18th C. European Decorative arts

Why are these things called decorative arts instead of art arts ? Who knows. These rooms at the Art Institute are mostly a desert for me -- but these are the exceptions:




My retouched backgrounds make these resemble soft porn -- and maybe that's a good description for them anyway. Clodion takes me into the kind of erotic Classical world where I could live forever -- at least, until I fall asleep.



Why is Houdon in a room of "decorative arts"? Why is
Houdon's George Washington the periodic ojbect of conceptual abuse (now incorporated into someone's postmodern masterpiece) Maybe it's because his portraits embody civilized rationalism like no one else before or since. Maybe the sitter was a dolt - but here he looks like he could serve as chancellor to the Sun king.






O.K., I have no idea why I picked this piece -- it's
off the chart goofy --- guess that's why I picked it --- but I can't tell who
was more responsible for that celestial conditon; the modeler or the glazer at the
Meissen factory ? I see this piece and I feel like putting on the silver suit of the Rosenkavalier.





Here's my favorite detail of the above -- something about those colors --- I feel like I want to take a spoon and start eating it.