Baroque

Unit 3: Early Europe and Colonial Americas

Historical Background:

In 1600, the artistic center of Europe was Rome, particularly at the court of the popes.
The completion of St. Peter's Basilica became a crusade for the Catholic Church, both as an evocation of faith and as a symbol of the Church on earth.
1650 - the increased power and influence of the French kings (first at Paris and then Versailles) shift the art world to France. While Rome still kept the allure as the keeper of masterpieces in both the ancient world and the Renaissance, France became the center of modern art and innovation until WWII.
1618-1648: The Thirty Years War - Devastating to Europe and put a halt to art-making. Culmination of religious wars of the 16th Century (Catholics vs. Protestants). German princes wanted secular power back.
The Counter-Reformation: The Catholic Church wanted to rebuild Rome's reputation as a holy city. The Papacy embarked on extensive building and decoration campaigns aimed to highlight ancient origins, beliefs, and divine authority. Church also addressed issues of corruption and defended its doctrines.

Protestants:

Largely iconoclasts and were known for breaking painted and sculpted images in churches.
Derided saints.
Played down miracles.

Catholics:

Endorsed the place of images and were reinspired to create new ones.
Reaffirmed the communion of saints and glorified their images.
Made miracles visible and palpable.

Patronage and Artistic Life

The Catholic Church was still the greatest source of artistic commissions in the 17th century, closely followed by royalty and their autocratic governments. Huge churches and massive palaces had big spaces that needed to be filled with large paintings and commanding high prices. However, artists were not just interested in monetary gains; many Baroque artists like Rubens or Bernini were intensely religious people, who were acting out of a firm commitment to their faith as well as to their art.

Baroque Art Forms

Architecture

Landscape architecture becomes an important artistic expression in the Baroque, beginning with the Palace of Versailles and continuing throughout the 18th century.
Palaces are envisioned as the principal feature in an ensemble with gardens that are imaginatively arranged to enhance the buildings they framed.
Long views are important.
Key windows are viewing stations upon which gardens spread out before to suggest man's control over his environment.
Views look down extended avenues carpeted by lawns and embraced by bordering trees, usually terminating in a statue or a fountain. The purpose is to impress the viewer with a sense of limitlessness.
Architecture relies on movement. Facades undulate, creating symmetrical cavities of shadow alternating with projecting pilasters that capture the sunlight.
Emphasis is on the center of the facades with wave-like forms that accentuate the entrance, which is usually topped with a pediment or tympana.
Careful displays of convex and concave shapes marks experimental buildings by architects such as Borromini.
Interiors are richly designed to combine painting and sculpture in a choreographed ensemble to enhance its drama.
Architecture is large and seeks to impress with its size and elaborate ornamentation. This alludes to the imperial and papal achievements of its patrons to proclaim their power and wealth.

Painting

While religious and historical paintings were still considered the highest form of expression, still-life, genre, and landscape paintings flourished in the 17th century.
Landscapes and still-lifes exist not in and of themselves, but to express a higher meaning. Many contain a vanitas theme, which stresses the brevity of life and the folly of human vanity.
Broad open landscapes feature small figures in the foreground acting out a Biblical or mythological passage. Landscapes were never actual viewers of a particular site; instead they were composed in a studio from sketches done in the field. The artist was free to select trees from one place and put them with buildings from another.
Genre paintings often had an allegorical commentary on a contemporary or historical issue.
Tenebrism - painters were fascinated by Caravaggio and his use of tenebrism, which is the handling of dramatic light and shadow.
Impasto - Northern artists specialized in impasto brushwork which created a spontaneity with vibrant use of visible brushwork.
Figures were dramatically rendered. Light effects were key. Colors are descriptive and evocative, inspired by the Venetian Renaissance.

Sculpture

Baroque sculpture stressed movement.
Figures are caught in mid-motion, mouths open, with the flesh of one figure yielding to the touch of another.
Some large works were often meant to be placed in the middle of the floor or at a slight distance from a wall and be seen in the round.
Sculptors employ negative space, carving large openings in a work so that the viewer can contemplate a multiplicity of angles.
Marble is treated with a tactile sense: human skin given a high polish, angel wings shown with a feathery touch, animal skins revealing a coarser feel.
Inspired by Greek Hellenistic period.

Dutch Baroque

Dutch Baroque flourished in mercantile Holland.
Dutch paintings are harbingers of modernity: landscapes, portraits, and genre paintings while religious ecstasies, great myths, and historical subjects were avoided.
Dutch houses are small and wall space scarce, so painters designed their works to hang in more intimate settings.
Even though commerce and trade boomed, the Dutch did not want industry portrayed in their works.
Dutch art still features many layers of symbolism that provoke the viewer to intellectual consideration. Ex: still-life paintings are not just an arrangement of inanimate objects, but cause to ponder the fleeing nature of life. Stark church interiors often symbolized the triumph of Protestantism over Catholicism.

Unit Vocabulary

DI SOTTO IN SU - Illusionistic ceiling painting translated as "seen from below". Contains extreme foreshortening.

CAMERA OBSCURA - an optical device that projects an inverted image of an external scene onto a surface inside a darkened space through a small aperture or lens. Artists used this to achieve accurate perspectives and details in their paintings by allowing them to trace or project images onto their canvases.

COUNTER REFORM - Period of Catholic resurgence in response to Protestantism. Began with the Council of Trent.

TENEBRISM - a painting technique that employs dramatic contrasts between light and dark to create depth and emotional intensity. It is closely associated with Baroque art and artists like Caravaggio, who used it to enhance the dramatic and theatrical quality of their works.

IMPASTO - a painting technique characterized by the application of thick layers of paint to create a textured, three-dimensional surface. It enhances the physical presence of the paint on the canvas and adds depth and expressiveness to the artwork.

VANITAS - an art genre that uses symbolic objects to explore themes of mortality, the transience of life, and the futility of material wealth. It emerged in 17th-century Dutch art and remains a powerful commentary on the human condition.