Rococo, less commonly Roccoco (/rəˈkoʊkoʊ/ rə-KOH-koh, US also /ˌroʊkəˈkoʊ/ ROH-kə-KOH; French: [ʁɔkɔko] or [ʁokoko] ⓘ), also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, and trompe-l'œil frescoes to create surprise and the illusion of motion and drama.

[11] The carved or moulded seashell motif was combined with palm leaves or twisting vines to decorate doorways, furniture, wall panels and other architectural elements.

Floor plans of churches were often complex, featuring interlocking ovals; In palaces, grand stairways became centrepieces, and offered different points of view of the decoration.

The most prominent example was the salon of the Princess in Hôtel de Soubise in Paris, designed by Germain Boffrand and Charles-Joseph Natoire (1735 – 1740).

[23][24] The Rocaille style lasted in France until the mid-18th century, and while it became more curving and vegetal, it never achieved the extravagant exuberance of the Rococo in Bavaria, Austria and Italy.

The discoveries of Roman antiquities beginning in 1738 at Herculaneum and especially at Pompeii in 1748 turned French architecture in the direction of the more symmetrical and less flamboyant neo-classicism.

[25] In church construction, especially in the southern German-Austrian region, gigantic spatial creations are sometimes created for practical reasons alone, which, however, do not appear monumental, but are characterized by a unique fusion of architecture, painting, stucco, etc., often eliminating the boundaries between the art genres, and are characterised by a light-filled weightlessness, festive cheerfulness and movement.

Neumann had travelled to Paris and consulted with the French rocaille decorative artists Germain Boffrand and Robert de Cotte.

The Prince-Bishop imported the Italian Rococo painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1750 – 1753 to create a mural over the top of the three-level ceremonial stairway.

In that building the stairway led the visitors up through a stucco fantasy of paintings, sculpture, ironwork and decoration, with surprising views at every turn.

The Russian rococo style was introduced largely by Empress Elisabeth and Catherine the Great[citation needed], during the eighteenth century by court architects such as Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli.

The art of François Boucher and other painters of the period, with its emphasis on decorative mythology and gallantry, soon inspired a reaction, and a demand for more "noble" themes.

[40] The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of the art.

On the walls of new Paris salons, the twisting and winding designs, usually made of gilded or painted stucco, wound around the doorways and mirrors like vines.

One of the earliest examples was the Hôtel Soubise in Paris (1704 – 1705), with its famous oval salon decorated with paintings by Boucher, and Charles-Joseph Natoire.

The period also saw the arrival of Chinoiserie, often in the form of lacquered and gilded commodes, called falcon de Chine of Vernis Martin, after the ebenist who introduced the technique to France.

Pieces of imported Chinese porcelain were often mounted in ormolu (gilded bronze) rococo settings for display on tables or consoles in salons.

[43] The leading proponent was Antoine Watteau, particularly in The Embarkation for Cythera (1717), Louvre, in a genre called Fête galante depicting scenes of young nobles gathered together to celebrate in a pastoral setting.

A version of Watteau's painting titled Pilgrimage to Cythera was purchased by Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1752 or 1765 to decorate his palace of Charlottenburg in Berlin.

[43] The successor of Watteau and the Féte Galante in decorative painting was François Boucher (1703 – 1770), the favorite painter of Madame de Pompadour.

The style particularly influenced François Lemoyne, who painted the lavish decoration of the ceiling of the Salon of Hercules at the Palace of Versailles, completed in 1735.

[43] Paintings with fétes gallant and mythological themes by Boucher, Pierre-Charles Trémolières and Charles-Joseph Natoire decorated the famous salon of the Hôtel Soubise in Paris (1735 – 1740).

In the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, (1721 – 1722), the vaulted ceiling of the Hall of the Atlantes is held up on the shoulders of muscular figures designed by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt.

The portal of the Palace of the Marqués de Dos Aguas in Valencia (1715 – 1776) was completely drenched in sculpture carved in marble, from designs by Hipolito Rovira Brocandel.

[48] The El Transparente altar, in the major chapel of Toledo Cathedral is a towering sculpture of polychrome marble and gilded stucco, combined with paintings, statues and symbols.

The Swiss-born German sculptor Franz Anton Bustelli produced a wide variety of colourful figures for the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory in Bavaria, which were sold throughout Europe.

[53] A style that appeared in the early eighteenth-century was the robe volante,[51] a flowing gown, that became popular towards the end of King Louis XIV's reign.

These features originally came from seventeenth-century Spanish fashion, known as guardainfante, initially designed to hide the pregnant stomach, then reimagined later as the pannier.

[51] This was made popular by Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, who commissioned the artist, Charles-André van Loo, to paint her as a Turkish sultana.

[54] It also had a snug bodice, a full skirt without panniers but still a little long in the back to form a small train, and often some type of lace kerchief worn around the neck.