TEACHING AND LEARNING ROCOCO AESTHETICS AND THE EMERGENCE OF EVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE

The 18^th century was a seminal period when European society began to move away from religious ideals and gravitated toward scientific interests in the natural world. Art as well as politics played crucial roles in the scientific discoveries of this time. Exotic new plant and animal species were being brought back to Europe from explorations to distant new lands. Many early scientists compiled art works into reference collections in an effort to describe these new species. The cultural attitudes and artistic styles of the 18^th century were titled the Rococo. This term is believed to originate from the French word Rocaille, which literally means rock debris or rocky terrain and refers to the use of shell and stone motifs that were widely popular at the time. These shell and rock themes were of particular importance in man-made grottoes. Interior design and furniture design took on natural forms and emulated outdoor natural settings. Entire rooms were transformed into grotesque scenes as florid embellishments on furniture and elaborate ornamentations vine up walls and were meant to mirror the grotto. As the application of feminine imagery and terminology spread so too grew the importance of women as citizens and mothers. From Carl Linnaeus’s choice to coin the term “Mammalia,” to the provocative themes represented by garden grottoes, the Rococo was filled with allusions of sexuality and femininity. These relationships teach that evolutionary science and art both rose out of complex cultural patterns. As science added in characterizing Rococo art, art also had much to add to the period’s scientific studies. More generally, such considerations help students realize how geoscience is integrated with their own cultural concerns.