capitalism caused more confusion.
The art world of the 1800s seethed with factions, each overreacting to the other. Instead of one style dominating for centuries, as in the Renaissance and Baroque eras, movements and countermovements sprang up like crocuses in spring. What had been eras became “isms,” each representing a trend in art. For most of the century, three major styles competed with one another: Neoclassicism, Romanticism,