The Rococo style

 

The Rococo style, which is virtually synonymous with Louis XV style, is now used as an equivalent term for the French word Rocaille, meaning rockwork. However, the term Rocaille was not given its present meaning until late in the 18th century in France. At the time when the Louis XV style was in fashion, the term Rocaille was used to describe the artificial grottoes found in French gardens, which were in imitation of marine grottoes, decorated with natural stones of irregular outline and stalactites and other ornamentation made of colored pebbles and all kinds of shells. These rocailles or grottoes had been fashionable in France for almost two centuries from the time of Catherine de' Medici.

The term is now given to a singular form of asymmetrical ornament evolved from the Baroque in France during the Regence. It was widely used by French craftsmen in the Louis XV style (from around 1720 to 1760). Sometimes the word Rococo is restricted in its use to this later and more advanced phase.

During the entire time this style was in fashion in France, a certain amount of protest against the excessive use of sinuous curves and the principle of asymmetry.

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