...after all the dramatic seriousness of baroque, as well as spending hundreds of years of staring at religious images, people began to look for more fun and frivolous subjects for paintings -- nothing that required deep thinking or introspection. if the baroque art and everything prior to that were a novel, then the artwork found in the roccoco period are definitely of the dimestore variety; something fun that makes short on the brain work. of course, this trend for fun stuff was also partially triggered by a wealthy class who had way too much free time on their hands. these people played games, had tea at each other's houses all week long and, most importantly, lavishly collected these paintings that recorded the pastimes of their daily lives. such paintings were called feté galantes.

...hence, we have for you fine viewer today, a popular feté galantes fragonard image called happy lovers. the two people pictured are obviously more like young people enjoying an afternoon out in each other's company than any serious religious figure attempting to preach gospel. roccoco artists tended to use happy, cheerful, peachy colors and a lot of loose brushwork to invoke a sense of unrestrained frivolity. few of their canvases are rigidly structured as they preferred to capture young, priviledged people in a moment of play. (kind of like the ubiquitous volkswagon bug car ads you see everywhere these days.) because many of these images were commissioned by patrons who specifically wished for light-hearted decorative art, roccoco art often exhibited a flirtatious undertone. the more subtle the artist can make a shocking subject matter, the more popular the work as these paintings made great conversation center pieces at rich people's parties.