Home > List of French artists and artistic movements
The expression "Rococo" is used for much European art throughout the 18th century, including works by the Italians Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Canaletto and Francesco Guardi and the English Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds and the furnituremaker Thomas Chippendale. Compared with the 17th century Baroque, Rococo implies a lighter and more playful decorative art; the nude female is frequently featured; chinoiserie is also fashionable. Some of the artists that are most often grouped as "Rococo" are listed below. See as well Régence, Louis XV of France, Palace of Versailles.
Most of the early 19th century artists given in the chronological list above have been at some time grouped together under the rubric of "romanticism", including the "realists" (as the Barbizon school) and the "naturalists". Some of the most important are listed here. See also French Revolution, Napoleon I of France, Victor Hugo, orientalism.
3.5 L'Art-Pompier
See also Academic art, Napoleon III of France, Second Empire. The expression pompier is pejorative and means pompous ; it refers to Academic painters in the mid to late 19th century.
The Ecole de Barbizon was a landscape and outdoor art movement which preceded Impressionism. The city is near the forest of Fontainebleau. Théodore Rousseau came to the region in 1848 and he subsequently attracted other artists.
