baroque art(frankie's report)

Baroque Art

Reported by Maria Francesca Nacionales

History

Visual Art

Sculpture

Architecture

Pictures

Defenition and Style

Baroque started around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe. The popularity and success of the "baroque" was encouraged by the Catholic Church when it decided that the drama of the baroque artists' style could communicate religious themes in direct and emotional involvement. The secular aristocracy also saw the dramatic style of baroque architecture and art as a means of impressing visitors and would-be competitors. Baroque palaces are built round an entrance sequence of courts, anterooms, grand staircases, and reception rooms of sequentially increasing magnificence. Many forms of art, music, architecture, and literature inspired each other in the "baroque" cultural movement.

History

The canon promulgated at the Council of Trent (1545–63), by which the Roman 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, is customarily offered as an inspiration of the Baroque, which appeared, however, a generation later. This turn toward a populist conception of the function of ecclesiastical art is seen by many art historian as driving the innovations of Carravaggio and the Carracci brothers, all of whom were working (and competing for commissions) in Rome around 1600.

The appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th century Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, and dramatic.In paintings, Baroque gestures are broader than Mannerist gestures: less ambiguous, less arcane and mysterious, more like the stage gestures of opera, a major Baroque artform. Baroque poses depend on contrapposto ("counterpoise"), the tension within the figures that moves the planes of shoulders and hips in counterdirections. 

The dryer, chastened, less dramatic and coloristic, later stages of 18th century Baroque architectural style are often seen as a separateLate Baroque manifestation. See the entry Claude Perrault. Academic characteristics in the Palladian architectural style, epitomized by  William Kent are a parallel development in Britain and the British colonies: within doors, Kent's furniture designs are vividly influenced by the Baroque furniture of Rome and Genoa, hieratic tectonic sculptural elements meant never to be moved from their positions completing the wall elevation. Baroque is a style of unity imposed upon rich and massy detail.

The Baroque was defined by Heinrich Wölfflin as the age where the oval replaced the circle as the center of composition, that centralization replaced balance, and that coloristic and "painterly" effects began to become more prominent. Art historians, often Protestant ones, have traditionally emphasized that the Baroque style evolved during a time in which the Roman Catholic Church had to react against the many revolutionary cultural movements that produced a new science and new forms of religion— Reformation It has been said that the monumental Baroque is a style that could give the Papacy, like secular absolute monarchies, a formal, imposing way of expression that could restore its prestige, at the point of becoming somehow symbolic of theCounter-Reformation. Whether this is the case or not, it was successfully developed in Rome, where Baroque architecture widely renewed the central areas with perhaps the most important urbanistic revision.

What Is Baroque ?

Baroque means 'absurd' or 'grotesque'. This term was used by people who thought that the forms of the classical buildings should never have been used in times after Greek and Roman periods. For, in baroque the classical forms were used, like in Renaissance and the mannerism. 

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The intention of baroque was to make the transitory life on earth special and beautiful. Symmetry was very important. Baroque was a heavy style; many swelling forms, excessive ornaments, wealthy and glossy materials (a lot of colorful marble, gilding and bronze). There were a lot of movements in the sculptures and paintings; angels flew, saints rose heavenward, people moved and fought. There were many ceiling paintings and paintings of crowds.

 Differences between Baroque and the Renaissance/Mannerism

Baroque has borrowed many things from Renaissance and mannerism, but there are certainly differences.The classical forms were used soberly in the Renaissance, with especial attention on clearness and realism. Mannerism wasn't sober; there were decorative and complicated effects. Baroque churches were beautified with decorative and complicative effects, but were also very realistic. That was expressed in a new way. In painting the leading figures were put in the forefront. In the art of sculpture dynamic exercises were expressed with round forms and many details. There was much variety in composition and the bodies were very expressive. In architecture, there were heavy pillars, overlapping pilasters (flat, rectangular wall pillars) and deeply carved ornaments. Curved façades, oval ground plans and broken frontons replaced straight façades, rectangular or circular ground plans and simple triangular or segmental (part of a arc of a circle, cut off by a straight line) frontons.The arts of sculpture, painting and architecture became a completion to each other. In churches architectonics ornaments ran over in painted planes.Marked, turbulent colors and straight lightconstrast were often used.

A defining statement of what Baroque signifies in painting is provided by the series of paintings executed by Peter Paul Rubens for Marie de Medici at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris (now at the Louvre), in which a Catholic painter satisfied a Catholic patron: Baroque-era conceptions of monarchy, iconography, handling of paint, and compositions as well as the depiction of space and movement. Another frequently cited work of Baroque art is Bernini's "Saint Theresa in ecstasy" for the Cornaro chapel in S. Maria della Vittoria, which brings together multiple arts, including opera. The later baroque style gives way gradually to Rococo. A comparison with Rococo, will help define Baroque by contrast.

Visual Art

In Baroque sculpture, groups of figures assumed new importance, and there was a dynamic movement and energy of human forms— they spiralled around an empty central vortex, or reached outwards into the surrounding space. For the first time, Baroque sculpture often had multiple ideal viewing angles. The characteristic Baroque sculpture added extra-sculptural elements, for example, concealed lighting, or water fountains.The architecture, sculpture and fountains of Bernini (1598–1680) give highly-charged characteristics of Baroque style. Bernini was undoubtedly the most important sculptor of the Baroque period. He approached Michelangelo in his omnicompetence: Bernini sculpted, worked as an architect, painted, wrote plays, and staged spectacles. In the late 20th century Bernini was most valued for his sculpture, both for his virtuosity in carving marble and his ability to create figures that combine the physical and the spiritual. He was also a fine sculptor of bust portraits in high demand among the powerful.

Sculpture

In Baroque architecture, new emphasis was placed on bold massing,colonnades, domes, light-and-shade (chiaroscuro), 'painterly' color effects, and the bold play of volume and void.Baroque architecture was taken up with enthusiasm in central Germany (Ludwigsburg Palace and Zwinger Dresden) and Austria. In England the culmination of Baroque architecture was embodied in work by Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor, from ca. 1660 to ca. 1725. Many examples of Baroque architecture and town planning are found in other European towns, and in the Spanish Americas. Town planning of this period featured radiating avenues intersecting in squares, which took cues fromBaroque garden plans.

Architecture

Prometheus, by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam, 1737 (Louvre): a hectic tour-de-force of violent contrasts of stress, multiple angles and viewpoints, and extreme emotion

Sample Sculptures

Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s David(1623–24): Baroque freeze-frame stopped action, contrapposto and theatrical emotion

“David” by Michaelangelo

Can You Describe The Difference?

Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598: a moment caught in a dramatic action from a classical source, bursting from the picture plane in a sweeping diagonal perspective.

Paintings

Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens: dynamic figures spiral down around a void: draperies blow: a whirl of movement lit in a shaft of light, rendered in a free bravura handling of paint

Still-life, by Portuguese painter Josefa de Óbidos, 1679, Santarém, Portugal Municipal Library

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Night Watch  or The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, 1642, oil on canvas, 363 × 437 cm., 142.9 × 172.0 inches, Rijksmuseum,Amsterdam. The painting is a classic example of Baroque art

The Virgin and Child Adored by Angels, 1608, oil on slate and copper. This is the central panel depictingThe Virgin and Child Adored by Angels above the High Altar, Santa Maria in Vallicella, Rome.

Caravaggio, Bacchus c.1595, Oil on canvas, 95 x 85 cm., Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Francisco de Zurbarán, The Birth of the Virgin, c. 1625–1630, ,Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum

Nativity by  Josefa de Óbidos, 1669,National Museum of

Ancient Art, Lisbon

The Elevation of the Cross, 1610–11. Central panel. Cathedral of Our Lady, Antwerp

Artemesia Gentileschi , Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1614–20, oil on canvas, 199 x 162 cm Galleria degli Uffizi Florence

Rubens is known for the frenetic energy and lusty ebullience of his paintings, as typified by theHippopotamus Hunt (1616).

Jan Brueghel the Elder, The Entry of the Animals Into Noah's Ark, 1613

The Massacre of the Innocents, 1611. Art Gallery of Ontario

Georges de La Tour, Saint Joseph charpentier 1642, Louvre

Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598: a moment caught in a dramatic action from a classical source, bursting from the picture plane in a sweeping diagonal perspective. This is an artwork by Marcel Duchamp

Sculptures

"Abduction of Proserpina" (1621-1622, Galleria Borghese, Rome)

Apollo and Daphne (1624-25).

St. Theresa in Ecstasy (1645–52), created for the Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome 

Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s David(1623–24): Baroque freeze-frame stopped action, contrapposto and theatrical emotion

Prometheus, by Nicolas-Sébastien Adam, 1737 (Louvre): a hectic tour-de-force of violent contrasts of stress, multiple angles and viewpoints, and extreme emotion

Sample of Architectures and Styles

Berliner Dom, Berlin

Building Location Date Architects

Image

St Peter's Basilica

Rome, Italy

1506–1615 Michelangelo,

Giacomo della

Porta, Carlos

MadernoChurch of the Gesu

Giacomo Barozzi da

Vignola and

Giacomo dela Porta

Elector’s Palace

Trier Germany

Santa Sussana

Quirinal Hill in Rome

1585 - 1603

Carlo Maderno

Basilica Collegiata

Catania, Sicily,

Southern Italy

1768 Stefano Ittar

Santiago de

Compostela

Cathedral

Santiago de

Compostela in Galicia

, Spain

1128- 1211 Fernando de Casas

Novoa

The Church of Saint

Yves  at La Sapienza 

Rome Italy 1660 Francesco Borromini

Basilica di Superga

Northern Italy

1717 Filippo Juvarra

Château de Maisons

Near Paris

1642 Francois Mansart

Les Invalides Paris,France

1679–1708

Jules Hardouin Mansart

 The Royal Palace

Amsterdam

Amsterdam,

Netherlands

1648- 1665Jacob Van Campen

and Daniel St

Queluz National Palace

Near Lisbon,

Portugal

Oliveira

St. George's Cathedral

Lviv  1746–1762

Jesuit Church

of Nagyszombat

Fertőd, Hungary

1629-37 Pietro Spozzo

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