You may recall that in one of my films on The Baroque, I stated that the word Baroque comes from the Portuguese word; barroco, meaning misshapen pearl.
Many art movements take their name from a derisive term given to it by critics. The word Rococo is derived from the French word rocaille, which denoted the shell covered rock work that was used to decorate artificial grottoes.
Ah, The Rococo where the landed gentry thought of little more than sex, drugs, and Wolfgang Amedeus Mozart.
But Claude Gillot (1673- 1722) shows us 18th century Venetian road rage in his Cabmen’s Dispute.
The man who taught Watteau turns to The Commedia dell’arte in Scenes from the Comedy Le tombeau de Maitre Andre.
Nicolas de Largilliere (1656-1746) shows us the opposite of fisty cuffs in Studies Of Hands.
Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743) and his picture of Innocence. Charles-Andre Van Loo’s (1705-1765) Rest On The Hunt. Charles-Joseph Natoire’s (1700-1777 ) The Triumph Of Bacchus, Greek God Of Wine. Jean Raoux’s (1677-1734) Large Table Figuring Calypso And Telemachus. Anne Vallayer Coster’s (1744-1818) Still Life with Seashells and Coral. She was one of only four women accepted into the Académie before the French Revolution.
I can’t identify this painting. But I bet Fragonard could. Nicolas Lancret takes a cue from Watteau in his Commedia dell’arte Players.
And we come to Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805) Frances’ greatest genre scenes painter. In his The Punished Son, he presents a tableau that reinterprets the final scene of the prodigal son parable. Having gone off to war despite the pleadings of his family, the ragged and limping son returns, too late to be forgiven by his father before the latter’s death.
Betrothal In The Village shows a young man holding a bag of dowry money. The older sister behind the father looks on in skepticism or jealousy. Look around. There are five more sisters to marry off.
Greuze’s The Father’s Curse may be a precursor to The Punished Son. Greuze’s The Milkmaid.
The French found their Panini in Hubert Robert (1733-1808). He worked for a time in the studio of Panini, whose influence can be seen in all of his paintings. This is his The Pont du Gard.
His Maison Carrée. Jefferson’s design for Virginia’s capitol was inspired by this Roman temple built around A.D. 1–10 in what is today Nîmes, France—a building he considered “the most precious morsel of architecture left us by antiquity.” Somehow a Fragonard slipped in here: Coresus Sacrificing Himself to Save Callirhoe.
Let’s remember that travel and travel paintings were a huge part of The Rococo.