Rococo (rə’koʊkoʊ), or “Late Baroque”, is an 18th-century artistic movement and visual art style, which affected several aspects of the arts including painting, sculpture, architecture, interior design, and decoration art. The Rococo developed in the early part of the 18th century in Paris, France as a reaction against the grandeur, symmetry and strict regulations of the Baroque, especially that of the Palace of Versailles. In such a way, Rococo artists opted for a more jocular, florid and graceful approach to Baroque art and architecture. Rococo art and architecture in such a way was ornate and made strong usage of creamy, pastel-like colors, asymmetrical designs, curves and gold. Unlike the more politically focused Baroque, the Rococo had more playful and often witty artistic themes.

The Most Influential Painters of the Rococo Movement:

François Boucher was a French painter and a proponent of the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories, and pastoral scenes. He was perhaps the most celebrated decorative artist of the 18th century.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific artists active in the last decades of the Ancien Régime, Fragonard produced more than 550 paintings

William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic, and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. William Hogarth offered a unique version of Rococo. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called “modern moral subjects”.

Adélaïde Labille-Guiard – French Neoclassical Painter

Giambattista Tiepolo was an Italian painter and printmaker. He was prolific, and worked not only in Italy, but also in Germany and Spain. Successful from the beginning of his career, he has been described as “the greatest decorative painter of eighteenth-century Europe, as well as its most able craftsman. Giambattista Tiepolo made Venice a major center for Rococo; he significantly contributed to the spread of the style by his work in Central Europe.

Jeane Antoine Watteau was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in color and movement (in the tradition of Correggio and Rubens). He revitalized the waning Baroque style, and indeed moved it to the less severe, more naturalistic, less formally classical Rococo.

Baroque vs Rococo in Architecture and Design

The difference between baroque and rococo art is slim. They both cover the same things like landscapes, religions and so on. The only difference might be their periods.