rococo

Rococo (Taschen Basic Art Series)
$9.99
the cover is appealing,but the contents of this book are disappointing.
mostly unknown works and a couple of mediocre,unknown works of famous
artists.

Rococo: A Novel
$13.95
I listened to the audio version of this book and loved Mario Cantone. He did a great job with the characters. The story wasn't necessarily "meaty" - it was fun. There are characters that work hard and sacrifice for an end goal - and break out of shells that have spun around them.

This reminded me of a good "Lifetime" movie. Interesting and light - that works for me. Especially between mysteries or serious books.

Baroque and Rococo
$24.95
A very comprehensive guide to Rococo religious art. For those of us who love churches :-)

The Rococo Interior: Decoration and Social Spaces in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris
$90.00
Rather heavy on the pedantics, and too light on the aesthetics

This book reads like a pedantic Ph.D. dissertation, or rather like three such dissertations sewn together into one bookbinding.

Part I is an economic and technology history of eighteenth-century decorative-arts production. It is an unlikely reason why anyone would purchase this high-gloss, coffee-table-style, oversized book.

Part II is a sociology of the layout and design of the Parisian noble's h���tel. It seems unlikely that these sociological considerations applied exclusively to the rococo period and not also to the ancien r���gime society of the preceding baroque and succeeding neoclassical styles.

Part III sets forth the historical thesis that political change in the form of the decline of monarchial absolutism reduced the status of the rococo style from noble status to commercially common, and thus brought about its eclipse. I find this an unsatisfactory explanation for the ascendancy of the neoclassical style.

Overall I found the book a disappointment. It shows little appreciation for the aesthetics of the style, which is quite charming. It has remarkably little color photography, and certainly too many black-and-white photos for such a book with a $90 price tag and only 318 pages.

I refer readers interested in a better visual and aesthetic presentation of rococo interiors to Furniture: From Rococo to Art Deco (Evergreen Series). The latter has more than two and a third as many pages, at least a dozen times as many color photos including not just furniture but the room decorations as well, and about a fifth of the price.

This book would benefit from the services of a professional editor.