Rococo and my new body of work

Being away from Brazil for over 16 years now, when looking at my recent body of work I was surprised when I realized that there were a lot of similarities between the brushstrokes, the curves, the movement recurrent in my paintings and the movement and curves one finds in the ornaments in the Baroque churches I grew up visiting, in my home state – Minas Gerais. The finding of gold in the end of the XVII century created a very affluent urban culture in this part of Brazil, and impressive churches were built there then. The Baroque in this place has very peculiar characteristics and was thought to be a very particular manifestation of this style.

I was kind of hesitating to see Baroque in the paintings though, because the general feeling of the paintings does not match the one of the style. The paintings feel pleasant and enticing.

Baroque is known to be an “artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur…”. The word baroque derives from the Portuguese and Spanish words for a large, irregularly-shaped pearl. Eighteenth-century critics were the first to apply the term to the art of the 17th century and it was not a term of praise, it was first used derogatively. To the eyes of later critics the works of Bernini, Borromini, and Pietro da Cortona appeared bizarre, absurd —in other words, misshapen, like an imperfect pearl.

The style was strongly associated with the power and authority of the Catholic Church that believed it to be useful in guiding the faithful. Art works were as important as the written and spoken word, and perhaps even more important since they were accessible to the learned and the unlearned alike. It had to be clear, persuasive, and powerful, convey the strength of the Catholic church. One had to feel the greatness of the church and the insignificance of a singular soul in face of such strength. Baroque is then, a “heavy” style, one of excesses, drama, tension.

However, reading about Baroque in the international historiography I was struck to find out that a lot that was previously known as Baroque in Europe was later on identified as Rococo.

During the Second World war the American Fiske Kimball left the US for Europe and did a thorough study of the characteristics of French churches publishing the book “The creation of the Rococo” as a result of his findings. Not even the French recognized Rococo as an independent style then, it was understood as a decorative style, known as “Louis XV”. It was only after the publishing of Kimball’s book, in the 60s, that Rococo starts being studied as an independent style for its specific characteristics in the international historiography.

Once Rococo was recognized as an independent style revisions of studies previously published started being made.

In Brazil a lot of what was identified as a kind of Baroque is actually Rococo.

The literature on religious Baroque architecture in Brazil done by the French German Bazin in 56 does not recognize the presence of Rococo there yet. Recently there has been a struggle to recognize and rename a lot of one sees in this region Rococo instead of Baroque.

That makes a lot more sense to me as I can clearly associate characteristics of my work with what I see in Rococo, its interest in pleasure, and joy.

To be continued