), ca. The Rococo period in Europe is also a period when America's Founding Fathers were born—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams. Zimmerman's first success, and perhaps the first Rococo church in the region, was the village church in Steinhausen, completed in 1733. Although Rococo was largely confined to interior decor and decorative arts in Western Europe, Eastern Europe was infatuated by Rococo stylings both inside and outside. Rococo is a period rather than a specific style.

Some wear bright clothing and others appear darkened as if they were escapees from a 17th century Rembrandt painting. The effect is similar to parquetry, a way to create designs in wood flooring. Highly decorative walls and ceiling in an oval chamber, looking up toward an ornate chandelier. The same "mistress pose" is used for a painting of Louise O'Murphy, close friend to King Louis XV. The setting is both inside and outside, within grand architecture and opened to the natural world. Watteau created a new kind of painting category known as amorous festival paintings. During the 1700s, a highly ornamental style of art, furniture, and interior design became popular in France. Often referred to merely as Late Baroque , the Rococo developed from the Baroque artistic movement. Often this 18th-century era is called "the Rococo," a time period roughly beginning with the 1715 death of France's Sun King, Louis XIV, until the French Revolution in 1789. The Catherine Palace in Tsarskoye Selo is one of the northernmost Rococo buildings, Rococo staircase in Gruber Mansion, Slovenia, Integrated rococo carving, stucco and fresco at Zwiefalten. France (? Compare the intricacies of the c. 1740 oval chamber shown above at France's Hôtel de Soubise in Paris with the autocratic gold in the chamber of France's King Louis XIV at the Palace of Versailles, c. 1701. Frequently imitated to this day, L'Escarpolette is at once frivolous, naughty, playful, ornate, sensual, and allegoric. In Spain, elaborate details were added throughout the years to both ecclesiastical architecture like Santiago de Compostela and secular residences, like this Gothic home of the Marquis de Dos Aguas. French furniture made between 1715 and 1723, before Louis XV came of age, is generally called French Régence—not to be confused with the English Regency, which occurred about a century later. The style was particularly embraced by the French aristocracy and spread to other European countries, chiefly Germany and Austria. It was France's Pre-Revolutionary time of growing secularism and continued growth of what became known as the bourgeoisie or middle class. Ideals of democracy fueled this Age of Reason (also known as the Enlightenment) when society was becoming liberated from its absolute monarchy. Les Plaisirs du Bal or Pleasures of the Ball (Detail) by Jean Antoine Watteau, c. 1717. The style was characterized by elaborate curved forms, mostly made to resemble letters ‘S’ and ‘C' asymmetry. One questions whether the German stucco masters were builders of churches for God, servants of Christian pilgrims, or promoters of their own artistry.

The 1717 painting detail shown here, Les Plaisirs du Bal or The Pleasure of the Dance by Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), is typical of the early Rococo period, an era of changes and contrasts. Gesamtkunstwerke is the German word that explains Zimmerman's process. The 1740 renovation happened during the rise of Rococo in Western architecture, which is a treat for the visitor to what is now the National Ceramics Museum.

Before the style’s emergence, the dominant style under reign of Louis XIV in France was the Baroque style.

Rococo Style Architecture on the National Ceramics Museum in Valencia, Spain. Clocks, picture frames, mirrors, mantel pieces, and candlesticks were some of the useful objects beautified to become known collectively as "decorative arts.". The next in line, Louis XVI, would be the last of the House of Bourbon to rule France. Completed over five years, the work sealed Watteau’s admission to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Religion and politics were no longer necessarily the core theme of Rococo art, unlike the Baroque, and everyday life became more commonly represented. In Rococo, shapes were complex and not symmetrical. Creamy and pastel-like colours were used for paintings, unlike the darker shades in Baroque art. Whilst it kept several characteristics of the original style, including elaboration and ornate themes, it was also more playful and asymmetrical. By 1756 it was expanded in size and glory specifically to rival the Versailles in France. If any of these candlesticks look slightly familiar, it could be that many of the Walt Disney characters in Beauty and the Beast are Rococo-like. Creamy and pastel-like colours were used for paintings, unlike the darker shades in Baroque art.