The study aims to identify those innovative and promising aspects of B. R. Vipper’s final conceptual work “The Problem of Realism in Italian Painting of the 17th-18th Centuries” (1966) that are capable of shedding new light on the problems of interpretation and origin of Rococo art. The article contains a reconstruction of Boris Vipper’s theory of Rococo in the context of a complex dialogue of non-style and “dominant” forms in classical art. The scholar’s sympathies for plotless, eventless and formalistic art are analyzed in the cultural context of his work. Scientific novelty: this work of the Soviet scientist has never become the topic of a separate study, especially focused on the problems of Rococo, which at first glance are secondary for the author of the book. The latest concepts of Rococo and classical art in general make it possible to update the work of the Russian art critic at a new historical stage. The result of the study is a new interpretation of Boris Vipper’s concept of “tired” or “late” art, which is important for understanding the most original phenomena of Italian art of the 17th and 18th centuries. This concept can undoubtedly be considered as an analogue of the broad interpretation of the Rococo style accepted in contemporary scientific literature in the West.