Rococo and Neo-Classical Two styles became very popular in Europe during the 1700s. One, the Rococo style was characterized by fluidity, asymmetry, and the extremely ornate. This style would come to dominate France during the period and stretch out across Europe and into Russia. Rococo has come to mean "busy" in the modern vernacular and seem a criticism but at the time, this was just what fashionable people wanted. Homes were

This painting shows the philosopher, unjustly condemned to die for his beliefs by the government, as a kind of pagan saint, statue-like and stoic in his beliefs and powerful and noble in the dark, stark anatomical shadings of the work. David's Death of Marat (1793) shows the French Revolutionary hero as a kind of political saint. One interesting contrast between the rococo and the neoclassical is the period's differing depictions

The most famous genre painting by David is undoubtedly the Death of Marat (1793) which depicts French radical Jean-Paul Marat slumped over in his bathtub while holding a letter which he obviously was writing just before being killed by Charlotte Corday. The overall narrative of this painting -- the knife/murder weapon lying on the floor, the entry wound just above Marat's heart, his right arm draped over the edge of

Baroque vs. Rococo The Baroque style in art dates its earliest manifestations to the later years of the 16th century, when the Catholic Church launched the Counter-Reformation. Faced with the growing wave of simple, unsophisticated art style promoted by Protestantism and the Reform, the Catholic Church opposed an opulent style, full of richness and grandeur. In architecture, for example, the constructions dating from the Baroque period are richly decorated, statues, sculptures,

This structure contains a colonnaded dome, a Neoclassical version like that found at St. Peter's in Rome. However, although the entire building, both inside and out, reflects the Roman style, it is essentially Gothic. Another example is the Virginia State House in Richmond, designed by Thomas Jefferson (1743 to 1826) which resembles a Roman temple and is based on Jefferson's "admiration for the pure beauty of antiquity and as

In Spain, the work of Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez expressed the style of baroque art in works of oil on canvas painted by Velazquez during the period. Vermeer and Velazquez are associated with what is described as "third phase," in baroque, also referred to as the "classicistic phase." The work of Velazquez is of interest when considering the feminist perspective, because it is his work where we find