Rococo and Neoclassicism are terms used to describe the visual and plastic arts and architecture in Europe from the late 17th to the late 18th centuries.

In France, the death of Louis XIV lead to a period of licentious freedom commonly called the Régence. The heir to Louis XIV, his great grandson Louis XV of France, was only 5 years old; for the next seven years France was ruled by the regent Philippe II of Orléans. Versailles was abandoned from 1715 to 1722. Painting turned toward "fêtes galantes", theater settings and the female nude. Painters from this period include Antoine Watteau, Nicolas Lancret and François Boucher. Louis XIV (Louis-Dieudonné) (September 5, 1638 – September 1, 1715) reigned as King of France and King of Navarre from May 14, 1643 until his death. ... Régence is the French word for (and root of the English word) regency (see that article). ... Louis XV (February 15, 1710 – May 10, 1774), called the Well-Beloved (French: le Bien-Aimé), was King of France from 1715 to 1774. ... Philippe of Orléans Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Philippe Charles (August 2, 1674 - December 2, 1723) called Duke of Chartres (1674-1701), and then Duke of Orléans (1701-1723) was Regent of France from 1715 to 1723. ... Jean-Antoine Watteau (October 10, 1684 _ July 18, 1721) was a French painter. ... Nicolas Lancret (January 22, 1690 - September 14, 1743), French painter, was born in Paris, and became a brilliant depicter of light comedy which reflected the tastes and manners of French society under the regent Orleans. ... Rinaldo and Armida gained Bouchers admission to the Académie royale François Boucher (1703 in Bordeaux – May 30, 1770) was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, and several...

The Louis XV style of decoration (although already apparent at the end of the last reign) was lighter: pastels and wood panels, smaller rooms, less gilding and fewer brocades; shells and garlands and occasional Chinese subjects predominated. Rooms were more intimate. After the return to Versailles, many of the baroque rooms of Louis XIV were redesigned. The official etiquette was also simplified and the notion of privacy was expanded: the king himself retreated from the official bed at night and conversed in private with his mistress.

The latter half of the 18th century continued to see French preeminence in Europe, particularly through the arts and sciences, and the French language was the lingua franca of the European courts. The French academic system continued to produce artists, but some, like Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin, explored new and increasingly impressionist styles of painting with thick brushwork. Although the hierarchy of genres continued to be respected officially, genre painting, landscape, portrait and still life were extremely fashionable. French (français, langue française) is one of the most important Romance languages, outnumbered in speakers only by Spanish and Portuguese. ... The Bathers, 1765 Jean-Honoré Fragonard (April 5, 1732 – August 22, 1806) was a French painter. ... Self portrait. ... Genre painting, also called genre scene or petit genre, attempts to depict aspects of everyday life, via portraits of ordinary people engaged in common activities. ... The Harvesters, by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, 1565: Peace and agriculture in a pre-Romantic ideal landscape, without sublime terrors The word landscape as most westerners use it is completely entrenched in western notions of land, nature and art. ... Self-portrait by Vincent Van Gogh A portrait is a painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a person. ... A still life is a work of art which represents a subject composed of inanimate objects. ...

The writer Denis Diderot wrote a number of times on the annual Salons of the Académie of painting and sculpture and his comments and criticisms are a vital document on the arts of this period. Portrait of Diderot by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1767 Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) was a French philosopher and writer. ... Honoré Daumier satirized the bourgeoises scandalized by the Salons Venuses, 1864 The Paris Salon (French: Salon de Paris) is the official art exhibit of the Académie des beaux-arts in Paris, France. ...

One of Diderot's favorite painters was Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Although often considered kitsch by today's standards, his paintings of domestic scenes reveal the importance of Sentimentalism in the European arts of the period (as also seen in the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Samuel Richardson.) Jean-Baptiste Greuze (August 21, 1725 - March 4, 1805), French painter, was born at Tournus, in Burgundy. ... Art in questionable taste is sometimes referred to as kitsch. ... Sentimentalism, sometimes known as sensibility (or the cult of sensibility), was a fashion in both poetry and fiction beginning in the eighteenth century. ... Jean Jacques Rousseau (June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778) was a Franco-Swiss philosopher, writer, political theorist, and self-taught composer of The Age of Enlightenment. ... Samuel Richardson (August 19, 1689 – July 4, 1761) was a major eighteenth-century writer best known for his three epistolary novels: Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and Sir Charles Grandison (1753). ...

One also finds in this period a kind of Pre-romanticism. Hubert Robert's images of ruins, inspired by Italian cappricio paintings, are typical in this respect. So too the change from the rational and geometrical French garden (of André Le Nôtre) to the English garden, which emphasized (artificially) wild and irrational nature. One also finds in some of these gardens curious ruins of temples called "follies". Hubert Robert by Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun. ... Painting of André Le Nôtre by Carlo Maratti André Le Nôtre (March 12, 1613 - September 15, 1700) was a landscape architect and the gardener of king Louis XIV of France from 1645 to 1700. ...

The middle of the 18th century saw a turn to Neoclassicism in France, that is to say a conscious use of Greek and Roman forms and iconography. In painting, the greatest representative of this style is Jacques Louis David who, mirroring the profiles of Greek vases, emphasized the use of the profile; his subject matter often involved classical history (the death of Socrates, Brutus). The dignity and subject matter of his paintings were greatly inspired by Nicolas Poussin in the 17th century. For information about the economic theory, see neoclassical economics. ... Self portrait Jacques-Louis David (August 30, 1748 - December 29, 1825), most usually known as David (pronounced Dah-veed rather than Day-vid), was a French painter. ... Et in Arcadia ego by Nicolas Poussin. ...

The Louis XVI style of furniture (once again already present in the previous reign) tended toward circles and ovals in chair backs; chair legs were grooved; Greek inspired iconography was used as decoration.

The French neoclassical style would greatly contribute to the monumentalism of the French revolution, as typified in the structures La Madeleine church (begun in 1763 and finished in1840) which is in the form of a Greek temple and the mammouth Panthéon (1764-1812) which today houses the tombs of great Frenchmen. The rationalism and simplicity of classical architecture was seen — in the age of Enlightenment — as the antithesis of the backward-looking Gothic. During the French Revolution (1789–1799) democracy and republicanism overthrew the absolute monarchy in France, and the French portion of the Roman Catholic Church was forced to undergo radical restructuring. ... Église de la Madeleine, Paris Léglise de la Madeleine, or Léglise Sainte-Marie-Madeleine (or simply La Madeleine), is a church in the 8th arrondissement of Paris that was designed as a temple to the glory of Napoleons army. ... The Greeks began to build monumental temples in the first half of the eighth century BC. The temples of Hera at Samos and of Poseidon at Isthmia were among the first erected. ... The Panthéon The Panthéon is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris, France. ... For the concept in mysticism, philosophy and psychology, see Enlightenment (concept) For the Hindu religious concept of enlightenment, see moksha For the Buddhist religious concept, see Bodhi, Satori For the Yoga concept of enlightenment, see Yogic Enlightenment For the period in European history, The Age of Enlightenment For the corresponding... The Western (Royal) Portal at Chartres Cathedral ( 1145). ...

The Greek and Roman subject matters were also often chosen to promote the values of republicanism. One also finds paintings glorifying the heroes and martyrs of the French revolution, such as David's painting of the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat. Jean-Paul Marat Jean-Paul Marat (May 24, 1743 – July 13, 1793), was a Swiss-born scientist and physician, who made much of his career in England, but is best known as a French Revolutionary. ...

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, a student of David's who was also influenced by Raphael and John Flaxman, would maintain the precision of David's style, while also exploring other mythological (Oedipus and the sphynx, Jupiter and Thetis) and oriental (the Odalesques) subjects in the spirit of Romanticism. Self-portrait at age 24, 1804 Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (August 29, 1780 – January 14, 1867) was a French painter. ... Self-portrait by Raphael. ... John Flaxman (July 6, 1755 - December 7, 1826), was an English sculptor and draughtsman. ... Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement in the history of ideas that originated in late 18th century Western Europe. ...

Reference works

• André Chastel. French Art Vol III: The Ancient Régime ISBN 2080136178