Premium
REVIVING THE ROCOCO: ENTERPRISING ITALIAN ARTISTS IN SECOND EMPIRE PARIS
Author(s) -
Igra Caroline
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/j.0141-6790.2005.00467.x
Subject(s) - painting , style (visual arts) , empire , art , capital (architecture) , visual arts , assimilation (phonology) , art market , art history , history , ancient history , linguistics , philosophy
Faced with a dearth of artistic opportunity at home and the promise of cultural riches elsewhere, Italian artists flocked to Paris in the mid‐nineteenth century. Seeking assimilation and acceptance, they adapted a fashionable painting style that was not French in origin but Spanish, and primarily based on the work of Mariano Fortuny. This revival of eighteenth‐century rococo genre painting, popular in, and promoted by, the Second Empire, brought these Italian artists financial success and artistic recognition, as individuals and as representatives of a nation. Giovanni Boldini and Giuseppe de Nittis were among the very few Italian artists to enjoy fame and fortune in Paris. Their practice in the French capital demonstrates how artistic choices and careers could be shaped by the demands of the art market and the conditions for success, and the pressures levied by discussions about the significance of national schools of art.