one of the most celebrated rococo artists was francois boucher, court portraitist and painter of allegoricalomances. boucher's works were designed simply to give pleasure, fitting objects of delectation for an aristocracy with so much time and money on their hands. but time was now running out. this is boucher's rape of europa. in the literary and philosophical salons where they met, the middle-class intelligentsia opposed what they saw as a decadent order. they called for a return to universal values based on nature and reason. they held that art should not be for art's sake alone, but should have a moral and educative content. this viewpoint, which heralded the role art would play in the revolution, was shared by great frenchthink- ltaire, who spent his life opposing the tyranny of church and state. rousseau, who believed nature to be the source of all good for him, society was the reason man was born free, but everywhere is in chains. didederot, who in his encyclopea attempted to scrutinize all natural phenomena in the light of reason. diderot's attack on boucher's provocative odalisque r