Rococo Style

The rococo style became exceptionally fashionable in the early eighteenth-century court world following the reign of Louis XIV. Rococo comes from the French word rocaille, which refers to rock and shell garden ornamentation. Rococo art, an evolution of the baroque style, pays significant attention to the sensual curves and soft-hued colors of garden-like elements inspired by flowers, vines, and shells. The bourgeoisie in the eighteenth-century increasingly favored these more delicate patterns of the rococo fashion over the dense subjects of religious and historical decorative art. Although the style began as a home decorating trend, rococo elements soon inspired painting composition. Mythological, fantasy-like scenes as well as aristocrats enjoying pleasures of everyday life frequented rococo paintings.1 Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), often regarded as one of the most interesting and inspiring of rococo artists, characteristically featured members of high society, dressed in beautiful clothes, in leisurely lighthearted scenes among luxurious vegetative landscapes. Watteau’s “Embarkation for Cythera” blends the vital components of rococo technique into a serene, picturesque visual of eighteenth-century bourgeoisie Utopia. Watteau’s island in “Embarkation for Cythera” is inspired by a small island of the Ionian Islands, legendarily known as the origin for the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite. Watteau uses a head on angle to draw his audience’s attention to the main subjects of the painting.2 Three couples are absorbed in private interaction, positioned next to a statue of a naked goddess adorned with bright flowers. It was typical for a rococo painting to be faintly erotic, which demonstrates the rococo style’s movement away from the church and state assimilation of baroque art.3 The couples, presumably aristocratic, are dressed in bright, attractive clothing that stand out dramatically against the lush natural background. The couple painted closest to the goddess