Rococo

Rococo. C18 decorative style (some (e.g. Pevsner) have denied it as a style at all, but others (e.g. Kimball, Sedlmayr, and Bauer) had no such doubts) originating in France, and coinciding with the Régence and Louis Quinze periods, that rapidly spread throughout Europe. It was elegant and frothy, deriving from Auricular, Rocaille, and Baroque themes, drawing on the marine and shell motifs found in grottoes, and incorporating ogee and C-scrolls, asymmetrically disposed around frames, cartouches, etc., like a mixture of coral, seaweed, and stylized foliage. Colours were light and pale, often incorporating gold and silver, while the exotic was never far away, for Rococo designs included aspects of Chinoiserie, Gothick, and even, in its late phase, Hindoo decorations. Rococo decorations included bandwork, diaper-patterns, espagnolettes, scallop-shells, and scroll-work, incorporated in schemes of decoration of unsurpassed grace and beauty, perhaps achieving their greatest heights in France and Southern Germany. In Southern Bavaria and Franconia Rococo reached its finest expression with the interiors of the Amalienburg, Schloss Nymphenburg, Munich, by Cuvilliés and Zimmermann, and the Pilgrimage Church of Vierzehnheiligen (Fourteen Saints), Franconia, the building of which was by Neumann, who had nothing at all to do with the marvellous Rococo decorations (stucco-work and statuary by Johann Michael Feichtmayr (1696–1772), much influenced by his associate, Johann Georg Üblhör (1703–63—who died after the contract was signed, but before the actual work on site commenced), frescoes by Giuseppe Appiani (c.1701–85/6), central altar-shrine with baldacchino (Gnadenaltar) designed by Johann Jakob Michael Küchel (1703–69—who took over the construction of the building itself from 1745) and made by Feichtmayr). Rococo enjoyed a revival in France during C19, while in America, Britain, and Germany aspects of Rococo re-emerged from the 1820s to the 1860s, and in the late 1880s and 1890s there was another revival which was transmogrified into a synthesis of design in Art Nouveau.

Bibliography

B l (1973);
Chilvers, Osborne, & Farr (eds.) (1988);
Hitchcock (1968a);
Kimball (1980);
Lewis & Darley (1986);
Loers (1976);
M&E (1999);
C. Powell (1959);
Jane Turner (1996);
Zürchner (1977)