The rococo comes to full fruition in the era of Maria Theresia (1740-1780). Pathos and severity of the Baroque period yield to serenity and esprit. The dramatic stage turns into a playground; and heroes bursting with strength become flirtatious lovers. In place of the austere court ceremony there is the serene garden festival, the fête champêtre. Courtly society now finds its alternative world in this idyll. It slips into the costume of the fashionable pastoral novel.
In the cabinet painting of the time, created for intimate spaces, a keen sense of effects combines with loving accounts of details depicted with the highest precision. The unrivalled master here is Johann Georg Platzer. In his exquisite small-sized paintings even gods and heroes assume a cheerful expression. These are the highlights of cabinet painting, in which the Dutch art of the Golden Age still lingers.
