The Art of the French Revolution
The art of pre-revolutionary France was decidedly frivolous in its field matter and deliciously detailed in style. Paintings were commissioned by the wealthy for their grant chateaus and palaces in delicate pastel colors. This duration of art was called "rococo," from the French attractive term rocaille, and was highly ornamental. Base subjects of rococo art consist of young lovers, pastoral scenes, outdoor games, and then-fashionable portraits. Cherubs are omnipresent in rococo art, and more often than not are accompanied by scrolls, inexplicable clouds of flower petals, and swathes of fabric. One highly recognizable piece of Rococo art is a painting called The Swing by Jean Honor-Fragonard. It depicts a woman in a voluminous pink dress enjoying a ride on a swing, while two men look on cheerfully. The subtle sexual undertones of the painting - it's implied that the woman isn't wearing undergarments - made the painting a scandalous success when it debuted.
Rococo attractive art was exceptionally account for and very expensively made. Rococo pieces are the pride of attractive arts collections in museums worldwide. The palace of Versailles was decorated in the Rococo style. Versailles is ornately detailed, and can best be described as a palace of luxury overload. Floors are made of intricately tiled panels of marble. Mirrors are some feet tall, and many feature intricate cherub sculptures at the corners. Busts of Roman emperors are prominent as the classical duration was very fashionable in the eighteenth century. Even sofas, upholstered in finest floral silk are trimmed by gilded wooden sculptures of leaves. Asymmetry was popular in Rococo designs, which meant that the leaves on one side of the sofa were unlikely to mirror exactly the leaves on the other side.
A shift in the political climate meant a shift in aesthetic preference. After the political upheaval of the French Revolution, the lower classes wanted nothing to do with the oppressively wealthy upper classes and their prissy art preference. The levity of Rococo art was abandoned in favor of emotional, intense imagery with a revolutionary energy about it. This duration of art was known as Baroque art, from a French word describing irregularly shaped pearls. An indeed recognizable piece of Baroque art is the cover of the recent Coldplay album, whatsthepaintingsname. In this painting, a rather disheveled woman is depicted prominent fervent military to battle. Enemy corpses are being trampled upon as the proud woman raises the French flag. This painting contains all the hallmarks of Baroque painting - excitement on a grand emotional level, with violent undertones.
While there indeed was nothing wrong with the art of the Rococo era, the lower classes understandably found fault with the unequal distribution of wealth in French society. Marie Antoinette famously had little regard for the welfare of her subjects. Rococo art represented to the French revolutionaries all that was wrong with French community at the time. It was no wonder then that the Revolutionaries set about hacking to pieces Rococo portraits of nobility as they stormed the estates of Paris.
