Sarah D. Coffin, Gail S. Davidson, Ellen Lupton, and Penelope Hunter-Stiebel. Rococo: The Continuing Curve, 1730–2008. New York: Cooper-Hewitt Museum, National Design Museum, Smithsonian Institution, 2008. 265 pp.; numerous color and bw illus., bibliography, index. $45.00.
It is generally agreed that reviewers should assess publications on the basis of what they are rather than what they are not. They should attend to what a book does rather than what it does not do. They should answer the implicit question: What did this book set out to achieve and how well did it do it? These directives are all fair enough and easily understood in the abstract. But what if it is not clear what a publication is about or what it was intended to achieve? The reviewer’s task becomes a bit more difficult. Which tack is fair and which is not? It is difficult to know how to proceed.
The present dilemma is prompted by Rococo: The Continuing Curve. The volume is visually splendid but intellectually unresolved. The exact goals of the publication are rarely stated explicitly and then only in the briefest of terms. In his foreword, museum director Paul Warwick Thompson speaks of a “rococo impulse” (p. 1). In her introductory essay, Penelope Hunter-Stiebel says that the words “sinuous, organic, sensuous” constitute “the mantra of this project” (p. 3). So which is it? Is this book an examination of some loosely defined but presumably recognizable rococo spirit, or is it a deep immersion in all things sinuous, organic, and sensuous produced across varied temporal, geographic, and cultural contexts? Are they the same? Are we to think that all impulses to curvilinearity after the eighteenth century bear some relation to the rococo, that they either derive from the original or are manifestations of similar values or traits? Is this impulse, if it exists, cultural or biological or both? These questions and many others that come to mind all too readily are occasionally raised in this volume but rarely if ever resolved or even explored at length. Instead, we find fourteen short essays of varied character and quality discussing a range of topics from the eighteenth century to the present. Looking at the total package, one could come to the justifiable conclusion that this volume actually consists of two related projects—the first dealing with the historical rococo and the second with sinuosity in design—the two butted together somewhat awkwardly. And this brings us back to the question of how to deal fairly and accurately with this publication, a decision requiring understanding what it is and was intended to be. As far as I can make out, the answer is: an elegant and very beautiful exhibition souvenir enriched with a sampler of pleasant essays for the curious.
And that rather lets the book off the hook. The ante is down and so are our expectations. But some expectations will be well met. It truly is a handsome volume, with copious photographs of very high quality. It includes plenty of the familiar but also a fair sprinkling of the unfamiliar. The layout, typeface, and all the other material aspects are of a high standard. But those are formal rather than content issues, and it is in content that readers of this journal will probably find the volume less rewarding.
The general argument sustaining this book seems to have three parts to it. First, that there was, in the eighteenth century, a style or manner of design that we now recognize and know as rococo. Second, in a subsequent era, the nineteenth century primarily, there occurred a rococo revival or neo-rococo, which replicated or paraphrased the original eighteenth-century material. Third, in still later eras—mostly the 1890s and after—many objects incorporated sinuous, organic, or sensuous features that might or might not have been inspired by or might or might not have borne any likeness to the original rococo. In short, first rococo, then rococo again, and finally more or less rococo.
It is hard to argue with any of this. It all seems to be true as far as it goes. It also seems to move from relative strength to relative weakness, or from the relatively finite and concrete to the vague and amorphous. This imbalance is reflected in the distribution of the essays. Two of the essays, in different ways and for different reasons, span more than one of the three eras. Of the remaining twelve, seven deal with the eighteenth century, three with the nineteenth century, one with art nouveau, and one with the twentieth century, an arrangement giving considerable asymmetry to the project. Furthermore, in these essays, two alternative formats or approaches seem to stand out. On the one hand are specialized, tightly focused discussions dealing with particular times or places. These are usually both readable and informative. On the other hand are catchall essays of sorts that attempt to craft narratives linking assemblages of loosely related objects of diverse origins. These objects were presumably selected for their exhibition value and are generally of significant aesthetic merit. But weaving a text connecting them in meaningful ways is not necessarily easy, and these narratives do not make for engaging reading. Perhaps conventional catalogue-style entries would have worked as well and spared authors the task of devising narratives.
Among the group of specialized studies devoted to the eighteenth century, Ulrich Leben’s essay on the evolution of the German rococo stands out for its clarity of organization and expression and for its deft linking of the objects discussed to the political, economic, and cultural conditions of the many different political entities that only later became Germany. Leben’s is a model survey essay—clear, sure, concise. The author is in full command of his story and has a firm grasp on the hierarchy of significance. A longer and more fully illustrated essay by him would have been welcome.
Much the same praise can be given to Reinier Baarsen’s discussion of the rococo in Holland. Admittedly, Baarsen is at something of an aesthetic disadvantage, for the rococo’s most stunning creations did not appear in the Low Countries. Yet, like Leben, he displays a solid understanding of the political, economic, and cultural conditions that both generated the objects he discusses and account for their distinctive properties. All this said, one wonders, Why a chapter on Holland, as fine as it is? Why not Portugal? Or Russia? Or Estonia? The choice seems arbitrary. Other useful pieces in the eighteenth-century section deal with the career of Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier, here understood as the chief form-giver of the French rococo, and the distinctive manifestations of the rococo in the French city of Nancy.
The neo-rococo discussion is confined to essays on graphics, English and American silver, and American furniture. More about the last in a bit. The single chapter devoted to art nouveau recognizes that some aspects of that manner made explicit references to the rococo of the eighteenth century. Yet rather than systematically identifying and analyzing the rococo component of art nouveau, the essay wanders off into a vague history of the movement and shows little interest in close attention to the design of the objects illustrated. Finally, the last essay, on more or less rococo objects of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, is profoundly unconvincing. Yes, no doubt about it, lots of curvy objects. Yes, the curve must continue. And yes, some very few of these objects (I counted six; others might argue for a couple more) actually do reference the eighteenth-century rococo, but most could have been created (and perhaps actually were) without the slightest awareness of that historical style. Interesting goods, beautifully photographed, but hardly demonstrating that the rococo lives on. Indeed, I would argue that they show just the opposite—that the rococo is dead, quite thoroughly dead.
Spanning three centuries, however, enables this volume to demonstrate three significant ways in which the art world of the eighteenth century differs from that of more recent eras. The first concerns the relation of artists to their patrons. The early chapters discuss the patrons of Meissonnier, the patronage of Louis XV, and the roles of patrons in Nancy, the Germanic countries, and the Netherlands. The final chapter, by contrast, is all about artists and designers. Patrons have become invisible, possibly extinct. Modern art discourse as represented here has come to see the art world through the eyes of artists and to adopt the ideology of autonomous creativity. Once upon a time artists glorified patrons, and patrons, in turn, enabled artists. Now, at least in theory, artists and designers create what they wish, and savvy patrons line up for an opportunity to own an example of the great man’s or woman’s work. Overstated, of course, for there are significant political and economic differences between the eighteenth century and today. Yet it is difficult not to be struck by the care with which authors of the early sections in this book weave the art they discuss into a larger cultural fabric and the way the designers mentioned in the final chapter seem to exist in independent worlds of their own devising. The early artists are deeply embedded in their worlds, the later float somewhere apart from or above it. That, at least, is the impression given here. And it is not totally inaccurate.
The second major point revolves around the idea of style as a communal cultural statement. Look carefully at the many examples of eighteenth-century rococo and note the repetition of key motifs. Study the copious graphics illustrated here and note how closely the designs of Meissonnier, Pierre Germain, Jacques de Lajoue, François Boucher, Alexis Peyrotte, Jean-François Cuvillies, and others resemble each other. Yes, with careful study it is possible to distinguish one from the other, but the differences are few while the similarities are many. The rococo was clearly a shared manner in the eighteenth century, a manner generated and disseminated by a substantial body of capable designers. Largely confined to the upper classes, it nonetheless spread across Europe and from there to parts of the world colonized by Europeans, where it was recognizable as an internationally understood cultural idiom.
Turn then to the last essay again and contemplate the objects assembled there. Yes, many of them do share design features of what might be called modern minimalist curvilinearity, but the resemblance they bear to each other is limited. Unlike the eighteenth-century designs, which seem to constitute a fairly tight and closely linked body of creativity, these later goods range freely within very broad parameters, with individuality and idiosyncrasy outweighing common design features. And thus the art world and its values change.
The third point concerns the importance that graphics once played in disseminating visual information. It is worth noting that every essay dealing with the eighteenth century illustrates designs, whether drawings or prints. Indeed, one of Gail S. Davidson’s two essays explicitly treats rococo prints and drawings. The bulk of the piece offers a useful discussion of the role of prints in spreading design ideas in the eighteenth century, followed by comments on characteristic designs produced by major figures from Meissonnier, de Lajoue, and Nicolas Pineau onward. Even the small selection offered in this volume gives some indication of the exceptional design creativity of the key practitioners of the rococo manner. Rather underplayed, it seems to me, is the fact that the majority of the graphics included come from the Cooper-Hewitt’s own collection and, more to the point, that the Cooper-Hewitt is one of the world’s major repositories of eighteenth-century design prints and drawings.
Davidson notes that the Hewitt sisters, who founded the museum in 1897, thought that rococo and neoclassical objects “represented the greatest achievements in design history” (p. 43). That may or may not be a fashionable idea today, but it is very difficult not to be deeply impressed—and moved, if that is not putting it too strongly—by the creative energy expressed and preserved on these small pieces of paper. Some several hundreds of those now at the Cooper-Hewitt came early in the twentieth century through the purchase of all or portions of major European collections. One Jean-Léon Decloux, “a former painting contractor who specialized in ornamental gilded paneling” (p. 44), was one of many Europeans who recognized that well-heeled buyers, often foreign, valued earlier Continental arts and were willing to pay to own them. Decloux developed a strategy for acquiring collections and then selling them off, using the proceeds to repeat the process. He eventually became effectively the Hewitts’ Paris agent, steering important prints, drawings, and objects in their direction. Although Davidson only briefly sketches out the history of the Hewitt-Decloux relationship, their man in Paris seems to have played a decisive role in shaping the collection.
This volume effectively demonstrates that students of European decorative arts of the eighteenth century are blessed with a glorious wealth of graphic material, most of it produced by a distinctive creative type who, with an eye on acquiring some combination of money and fame, specialized in generating and selling design ideas. We find this type of person emerging in Western Europe in the fifteenth century and proliferating throughout the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries before going into decline around the middle years of the nineteenth century. These designers were so deeply embedded in the entire matrix of the decorative arts that it is possible to craft a reasonably accurate and balanced history of major media relying entirely on surviving graphic documents.
Nothing of the sort is remotely possible for America in the eighteenth century. The European designer needed very affluent patrons and a cadre of highly skilled artisans to operate effectively. Neither was abundant in the American colonies. Still, the rococo did appear in eighteenth-century America and occasionally made a pretty fine showing, despite the limitations of the region. American rococo appears occasionally in Sarah Coffin’s whirlwind essay “The Dissemination of Style through Migrating Designers, Craftsmen, and Objects in the Eighteenth Century” (pp. 102–35). The objects, primarily gold, silver, and furniture, plus one Bonnin and Morris sweetmeat dish, make only cameo appearances, but they are well chosen and amply document the presence of the rococo in high-end colonial goods. The five pieces of furniture included are a mahogany pier table with marble top of Philadelphia origin (Metropolitan Museum of Art), a carved and gilded wall bracket by James Reynolds (Winterthur), a mahogany card table attributed to the workshop of Thomas Affleck (Philadelphia Museum of Art), an upholstered easy chair from Charleston (Winterthur), and a mahogany and cherry tea table attributed to Robert Walker of King George County, Virginia (MESDA). These, of course, represent just the tip of the American rococo iceberg, such as it is. Those interested in the rococo on this side of the Atlantic will already have the book by Morrison H. Heckscher and Leslie Green Bowman, American Rococo, 1750–1775: Elegance and Ornament (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art; Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1992) on their bookshelves. The pages of this journal have also presented important studies of American rococo materials.
There is but one essay in the whole collection that deals entirely with American furniture: Jason T. Busch’s discussion of rococo-revival furniture made in this country in the middle of the nineteenth century. This nicely illustrated piece relies on some of the usual suspects to tell its tale. These include furniture manufacturers or merchants Prudent Mallard, George Henkels, John Henry Belter, Alexander Roux, Charles H. White, architect Samuel Sloan, tastemaker Andrew Jackson Downing, and a number of others. Busch convincingly argues for the continuing authority of French design and its impact on American production, impact perpetuated by importation of examples of French furniture and French furniture publications. Among the latter he mentions works by Michel Jansen, Victor Quetin, and Désiré Guilmard. Guilmard’s influential Le garde-meuble, ancien et moderne, gloriously illustrated with hand-colored and glazed lithographs, was published in serial form for many years starting about 1841 (the plates are not dated). One of the nice treats in Busch’s essay is his persuasive demonstration that a very bizarre (or at least unconventional) upholstered seating piece at Melrose in Natchez, Mississippi, memorable to all who have ever seen it (or sat in it!), is actually based on plate 248 in the forty-fourth livraison of Le garde-meuble. There it is identified, appropriately enough, as “Causeuse. Fantaisie.” Busch covers a lot of ground in a little space in this essay, and his coverage is necessarily thin. References in the text and the useful notes, however, provide helpful directions for those who might want a fuller picture of this particular cultural episode.
Busch’s essay will be the most significant part of this volume for students of American furniture, provided, of course, that they are interested in the nineteenth century. Otherwise, there is very little here for the readers of this journal or for specialists of any sort or for those who believe themselves well informed about one rococo or another. But you never know when seeing things in a new context or juxtaposed in an unfamiliar way will lead to new perceptions. And there may be an item not seen before. However, the book will perhaps be most useful to a general audience, with little or no prior familiarity with the material. Elegantly packaged, beautifully illustrated, and furnished with “accessible essays,” as the book’s jacket puts it, Rococo just might open a few eyes to new visual delights and lure new readers to more advanced or specialized studies. In sum, as an exhibition souvenir it is impressive. And, in truth, it is rather more than just that.
Kenneth L. Ames
Bard Graduate Center