Rococo and Neo-Classical Two Styles Became Very

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 decked out with intricately scrolled metal works, porcelain figures, frills and laces, and exquisitely designed furniture. The other was the Neoclassical style. This was inspired by ancient art and architecture of Western Culture, such as the Greeks and Romans. Whereas many of the period thought of Neoclassism as the anti-Rococo, they both took inspiration from ancient styles.

Examples of Rococo-style architecture include the Queluz National Palace in Portugal, one of the last Rococo-style buildings to be constructed in Europe. These buildings, like everything else of the style were asymmetric. They were curving structures, heavily furnished and stylistically colored. Simply put, they were beautiful. Neoclassical buildings included the Royal Scottish Academy in Edinburgh and the Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

By the 1730s, Rococo had gone beyond being an architecture style or a furniture style. It permeated into art and sculpture as well. Noel Riley (1989) discusses how famous artists Antoine Watteau and Francois Boucher embraced this aesthetic in their artwork. These paintings often featured pastoral scenes with full-bodied men and women enjoying life. There were few straight lines, instead everything was fluid and in motion. To this end, many of the paintings show a certain impishness or impropriety in the actions of their subjects, a reaction to the complete change from Baroque and church-inspired lifestyle of the previous era. One such work, Francois Boucher's Marie- Louise O'Murphy (1752) depicts a woman completely unclothed lying on her stomach on a chaise lounge. It is an intimate painting. The blonde woman is awake but disheveled. There is a flower on the ground and the bedding is rumpled. It is evident that those viewing the painting are meant to have walked into a moment that no one but the woman's husband should have seen, not only because she is nude but because she is vulnerable.

Artists working in the neoclassical style usually focused on landscapes, like the Rococo painters, but their work was more interested in the buildings and the greenery around them, not the people. When people were the subject of the paintings, they were historical works featuring stories from Ancient Greek and Roman mythology. Perhaps the most famous of neoclassical artists was Jacques-Louis David. Many of his works centered on these old stories including his Oath of the Horatii which features human characters illustrated in the vein of ancient pottery and sculpture.