Day 60 - 18th Century Europe and America Recap

During the 18th Century Europe moved from a time of ostentatious excess as exemplified in the Rococo style popularized in the France and ending close to the time of Marie Antoinette.  The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began criticize the perceived superficiality and degeneracy of the art, this was truly aimed at the behavior and values of the social elite and royalty of the time. By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order and seriousness of Neoclassical artists like Jacques Louis David. The Enlightenment began towards the end of the century and a new interest in progress and scientific advances had begun leading to the Industrial Revolution.  Revolutions in France and America (among many others which culminated in the Atlantic Revolutions which happened in the 18th and 19th centuries) used Enlightenment principles to create order for formation of their new governments. Written in to the resulting constitutions can be found a similar concern for the "Rights of Man" and freedom of the individual.  The idea that there was a "social contract" to uphold these freedoms was an idea popularized by John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

The art, architecture, and sculpture of the time shows a refinement, first of taste as a new feminine dominance proliferated Europe early in the century and then in form, color, composition and execution during the Enlightenment with a renewed interest in Greek and Roman art.

William Hogarth, part of the series Marriage a'lamode, scene 2 of 6
Shortly After the Marriage, (c. 1743).  The artist shows his distaste
for the excess of the social elite. He was famous for his "moral"
paintings and comic strip like satirical drawings.

References:

1. Gardner's Art Through the Ages, A Global History, 13th ed., by Fred S. Kleiner - Chapter 29
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rococo 
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Revolutions
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hogarth
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HogarthMarriage.jpg