French, 1703-1770
François Boucher was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories, and pastoral scenes. He was perhaps the most celebrated painter and decorative artist of the 18th century.
I have a complicated relationship with Rococo. I feel it’s undeniably successful in achieving its airy aesthetic. And, honestly, I just like combinations of pink and blue.
But I also feel it’s a bit of a dead end, artistically. It has something that many artistic movements don’t have: it is immediately identifiable. But its artistic definition seems to be so tight that it can never surprise you despite its obvious accomplishments of craft.
Though that might just be my own ignorance of the movement.
There’s something that often feels a bit shallow about Rococo, a bit “style over substance” (I feel like Baroque had more psychological complexity) but as with every art movement, there are artists who shatter these stereotypes, transcend their era and style.
With this in mind and from my purely subjective point of view, the best of the Rococo painters was Thomas Gainsborough.