Who were the Rococo painters?

Interesting workshop at the National Gallery looking at the Rococo artists and trying to define what the Rococo style was.

The talk was given by Jacqui Astell, who is also an expert on the history of costume, so the talk was particularly interesting on the clothes and textiles in the pictures. We started by looking in detail at “Psyche showing her sisters her gifts from Cupid” by Fragonard and talked about all the different attributions it had had over the years and the different subjects it had been thought to show. We also talked about the style of the picture and what made it Rococo.

After coffee we looked in detail at Madame de Pompadour and how she not only epitomised Rococo style but also encouraged and commissioned it.

I still don’t warm to this era but I do now feel I understand it better.

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