Thursday, December 4, 2008

You GO Rococo!

Let's Talk about Rococococo.

23 comments:

Ehren said...

As gaudy as some of it was, I still think it took a lot of meticulousness and attention to detail. For example,I thought all of the shades of green and complex foliage in The Swing was very impressive albeit a little garish.

Mr. Plainview said...

I think the cherubs are really annoying. For example, in The Toilet of Venus, they're just overwhelming. There are three of them; four if you include the one carved into the furniture. The one pulling his hands through the hair of Venus has demented eyes. The one to his right stares dumbly at the bird. On the far left, a cherub leans over and digs through the jewelry. I can understand a single image of Cupid, but Rococo cherubs just seem excessive.

Caroline said...

...I hated the Rococo architecture, and I thought the Toilet of Venus was really obnoxious and overwhelming to look at with all the cherubs and "stuff" in general. However, I thought the swing painting was alright.

Mr. Plainview said...

Yes, I liked Fragonard's swing painting. If you look closely, though, the lover in the bushes is not pointing between the woman's legs; he is holding a hat. He does, however, still seem to be peering in that direction.

Anonymous said...

I agree that the attention to detail that was lost in much of the medieval art is interesting and shows the progression in the artists' techniques that have developed over the years. The variety of colors also is a contrast to the typical chiaroscuro of the time.

jp said...

I see lots of angels or angelic cherub-like creatures in many Rococo pieces. But it seems to me that these figures have lost the religious connotation and now serve as nothing more but another overdone decorative aspect of Rococo.

It seems to me that this could be a case of artists imitating the styles of past eras of art, while completely missing the (in this case religious) symbolism behind them?

If so, that's pretty weak. Rococo = posers.

Ehren said...

I just noticed that in The Swing the artist manages to incorporate three incongruous cherubs. All of them are carved. 2 are on the right of the woman, and one is one the left of the painting.

tmichals said...

Yeah, I definitely agree that the attention to detail is innovative and impressive for the time period. However, I think that it overwhelms the painting to the point where the original subject matters gets forgotten. When looking at rococo art, my eye does not focus on the subject, but instead on the cherubs and random details around the painting. It is far too cluttered, especially in the Toilet of Venus.

El Paco said...

I don't have a problem with any of the paintings we've seen. I mean, I don't really see a problem with making a painting lavish with detail. The architecture is a little much, but I like the paintings

Anonymous said...

i really like the rococo style in some instances. i didn't really like the rococo paintings we studied, but i liked the rococo murals in the buildings.

Mr. Plainview said...

The backgrounds in Rococo pieces don't seem very realistic. In the Toilet of Venus, for example, The tree and the sky appear to be even with each other. There is very little depth.

Anonymous said...

I agree with brandon, the foliage looks like clouds and not something bound to the earth. I think that rococo was a drastic turn from the realistic to the fantastic.

El Paco said...

I like their fantastical (fantasy-like, fantacactical, fantasyish...I'm really not sure what the adjective form of fantasy is) backgrounds. Super-realistic paintings are nice, but I see enough of the real world every day.

Anonymous said...

I agree with andrew, the foliage in the swing and even in garden of love are much more interesting than the lacking ones of ego arcadia.

Anonymous said...

The swing painting that we studies seemed to represent a great transition in the depiction of landscape. There seems to be a much greater emphasis to detail in the foliage of the tree and the landscape of the ground sufrace. There is also the unique depiction of interior space that began to take place during the Rococo period. This interior space leads way to the depiction of more ordinary figures rather than biblical ones.

Anonymous said...

While I like the swing for its foliage and soft focus, the rococo interiors were just gaudy. everything was colored so brightly that i suspect if you stayed in one of those rooms for more than an hour you would lose touch with reality and go mad.

Anonymous said...

i agree with brandon's comment about the backgrounds not being realistic. i think that they are more annoying than anything else. i think that their depictions are even more frivolous and extravagant than the human figures of the paintings.

Anonymous said...

I think the rococo gets a bad name, because it was really not all that bad. the "lady on the swing" was aq very detailed and nice piece of artwork but it still receives hate for being rococo. I must say some of it is overdone though!

Anonymous said...

The Roco interiors did seem very busy but that also makes them disticnt and different from anything else we have studied. It almost seems like an extreme version of Michelangelo's sisteen chapel paintings in that it covers the entire ceiling. The design, however, would not conform with the classical ideal of living or in this sense painting within the extremes.

joel derby said...

I agree with Nick. His LAdy on a swing was very nice, and I would not have thought it was Rococo, proven by the fact that I got it completely wrong on the test. It just seemed more detailed. The cielings on the other hand were a bit too much for me to stomach. they were too busy and gave me quite the headache.

Mr. Plainview said...

I definitely agree the painting of the swing is much more pleasing to look at than the other Rococo paintings. It's not so busy that it's overwhelming. There are no gaudy, elaborate columns, and the cherubs are subtle.

El Paco said...

I think what I like about Rococo paintings is that every little aspect of the painting is just a detailed as the subject. It's the painting itself that amazes me - and if the complementary cherubs and columns are only there to show off the painter's talent, I'm totally okay with that. If you can do it, why not show it off?

Manal said...

I didn't mind the Rococo style. Sure there was a lot of detail, but as Andrew said the artists were just showing their talent. The Toilet of Venus's interior space, I thought was interesting because it seemed more personal and like a possible room of a "Venus". All the details in the paintings kept them different even though some things were repeated like the cherubs. Alot of more concentration and hardwork was paid to their creations even if they did get carried away.