The aim of this study is to examine the controversies surrounding the artistic movement known a posteriori as rococo. Firstly, the debates about the term “rococo” as a category of style will be presented. Using the example of contemporary judgements on the art of Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), we will then show how the amateurs and critics of his time perceived the painter’s work. Called the “modern style” or the “picturesque genre”, later qualified as “bad taste”, this eminently decorative trend, the rococo, provoked very different reactions in the 18th century, oscillating between appreciation and condemnation.
The article focuses on the analysis of notions of reminiscence and nostalgia through the example of Claude Lorrain’s marine paintings. Unlike the Arcadian landscapes of his contemporary Nicolas Poussin, these often do not evoke concrete myths, but inspire less obvious reminiscences in the viewer. Lorrain’s paintings can be conceived therefore as allegories of nostalgia, a category that the article approaches with the help of that of Nothing. It aims to show that it is through the particular light effects that Lorrain’s landscapes and marine paintings suggest a sense of timeless and nostalgic reminiscences to the viewer.
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