Crimson & Gold & Lavender

Crimson is the formal accent — the deep vivid cool-red used sparingly but decisively as the most formally significant warm accent in Boucher's compositions. In Rococo court painting (which has a reputation for soft pastel tones — a partially accurate reputation, as Rococo does use softer palettes than Baroque — but which also employs deep vivid accents for visual and compositional punctuation), crimson-to-deep red appears as the most formally significant element: the drapery of the primary figure, the ribbon or jewel that anchors the composition, or the curtain that frames the scene. Boucher's 'Madame de Pompadour' portrait (1756, Alte Pinakothek) uses a deep vivid crimson-to-red as one of the primary book bindings and as an element of the carpet — the most formally grounding warm element in an otherwise soft-and-gold palette. Gold is the Versailles light — the vivid warm gold of the Versailles interior — the gilded boiserie (carved and gilded wood wall panels), the gold-leaf architectural ornament of the Hall of Mirrors (designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, completed 1684, renovated continuously through the 18th century), and the warm golden light of the hundreds of candles and crystal chandeliers that lit the most formal Versailles rooms. Boucher's canvases for Versailles used a warm golden atmospheric background light that reflected the specific warm-golden quality of the candlelit Versailles interior — creating the most characteristic and most immediately recognizable French Rococo chromatic quality. Lavender is the boiserie — the soft medium violet-to-lavender of the painted boiserie panels that line the private apartments (petits appartements) of the French royal palaces. While the Grand Appartements used gold-and-white and Crimson-and-gold decoration, the petits appartements (the private living spaces of the royal family and their most intimate courtiers) used a softer palette — the characteristic Rococo soft blues, pale greens, and specifically the soft lavender-to-pale violet of the most intimate and most romantically conceived private apartments. Madame de Pompadour's famous taste for lavender — evident in her portrait dress, her chinoiserie lacquerwork interiors, and her specific use of pale violet-lavender in the décor of her private apartments at Versailles and at the Château de Bellevue — made lavender the primary romantic color of the French mid-18th century.