Defining the Rococo Style.
Rococo (less commonly rococo) is a style of 18th century French art and interior design. Rococo rooms were designed as total works of art with elegant and ornate furniture, small sculptures, ornamental mirrors, and tapestry complementing architecture, reliefs, and wall paintings; it was largely supplanted by the neoclassic style. The word rococo is seen as a combination of the French rocaille, meaning stone, and coquilles, meaning shell, due to reliance on these objects as motifs of decoration. It may also be related to the Italian barocco, or Baroque style. Owing to the rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts, some critics used the term to derogatively imply that the style was frivolous or merely modish; when the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning "old-fashioned". However, since the mid-19th century, the term has been accepted by art historians. While there is still some debate about the historical significance of the style to art in general, rococo is now widely recognized as a major period in the development of European art. Though Rococo originated in the purely decorative arts, the style showed clearly in painting. These painters used delicate colours and curving forms, decorating their canvases with cherubs and myths of love. Portraiture was also popular among rococo painters; some works show a sort of naughtiness or impurity in the behaviour of their subjects, displaying the historical trend of departing from the baroque's church/state orientation. Landscapes were pastoral and often depicted the leisurely outings of aristocratic couples, of which the most famous exponent was Watteau, and to a lesser degree painters like N.A. Coypel (above).
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