King Rococo and Neoclassicism: Death of Marat & The Swing

Rococo and Neo-Classicism             Following the death of King Louis XIV came a revitalization of the arts and the creation genres of art work – the Rococo and Neo-Classicism. In general, Rococo is used to refer to the art of late Baroque which is characterized by asymmetric perspectives, undulating lines, soft, dreamy brushstrokes and superficial themes. Meanwhile, Neo-Classicism refers to the re-emergence of the more scientific approach to art where a perspective, color and light and realistic themes were used.             To better understand the difference between these two art genres, we shall take two important pieces made during the period, Jean-Honore Fragonard’s The Swing  (Kleiner, 2015, p. 770) and Jacques-Louis David’s Death of Marat (Kleiner, 2015, p. 785). By putting the two paintings side by side, one can already see the difference between the two.  Where one depicted a carefree, lighthearted view of life, the other showed despair and death. Where one shows wealth and the comfort it brings, the other shows poverty and selflessness.             In The Swing, the lady is obviously the subject because of the immensity of her size compared to the rest of the painting. One might ask, how far away is her lover (man lying on the ground) from her? Is she always in front of him so that he could adore her beauty, or is there a time point when she is just beyond his gaze? Where is the plane of this image? If the woman is the foreground, the man on the ground the middle ground, and the forest is in the background, why is there so much light in the sky, where the forest is? It is apparent that while there is an attempt to use a scientific approach to lighting in The Swing, it is not used logically in the way the Classicists would. Lighting in this case is used to highlight the important parts of the image, but does not, in an...