Baroque art

The Baroque style began as somewhat of a continuation of the Renaissance. Later, however, scholars of the time began to see the drastic differences between the two styles, and the Renaissance style gave way to Baroque. Baroque architecture, sculpture, and painting of a dramatic nature were powerful tools in the hands of religious and secular absolutism, and flourished in the service of the Catholic Church and of Catholic monarchies. The visual settings for divine-right monarchy in palaces, decorations, and festivals and in costumes, furniture, and carriages were conceived in the same climactic pattern. The Baroque artists were particularly focused on natural forms, spaces, colors, lights, and the relationship between the observer and the literary or portrait subject in order to produce a strong, if muted, emotional experience. The uniting aspect of the most disparate phases of Baroque in European countries is a common pattern of experience shared at all social levels by Catholic and Protestant alike.

Overview of Baroque Painting

The Council of Trent (1545-63), in which the Roman Catholic Church answered many questions of internal reform raised by both Protestants and by those who had remained inside the Catholic Church, addressed the representational arts by demanding that paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather than to the well-informed.

Nativity by Josefa de Óbidos, 1669, National Museum of Ancient Art, Lisbon

Due to this Baroque art tends to focus on Saints, the Virgin Mary, and other well known Bible stories. Religious painting, history painting, allegories, and portraits were still considered the most noble subjects, but landscapes, still life, and genre scenes were rapidly gaining notoriety.

Baroque art is characterized by great drama, rich deep color, and intense light and dark shadows. As opposed to Renaissance art, which usually showed the moment before an event took place, Baroque artists chose the most dramatic point, the moment when the action was occurring: Michelangelo, working in the High Renaissance, shows his David composed and still before he battles Goliath; Bernini's baroque David is caught in the act of hurling the stone at the giant. Baroque art was meant to evoke emotion and passion instead of the calm rationality that had been prized during the Renaissance.

Baroque painting stemmed from the styles of High-Renaissance painters such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, and Correggio. Walter Friedlaender refers to such "elements as interest in verisimilitude and naturalism (often with a strong allegorical content), representations of extreme states of feeling, a desire to suggest extensions into space, dynamic movement, an intense engagement with light (in its physical and spiritual connotations) and a sensitivity to the impact of Classical civilizations, as representing some of the salient features of Baroque art." Although the era of the seventeenth century is said to be quite ambialent toward any one style, the Baroque painters exhibited several characteristics in their painting that made it clear that the work was Baroque: 1) painterly brushstrokes, 2) recession of the plane, 3)open form, 4) unity, and 5) unclearness of subject.

Architecture

The Baroque architectural style came into effect in the construction of Il Gesù (Church of Jesus). The building was cosntructed by Giacomo da Vignola (designer of ground plan) and Giacomo Della Porta, who designed the façade. The basic scheme of the façade is prevalent throughout Catholic countries and was used as a model for over two centuries. The Baroque played into the demand for an architecture that was on the one hand more accessible to the emotions and, on the other hand, a visible statement of the wealth and power of the Church. The new style manifested itself in particular in the context of new religious orders, like the Theatines and the Jesuits, which aimed to improve popular piety.

Characteristics

• long, narrow naves are replaced by broader, occasionally circular forms
• dramatic use of light, either strong light-and-shade contrasts, chiaroscuro effects (e.g. church of Weltenburg Abbey), or uniform lighting by means of several windows (e.g. church of Weingarten Abbey)
• opulent use of ornaments (puttos made of wood (often gilded), plaster or stucco, marble or faux finishing)
• large-scale ceiling frescoes
  

  Santa Susanna: Carlo Maderno,.
  

  Sicilian Baroque: San Benedetto in Catania.
• the external facade is often characterized by a dramatic central projection
• the interior is often no more than a shell for painting and sculpture (especially in the late baroque)
• illusory effects like trompe l'oeil and the blending of painting]] and architecture
• in the Bavarian, Czech lands, Poland, and Ukrainian baroque, pear domes are ubiquitous
• Marian and Holy Trinity columns are erected in Catholic countries, often in thanksgiving for ending a plague

Sculpture

"The distinctive features of baroque statues are a) the use of more than one block of marble, thus allowing a large array of gestures; b) the treatment of drapery, which does not fall in an ordinary way, but is moved by a sort of wind; c) the use of variegated/colored marble or of different marbles; d) a torsion of a very often tall and slim body." Baroque sculptors felt free to combine different materials within a single work and often used one material to simulate another. One of the great masterpieces of baroque sculpture, Giovanni Bernini's St. Theresa from the Cornaro Chapel, for example, succumbs to an ecstatic vision on a dull-finished marble cloud in which bronze rays descend from a hidden source of light. Many works of Baroque sculpture are set within elaborate architectural settings, and they often seem to be spilling out of their assigned niches or floating upward toward heaven.

Seventeenth Century Italy

The Carracci's

Baroque monumental painting was brought into existence by the Cacracci: brothers Annibale Carracci, Agostino Carracci, and cousin Ludovico Cacracci. "The Carracci aimed at a synthesis of vigor and majesty of Michelangelo, the harmony and grace of Raphael, and the color of Titian, less through direct imitation of these High Renaissance artists than through emulation of their method of idealizing nature." In other words, they were attempting to revitalize seventeenth century art with Renaissance ideals of nature, and their ideas of color and unity. The Carracci's were associated with the Bolognese Academy, with their cousin Ludovico being the founder of the school. The premise of the Carracci's Bolognese Academy was that, "art can be taught—the basis of any academic philosophy of art—and that the materials of intstruction must be the traditions, the antique, and the Renaissance, in addition to the studying and drawing from life."

Caravaggio

A revolutionary, Caravaggio changed the course of European art. "The psychological realism, which plumbed the depths of human feeling in a manner comparable in some respects to the insights of his slightly older contemporary, William Shakesparea, and its extraordinary sense of solid reality projected in actual space." Caravaggio became renown for his use of chiaroscuro, his most effective device to awaken the deep recesses of the soul. Chiaroscuro was the use of contrasting light and dark colors and shadows.

Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi, pupil and daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, structured her painting around the tumultuous past of her youth. After being raped by Orazio's pupil, Agostino Tassi, Artemesia's reputation was scarred. As a result, much of the subject matter in her work deals with feminist subjects being wronged by men, and the heroic revenge they take on men. It is clear that the female in all of her works is a self-portrait of herself.

Bernini

• Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Bernini's impact on Baroque art, particularly in the latter stages of the style, is unsurmountable. Bernini produced major works in architecture, sculpture, paintings, and was a dramatist and composer. In fact, he was the model sculptor for all those that followed him in the historical timeline. His style in all mediums exhibited an unmatched intensity and vibrance that seemed to be bringing everything that he created to life.

Major Works Identifying the Baroque Style in Italy

• Annibale Carracci-

Ceiling paintings at Palazzo Farnese (Farnese Palace) Annibale Carraci's ceiling painting are clearly influenced by Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. In fact, the concept of large scenes, small scenes, seated nudes, and marble architecture, and both marble and bronze sculpture. Typical of Baroque art, "it is essential for our understanding of the Baroque that divine love, conceived as the principle at heart of the universe, should be the motive power that draws together all the elements of the ceiling and resolves all conflicts in an unforeseeable act of redemption." The energy among all the figures is controlled yet powerful and abundant. It is extremely difficult to distinguist reality from representation.

Landscape with the Flight into Egypt In his landscapes, Carracci principally strays away from the high point of view so that the figures in the scene are at the same eye level as the viewer. A second, more discernable characteristic of his landscape paintings is the fact that they are not fantastic or imaginative; in fact, they are based on the actual surroundings of Rome. In this piece, it is the Tiber and the Alban Hills. "The landscape in this painting, as almost always in the seventeenth century, was derived from studies made outdoors but was constructed in the studio."

• Caravaggio-

Calling of Saint Matthew The use of shadows to contrast the light and dark is at its best in this piece. While the theme of Saint Matthew's calling is prevalent in art history, none other can rattle the soul as Caravaggio's piece does. Christ is illuminated in light as the edge of his fingertips reflects off the ray of light in the darkened room. The faces of the three boys are illuminated in surprise as they see the vision of Christ. "The background is a wall in a Roman tavern; a window, whose panes are the oiled paper customary before the universal use of glass, is the only visible back-ground object."

• Artemesia Gentileschi-

Judith with the Head of Holofernes "The victorious Hebrew heroine casts one last glance backward into the darkened tent as her maidservant is about to wrap the severed head." The passion and energy is bursting out of the surface of the piece, and the only light in the piece is from the candle (chiaroscuro), which gives us a direct view of the sinister shadow on Judith's face.

• Gian Lorenzo Bernini-

David

When one compares Bernini's David to that of Michelangelo and Donatello, it becomes clear why the style is Baroque and can be nothing else. One of the key features of Baroque sculpture is prevalent in this piece as Bernini depicts the scene in the precise moment at which David is twisting vigorously as he is in motion to release the stone. "The left hand's tightening about the sling and stone produces sharp tensions in the muscles and veins of the arm, the toes of the right foot grip the rock for ..." Vibrance emanates from this work and is easily distinguished by the emotion of the figure and the contortions of the body.

Other Influential Italian Artists

• Carlo Maderno
• Francesco Borromini
• Bartolomeo Manfredi
• Carlo Saraceni
• Battistello Caracciolo
• Guido Reni
• Francesco Albani
• Domenichino
• Guercino
• Daniele Crespi
• Domenico Fetti
• Pietro Tacca
• Pietro da Cortona
• Alessandro Algardi
• Baciccio
• Andrea Pozzo
• Luca Giordano
• Carlo Maratti
• Francesco Furini
• Carlo Dolci
• Evaristo Baschenis
• Bernardo Strozzi
• Bernardo Cavallino
• Mattia Preti

DUTCH ARTISTS

Caravaggesques

Of the many artists that were bound to Caravaggio's charm were Hendrick Terbrugghen and Gerard van Honthorst. The two were known as the chief Caravaggesques because "their religious paintings show understanding of Caravaggio's new vision of ordinary humanity reached by divine love." Honthorst's work focused on nocturnal pictures of biblical scenes while Terbrugghen, like Caravaggio, paints with an aura of uncertainty. The background is set, seemingly, in the middle of nowehere. Terburgghen explored the Baroque psychological aspect of Caravaggio's art.

Hals

Frans Hals was arguably the most brilliant of all portraitists. As an up and coming artist, he was interested in little but the human face and figure. He possessed an unrivaled ability to capture "the moment of action, feeling, perception, or expression and recording that moment with tempestuous but unerring strokes." His use of light and dark is less intense than Caravaggio, but his style of portraiture is original.

Rembrandt

Rembrandt van Rijn dealt with secular subjects as well as biblical; however, it is the spirituality of his art that sets him apart from his Dutch contemporaries, and for that matter, all artists. He was one of the few artists that signed his works with his own name. While he lived in an era where artists were banned from showing their paintings in churches, Rembrandt addressed the individual by the use of "radiant light and vibrant shadow, receptive to the deepest resonances of human feeling."

Major Works

• Pieter Lastman
• Jan Pynas
• Dirck van Baburen
• Jan Lievens
• Gerard Dou
• Jacob Backer
• Govaert Flinck
• Ferdinand Bol
• Carel Fabritius
• Samuel van Hoogstraten
• Gerbrand van den Eeckhout
• Philips Koninck
• Nicolaes Maes
• Willem Drost
• Aert de Gelder
• Willem Buytewech
• Jan Molenaer
• Adriaen van Ostade
• Isaac van Ostade
• Pieter de Hooch
• Gerard ter Borch
• Gabriel Metsu
• Frans van Mieris the Elder
• Jan Steen
• Gillis van Coninxloo
• Roelant Savery
• Hendrick Avercamp
• Esias van de Velde
• Hercules Seghers
• Pieter de Molyn
• Jan van Goyen
• Salomon van Ruisdael
• Jacob van Ruisdael
• Aert van der Neer
• Frans Post
• Aelbert Cuyp
• Meindert Hobbema
• Paulus Potter
• Philips Wouwerman
• Willem van de Velde the Younger
• Cornelis Vroom
• Simon de Vlieger
• Jan van de Cappelle
• Michael Sweerts
• Jan Both
• Nicolaes Berchem
• Jan Weenix
• Karel Dujardin
• Thomas de Keyser
• Pieter Saeredam
• Emanuel de Witte
• Gerrit Berckheyde
• Jan van der Heyden
• Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder
• Pieter Claesz
• Willem Heda
• Jan Davidsz de Heem
• Willem Kalf
• Rachel Ruysch
• Abraham van Beyeren

FLEMISH ARTISTS

Other Influential Flemish Artists

• Adriaen Brouwer
• Joost de Momper the Younger
• Paul Bril
• Jakob Jordaens

SPANISH ARTISTS

Diego Velázquez

• Fra Juan Sánchez Cotán
• Francisco Ribalta
• Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
• Alonso Cano

French Baroque

Other Influential French Artists

• Valentin de Boulogne
• Simon Vouet
• Jacques Blanchard
• Laurent de La Hyre
• Lubin Baugin
• Philippe de Champaigne
• Nicolas Tournier
• Gaspard Dughet
• Eustache Le Sueur
• Sébastien Bourdon
• Charles Le Brun
• Antoine Coysevox
• Pierre Legros the Younger
• Pierre Mignard
• François Girardon
• Jean Jouvenet
• Jean-François de Troy
• André Le Nôtre

References

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