Note 139 — Chapter V

These fanciful conceits have a significance for the history of ornament which they hardly seem to deserve. Artificial grottoes of the kind Vasari describes were very popular in the France of the eighteenth century, and pleased the taste of the sophisticated society of the time with an artificial ‘nature,’ that corresponded to the affected pastoral style in literature. From the shell and stalactite decoration of these grottoes was evolved the ornamental style characteristic of the age of Louis XV, the shell-like forms of which betray its origin. The name commonly given to this ornament, that consists in little but a graceful play of curved forms, is ‘rococo,’ and this word is connected with ‘rocaille,’ a regular French term for fantastic grotto-work of the kind here under notice.