Covered tureen and platter designedby Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, 1734–40
The Cooper-Hewitt’s website is one of the best of any museum I’ve seen. In addition to an exhibition "microsite" and easy access to press materials, they have video from two lectures given in conjunction with the show. Now, if only they’d put more images from the exhibit on their microsite and make the catalog available as a free PDF download.
Rococo: The Continuing Curve
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
March 7 - July 6, 2008
Weirdly wonderful, garish and lovely, organic yet artificial, rococo overwhelms the senses, its curls and swirls, gilded and bejeweled, swimming with a gilded cornucopia of cherubs, flowers and dragons.
A treasure-trove of delights spread thin, “Rococo: The Continuing Curve” at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum presents a diverse array of objects charting the style’s birth and heyday in 18th Century France, its spread throughout Europe, subsequent revivals in the 19th Century and continued influence through the modern period and today.
With exquisite furnishings that are both lavish and intricate, rococo required extreme levels of craftsmanship and gobs of money. So it was only natural that the style was born of the French monarchy, flowering in the rein of Louis XV (1715-1774). Reacting against the Baroque grandeur of his great-grandfather, Sun King Louis XIV, the new Louis preferred a more private and bourgeois lifestyle, something that is mirrored in rococo’s asymmetries and nature-inspired funkiness.
His chief mistress, Madame Pompadour, took a leading role in promoting the arts, and popularized a shade of pink somewhere on the spectrum between Barbie and Pepto-Bismol. Scandalously, she was not of aristocratic lineage, and was made to learn courtly deportment, tutored by none other than Voltaire.
Another key figure was Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, the official designer to the French court. His stunning 1730s silver tureen opens the show. Ostensibly used to hold food, the object is so embellished as to be barely recognizable, a virtuoso swirl of organic forms topped with a sculptural crayfish and dead bird.
Not only is function subsumed to style in rococo, but it’s also hidden in wit and whimsy, a kind of decorative camouflage. A teacup has a trompe l’oeil butterfly handle. What looks at first like a bulging gilt treasure chest bedecked with gilt scrolls, swirls and cartouches is revealed to be a desk.
At its height, rococo was about the total experience -- not just one object, but entire rooms and buildings, creating an immersive atmosphere of attention-grabbing theatrically known as “tout ensemble” with decorative objects like brackets and caprise tables blending architecture with furnishings.
While the exhibit doesn’t attempt to recreate one of these rooms, they do have a video of the interior and exterior of Place Stanislaus in Nancy, France, one of the style’s enduring monuments.
Taking in the show, you get a sense of the domestic sphere of the time as told through an amazing (and amusing) variety of objects, some of which it’s not clear what they were used for: torchère, fire screen, coffee urn, knife box, soap box, salt dish, toilet service, tea caddy, sauceboat, collaret, card case, cane handles, candelabras, writing casket, ladle, andiron, sugar box, bed hanging, and so on.
One minor, but intriguing current in rococo references to the Near and Far East, such as in a daybed designed “à la Turque,” a Chinoiserie chest and porcelain figurines depicting coffee-drinking Turks — early instances of Orientalism that would flourish in the 19th Century.
As the 18th Century wound down and Louis XV’s popularity declined, rococo was reviled as decadent, vulgar and weak (and feminine), then supplanted by Neoclassical style even before the dissolution of the Ancien Régime with the decapitation of Louis XVI (1754-1793).
In fact, the word rococo was a 19th Century term of derision, conflating “rocaille” (shell-laden rockwork found in grottos) with the Italian “barocco,” or Baroque.
Nevertheless, the style saw at least a couple revivals, which the show explores, less successfully, in its dull second half. Furthermore, they make a rather weak case for the link between rococo and Art Nouveau and biomorphic modernism. Louis Comfort Tiffany and Charles and Ray Eames were much more directly influenced by the Far East, especially Japan, than anything from 18th Century France.
The exhibit concludes with a couple of ironic art objects (pomo-rococo, if you will) -- a kitschy gilt mirror by Jeff Koons that reflects 80s luxe narcissism -- and a tea service by Cindy Sherman that pays homage to Madame Pompadour.
Finally, perhaps more true to the spirit of rococo, is a radiator and a climbing wall by Joris Laarman done in vegetal s-curves.
A high-water mark for artistry and craft, rococo is the epitome of decorative design. This museum survey, said to be the first of its kind, offers a unique opportunity to reflect on the relation between history and style, hinting at how design evolves in a nonlinear fashion, swinging between extremes of form and function.
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
March 7 - July 6, 2008
Weirdly wonderful, garish and lovely, organic yet artificial, rococo overwhelms the senses, its curls and swirls, gilded and bejeweled, swimming with a gilded cornucopia of cherubs, flowers and dragons.
A treasure-trove of delights spread thin, “Rococo: The Continuing Curve” at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum presents a diverse array of objects charting the style’s birth and heyday in 18th Century France, its spread throughout Europe, subsequent revivals in the 19th Century and continued influence through the modern period and today.
With exquisite furnishings that are both lavish and intricate, rococo required extreme levels of craftsmanship and gobs of money. So it was only natural that the style was born of the French monarchy, flowering in the rein of Louis XV (1715-1774). Reacting against the Baroque grandeur of his great-grandfather, Sun King Louis XIV, the new Louis preferred a more private and bourgeois lifestyle, something that is mirrored in rococo’s asymmetries and nature-inspired funkiness.
His chief mistress, Madame Pompadour, took a leading role in promoting the arts, and popularized a shade of pink somewhere on the spectrum between Barbie and Pepto-Bismol. Scandalously, she was not of aristocratic lineage, and was made to learn courtly deportment, tutored by none other than Voltaire.
Another key figure was Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, the official designer to the French court. His stunning 1730s silver tureen opens the show. Ostensibly used to hold food, the object is so embellished as to be barely recognizable, a virtuoso swirl of organic forms topped with a sculptural crayfish and dead bird.
Not only is function subsumed to style in rococo, but it’s also hidden in wit and whimsy, a kind of decorative camouflage. A teacup has a trompe l’oeil butterfly handle. What looks at first like a bulging gilt treasure chest bedecked with gilt scrolls, swirls and cartouches is revealed to be a desk.
At its height, rococo was about the total experience -- not just one object, but entire rooms and buildings, creating an immersive atmosphere of attention-grabbing theatrically known as “tout ensemble” with decorative objects like brackets and caprise tables blending architecture with furnishings.While the exhibit doesn’t attempt to recreate one of these rooms, they do have a video of the interior and exterior of Place Stanislaus in Nancy, France, one of the style’s enduring monuments.
Taking in the show, you get a sense of the domestic sphere of the time as told through an amazing (and amusing) variety of objects, some of which it’s not clear what they were used for: torchère, fire screen, coffee urn, knife box, soap box, salt dish, toilet service, tea caddy, sauceboat, collaret, card case, cane handles, candelabras, writing casket, ladle, andiron, sugar box, bed hanging, and so on.
One minor, but intriguing current in rococo references to the Near and Far East, such as in a daybed designed “à la Turque,” a Chinoiserie chest and porcelain figurines depicting coffee-drinking Turks — early instances of Orientalism that would flourish in the 19th Century.
As the 18th Century wound down and Louis XV’s popularity declined, rococo was reviled as decadent, vulgar and weak (and feminine), then supplanted by Neoclassical style even before the dissolution of the Ancien Régime with the decapitation of Louis XVI (1754-1793).
In fact, the word rococo was a 19th Century term of derision, conflating “rocaille” (shell-laden rockwork found in grottos) with the Italian “barocco,” or Baroque.
Nevertheless, the style saw at least a couple revivals, which the show explores, less successfully, in its dull second half. Furthermore, they make a rather weak case for the link between rococo and Art Nouveau and biomorphic modernism. Louis Comfort Tiffany and Charles and Ray Eames were much more directly influenced by the Far East, especially Japan, than anything from 18th Century France.
The exhibit concludes with a couple of ironic art objects (pomo-rococo, if you will) -- a kitschy gilt mirror by Jeff Koons that reflects 80s luxe narcissism -- and a tea service by Cindy Sherman that pays homage to Madame Pompadour.Finally, perhaps more true to the spirit of rococo, is a radiator and a climbing wall by Joris Laarman done in vegetal s-curves.
A high-water mark for artistry and craft, rococo is the epitome of decorative design. This museum survey, said to be the first of its kind, offers a unique opportunity to reflect on the relation between history and style, hinting at how design evolves in a nonlinear fashion, swinging between extremes of form and function.
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