Insidie di una periodizzazione bipolare nella storiografia artistica sul Settecento: rococò versus neoclassicismo

The tradition in the study of art-history adopted the style to set different period terms. Besides, an evolutionary conception in history associated each style to a different age. This way of simplifying provoked a series of misunderstandings and was eventually a hindrance to the pluralism in each age. Briefly, various scholars split the arts in the Eighteenth Century in two main branches, the first one (ideally set in the first half of the century) called “rococo”, the second one “neoclassical”. However, in the last three decades a significant minority expressed harsh critics to this classification