The eighteenth century, often dubbed the Age of Enlightenment, is characterized by significant scientific investigation and technological invention. England and France were the primary centers of this activity, and the prominent thinkers of this period included Newton, Locke, and Diderot. A renewed belief in human progress and perfectibility accompanied the rise of cities and the growth of industrialization

and an urban working class. None of these changes, however, is visible in Rococo art, a style associated primarily with the aristocracy. The Rococo (ca. 1700/15 - 1775) emerged in France, where aristocratic taste for witty repartee and sensuous frivolity found a counterpart in an artistic style featuring pastel colors, lush settings, ample, elegant figures, and scenes of amorous intrigue and sensual intimacy. The Rococo style was used for the decoration of interior spaces, and the Parisian h™tels and country chateaux where (primarily female) Rococo patrons held salons and insulated themselves from growing social unrest were planned and conceived as total works of art. Paintings and sculpture as well as furniture and other accessories were combined to create sumptuous environments; the Boucher and Fragonard rooms at the Frick Collection give a sense of the effect of a typical Rococo interior.