Rococo

Rococo

Rococo is an ornate design style popular in the 18th Century characterised by curved forms and imaginative embellishment.

Rococo originated in Paris in the early 18th century and quickly spread throughout France, Germany, Austria and beyond – influencing interior design, decorative arts, painting, architecture and sculpture.

This style is characterised by its emphasis on lightness, elegance and the exuberant use of curving natural forms in ornamentation. The term 'Rococo' is derived from the French word 'rocaille' which referred to shell-covered rock work used to adorn artificial grottoes.

Initially, Rococo emerged as a reaction against the weighty design of Louis XIV's Palace of Versailles and the official Baroque art of his reign. Interior designers, painters, and engravers like Pierre Le Pautre, J.-A. Meissonier, Jean Berain and Nicolas Pineau pioneered a lighter and more intimate style of decoration for the new residences of nobles in Paris.


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Parra's studio, with Parra at the centre, his back to the camera as he works on the large painting takes centre stage, showing a faceless blue woman in a striped dress, painted in red, purple, blue and teal. The studio is full of brightly coloured paints, with a large window on the right and a patterned rug across the floor under the painting.