FOR 1-21

ROCOCO PRINTS ON VIEW AT WORCESTER w/1 cut emailed

ewm/lsb set 1-13 #615571

WORCESTER, MASS. — Ornamental images combined with craftsmanship are the focus of a new Worcester Art Museum exhibition, “Rococo: French Eighteenth Century Prints,” on view through March 20.

The museum draws from its print collection to exhibit examples of the rococo style by leading artists of the time including Boucher, Jean Honoré Fragonard and Jean-Antoine Watteau.

The rococo period, which corresponded roughly with the reign of Louis XV, was the acme of intaglio printmaking technology, when artisans combined etching, engraving, aquatint and mezzotint in lavish color prints.

Arabesque lines characterize the style, along with asymmetrical, shell-like shapes that became progressively more delicate. Rococo takes its name from rocaille, meaning rock or shell-grotto, and baroco, the Italian for Baroque.

The rich colors favored by Charles Le Brun’s Academy in Louis XVI’s reign were eventually replaced by soft, pastel hues. Artists like Watteau painted fanciful, courtly subjects with curvaceous delicacy, replacing the preceding reign’s weighty symbols of power.

When the Marquise de Pompadour became Louis XVs mistress in 1745, her taste for the rococo set the fashion. As administrator of the royal residences, her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, favored rococo artists like Boucher and Fragonard. There was great demand for printed replicas of famous images by these versatile artists, who worked as printmakers themselves.

To engage the buying public, other artisans perfected color intaglio techniques to replicate the look of a colored chalk, pastel or watercolor drawing. This visual and technical refinement ran parallel to developments in science and philosophy.

Voltaire’s appointment as royal historiographer in 1745 marked the widespread interest in thought and inquiry that characterized the Age of Enlightenment. The monarchy eroded in the reign of King Louis XVI. In 1789, the French Revolution replaced the finesse of the rococo with classical revival. In the last years of the century, the triumphs of Napoleon’s empire were reflected in neoclassical images by artists who once worked in the rococo style.

Hours are Wednesday–Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm; Thursday, 11 am to 8 pm; and Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm. Admission is $8. For information, www.worcesterart.org or 508-799-4406.