What is rococo?
Rococo is the architectural and decorative style of roughly 1720 to 1770, which emerged in France as a lighter, more playful and asymmetrical reaction against the heavy, solemn Baroque. The name derives from rocaille, the shell-and-rock motif that is the style’s principal ornament. In France it is also called the Louis XV style.
Characteristics
- Asymmetry — the defining feature. Ornaments are deliberately not mirrored.
- Lightness — pastel tones, white and gold, many mirrors and large windows; interiors are meant to feel bright and airy.
- Flowing scrolls — C- and S-forms, tendrils, foliage and shell shapes running into one another.
- Dissolved boundaries — the junction of wall and ceiling is softened with a deep cove, and ornament runs from one surface onto the next.
- Small scale — the style flourishes in interiors, salons, church interiors and garden pavilions rather than on monumental street facades.
Rococo in surviving buildings
In practice rococo is rarely a complete architectural style; it is mostly a layer of decoration. You find it in:
- Plaster ceilings and chimney overmantels of eighteenth-century town and merchant houses.
- Carving on doors, fanlights, stair balustrades and panelling.
- Facade crestings, window hoods and surrounds to entrance doorways.
- Wrought iron gates and fanlight grilles.
The facades themselves usually stayed restrained and symmetrical; the exuberance sits in the detail. Around 1770 the stricter neoclassicism took over, and in the nineteenth century a neo-rococo revival followed, often heavier and machine-made.
Rococo or Baroque?
The difference is easy to see in practice. Baroque is symmetrical, heavy, sculptural and theatrical, with strong profiles and deep shadow. Rococo is asymmetrical, light in colour, fine in scale and shallow in relief. If the left and right sides of an ornament clearly differ, you are almost certainly looking at rococo.
| Baroque | Symmetrical, heavy, sculptural and theatrical, with strong profiles and deep shadow |
|---|---|
| Rococo | Asymmetrical, light in colour, fine in scale and shallow in relief |
Related terms
- Rocaille
- Baroque
- Classicism
- Ornament
- Plaster coat
- Cartouche
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