The rococo interior : decoration and social spaces in early eighteenth-century Paris /

Fiske Kimball's The Creation of the Rococo (1943) was the first detailed study of the development that led from the style Louis XIV to the genre pittoresque in French interior design in the first half of the 18th century. Some of Kimball's ideas have been superseded, but his book remains a pioneering work on the subject. The same can be said of Michel Gallet's Paris: Domestic Architecture of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1972), which covers the Louis XVI style as well. Both works are concerned primarily with style and biography. Scott (Courtauld Institute of Art, London) builds on these as well as others, but she is equally concerned with the technological, political, social, and economic concerns and movements as they relate to the architecture--the actual creation and building, the functions, and the symbolism of the buildings as well as their stylistic development. Her excellent introduction describes a typical noble house; then follow the book's three (rather unsatisfactorily titled) parts. The first--and one of the most fascinating-- is devoted to the production and technical creation of the interiors, including woodwork, tapestries, mirrors, and paintings as well as with organizations--workshops, academies, and guilds and their roles. The second deals with the imagery and meanings of the interiors and their relationship to the patron and his status. The final part discusses ideological positions and the various types of subject matter and their relationship to the changing state. This carefully balanced, first-rate study never loses sight of the work of art. Superb black-and-white and color illustrations; very complete notes and bibliography. Upper-division undergraduate; graduate; faculty; general. T. J. McCormick emeritus, Wheaton College (MA)

The term noblesse oblige has never been so well defined as in Scott's in-depth examination of the rococo period, the first half of the eighteenth century. That 1 percent of France's 26 million citizens could have such an influence not only on decoration and the arts but also on conduct in society is documented in detail and in both black-and-white and color photographs. This scholarly and thoughtful (and occasionally pedantic) exploration investigates all parts of design, architecture, and thought: the manufacture of goods, such as wallpaper and carved woodwork; the artisans' practice in guilds and abbeys; the signs of status; the influence of the king through the Palace of Versailles; and the rise of yet another privileged class and reactions against rococo. More a social than an aesthetic exploration, this will find a place among expansive historical and design collections. --Barbara Jacobs