France in the 18th century held a leading role in the fine arts. With the death of the Sun King and the end of Absolutism, a change in the tastes of French patrons became clear: they were now looking for a less grandiose style. For sculpture, ideally suited to interior decoration, this was the birth of Rococo. In Germain Boffrand’s (1667-1754) Chambre de Parade de la Princesse in Paris, a team of artists created the décor in perfect harmony with this new feeling for elaborate asymmetries of flowers, fruits, garlands, and rock work that had a finer, less luxuriant effect than the elements of the Baroque style.
Yet this graceful life ended abruptly when the ideas of the Enlightenment emerged from the French Revolution of 1789. The bloody events put an end to the frivolous French Rococo style; tastes now inclined towards strict, puritanical classicism. Only the great monumental sculpture still followed the old paths in the 18th century. Its most respective representative was Jean-Baptiste Pigalle (1714-1785), whose Monument to the Marshal of Saxony in St. Thomas Church in Strasbourg clearly exhibits the pompous, theatrical, fundamental characteristics of Baroque. Much more joyful, on the other hand, are the frequently less noticed works of genre sculpture which retain ties to nature and reality: for example, the fountain relief with children playing and allegories of the seasons of Edmé Bouchardon (1698-1762).
This Edmé Bouchardon, pupil of Guillaume Coustou the Younger (1716-1777), was regarded in his time as one of the greatest sculptors; in 1722 he won the Prix de Rome. He really turned against the Baroque tradition of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and was not strongly in favour of the playful Rococo and instead leaned more towards classicism. During his ten-year stay in Rome he created a remarkable bust of Pope Benedict XIII (1649-1730).