Rococo Art is Escapism
With the beauty of spring in full swing now, I want to spend this week teaching you more about the pastel, flowery extravagance of Rococo art which I briefly mentioned in my post about Jacques-Louis David here.
The Rococo era is seen as being dominate between 1730-1770. Something I always tell my art students about different art eras is that it does not mean that the beginning and end dates represent the first day ever and last day ever that this art was made. You can find very early examples and late examples to fit beyond those year perimeters. You should look at those year markers as the peak popularity of the art style.
Before I jump into this topic any deeper, you need to understand the historical context of the era. Rococo art is a very French style and you might be wondering why that became the dominant art style.
By the late 1600s, the Enlightenment was raging in Europe and the center place of it all was Paris. Why had Paris become the center place of the Enlightenment and not some other area of Europe? Well, that is a story for another day but I will say it is partly due to the the resentment of the luxury and excess of the French monarchy and that bred lively discussions of alternative forms of government in coffee houses.
After Paris was solidified as the intellectual center of Europe, it eventually became the location of avant-garde art. It is no coincidence that “avant-garde” is a French word in origin. So, whatever art style became popular in Paris usually became popular in other parts of Europe.
OK. Let’s discuss Rococo art now! In my opinion, the quintessential Rococo piece of art is Jean-Honoré Fragonard‘s The Swing. It has been replicated in film and TV for decades. Below you can see a still shot from the movie Frozen when Anna jumps and matches the pose of the aristocratic woman featured in the famous painting.
It clearly resonates with the human psyche. It is a truly intriguing and exceptionally beautiful work of art. The dark green oak leaves frame, cradle, and complement the brilliant, gravity-defying pink at the center. Although Fragonard’s piece is the most familiar, there was a more well-known pioneer artist of the Rococo era named Jean-Antoine Watteau. When you think of Rococo art, you should remember those two names.
Common features of Rococo art include:
Overgrown, flowering gardens as the setting
Aristocracy as the subject
Frivolous affairs and love as the topic
Soft pastel colors as the aesthetic
This art was primarily made for and consumed by the aristocracy. These people living lives of luxury wanted to visualize themselves in their art. Art displaying serious matters like war, death, or poverty rarely became popular.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Swing (also known as The Happy Accidents of the Swing), 1767.
Fragonard’s piece displays a woman in a pale pink taffeta gown gayly swinging while her partner pushes and pulls the ropes of her swing from behind. We will call her partner man #1. It seems innocent enough until you look closer and realize there is another man hiding beneath the woman. We will call him man #2. He is laying in such a way to shield himself from the view of man #1. There is some sort of affair happening between the woman and man #2 while man #1 ignorantly swings the woman. The angelic sculptures watch the whole affair unfold. One of the cherubs even has its finger pressed to its lips in a “shhh” manner as if they must be careful in order to keep the secret. There is no sense of right and wrong here—no sign of shame or imminent punishment.
While I have always thought Rococo art was visually beautiful, I felt it has a hidden viciousness to it. The blatant extravagance while so many French people were struggling was not totally blind ignorance as much as it was a sober choice. This group of people making up under 2% of the population of France had exerted so much power over the rest of France. If you are familiar with The Hunger Games, it is similar to how the people of The Capitol lived their lives versus the lifestyle in the Districts.
This line of thinking is precisely what led to the total rejection of Rococo art once France entered the revolutionary era in the late 1780s. Just to be clear, I am not dissing the work of Fragonard and Watteau. They were, after all, attempting to make a living from creating art that would sell and the work is exceptional. I am also not saying that all aristocracy was evil. I believe there were probably some who were so out of touch with reality that they had no idea what was really going on in most French communities. In fact, Louis XIV crafted the grand Versailles estate 12 miles outside of Paris with the partial intention of hosting so many elaborate balls and events that the aristocracy would party themselves into oblivion. Then, Louis XIV could exert more unencumbered control over the territory of France (without dukes and duchesses to butt heads with).
Rococo art usually had no deep or profound messages. As mentioned above though, it depicted cheating and the fleeting passions of the heart. There was nothing moralistic about it and it simply displayed to the aristocracy their own reflection, like a mirror. Once the revolution grasped France, the aristocracy and Rococo art were revolting to the revolutionaries like Jacques-Louis David. The disgust was so high that the Rococo art style was effectively banned in revolutionary France.
Viewing Rococo art now is to view a bygone era that will never truly exist again. However, I do think one could make some parallels to the lifestyle of the rich today. Particularly, a connection could be made to the those celebrities who put their lives on display, with the biggest problems they face on the daily being something along of the lines of not being invited to an exclusive party.
Despite those parallels, there is a takeaway for anyone looking at Rococo art. It reveals to us our blind spots, the human willingness to ignore that which is difficult. We all do it from time to time with our various forms of escapism. Maybe that is how we should appreciate this art style today—an epic visualization of escapism.
