Die Nobilitierung der Form

Decorative paintings in courtly wall decorations form a type of Rococo painting that has hardly been studied to date - with an ambiguous status: they are neither autonomous panel paintings nor mere decoration. It is precisely this that enables patrons and artists to explore new approaches to design. Paintings in German and Austrian palace interiors show how pictorial content loses its expressive power and the formal, decorative side of art gains enormous importance. The fundamental change in a conception of art becomes recognisable, pointing ahead to modernism with meta-artistic approaches and an aesthetic that emphasises form.