11. Art of the Baroque (1585-1700)

August 05, 2022

11. Art of the Baroque (1585-1700)

Some notes taken from Waldemar Januszczak's documentary The Baroque: From St. Peter's to St. Paul's.

What was it about? What were the goals?

Baroque art continued in the Renaissance tradition of devotional artwork for the Church, with each artist striving to re-imagine and reinvent stories from the Bible, to portray their own, individual take on Christianity. What sets the Baroque apart is its grandeur. The Baroque was about making things big, rich, golden, impressive, and filled with decorations and ornament. Baroque art blurred the lines between painting, sculpture and architecture, combining them in the construction of churches and chapels to create a kind of theatre. The idea is you can walk into the artwork, like a 17th century virtual reality.

Sometimes they went overboard, which is where the Baroque got its name. The word ‘baroque’ comes from the Portuguese word ‘barroco’ meaning a misshapen pearl. The idea is it’s pretty, but irregular, complicated, and strange:

In trying to decorate and enhance beauty, it loses sight of Renaissance aesthetics, commonly considered, both then and now, to be superior. Indeed, many artists felt in the midst of a crisis, unsure how to top the marvels of the Renaissance masters Michelangelo and Raphael.

In Northern Europe, in countries where the people revolted against Catholicism, art changed dramatically, switching to smaller still-lifes, portraits, and “genre paintings” of everyday life. Most art historians include this in Baroque art, as it happened at the same time, even though it’s drastically different from the art of the Church. I talk about it in the next lesson, the Dutch Golden Age of painting.

A bit of historical context, and the many great debates of the time:

The Baroque had its political roots in the Catholic Counter Reformation. The church was threatened by Martin Luther who wrote his 95 Theses, or protests, against the church in 1517. Martin Luther considered art idolatry, and science to be “that great whore”, as we learned in Gulliver’s Travels. He even called Rome the “Whore of Babylon”.

So, the church wanted to promote art that would display their superiority - their virtues, and their power. Catholics saw Rome not as a rich prostitute, but a bride, wearing her finest wedding dress. It was a propaganda effort to sway followers, as military powers fought all over Europe – a contest that wouldn’t end until the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. You can find examples of this propaganda effort throughout Catholic Europe – in Spain, France, Portugal, and even parts of the “Spanish” Netherlands. In France, the kings even used this art movement to show their own divine status, developing the style further into Rococo.

In order to teach and persuade, Baroque painters made works that were clear, direct, dramatic, and visceral. They wanted you to feel the suffering of Christ and his followers, as they suffered martyrdom. They wanted to make the stories and visions appear real and powerful. Caravaggio became an inspiration for his theatrical use of light and shadow. A whole group of artists, known as Caravaggisti copied his style. Meanwhile, the church and wealthy patrons like the Medici family began opening the first art academies in Europe, starting the tradition of European academic painting. The first appeared in Florence, in 1563. Rome opened its Accademia around 1580. Paris opened its in 1648. Many other followed.

The underlying philosophy of the period:

This time marked the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment, which reached its fullest extent in the 18th century. Famous philosophers like René Descartes created unified theories of philosophy, based on reason that could be applied to many different fields: aesthetics, ethics, politics, religion, and so on. At the same time, philosophy distanced itself from religion, for the first time.

Philosophers at this time split into two groups: rationalists and empiricists. Rationalists like Descartes believed that all knowledge could be gained simply from reason, and used mathematics as their model. This led to great breakthroughs, such as Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, written in 1687. Empiricists, like Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke believed that knowledge came through observation of the senses, and used physical sciences as their model.

All these philosophers began to argue in favor of countries ruling through a constitution, limiting the power of a monarch, and separating the church and state.

How was it represented in the other arts – music, architecture, and literature?

Baroque artists blended many arts together, as stated above – architecture, painting, sculpture, gilding, metalwork. Everything worked together in concert. Additionally, the Baroque saw a flowering of great music, with some of the greatest composers of all time, like Bach, Vivaldi, Corelli, Pachelbel, Handel, Telemann, and many others. Their style was clean, bright, courtly, a bit melancholy at times, but generally cheerful and optimistic, with a religious, devotional aspect.

This was also a golden age for theatre, with the development of plays, opera and dance, as well as new designs, such as the proscenium arch, to hide the machinery behind the stage. Playwrights included Ben Jonson, Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Lope de Vega, and Pedro Calderón de la Barca.

What made it great?

In general, this was an age of masters, who took the greatest lessons and innovations from the renaissance and went even further. The level of skill, finish, illusion, and the philosophy behind the works from this age are all unparalleled. If you wanted to argue over the greatest artists of all time, any of these masters would make a good choice.

Some leading figures:

Caracci, Annibale (Italian, 1560-1609)

Tinteretto, Domenico Robusti (Italian, 1560-1635)

Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio (Italian, 1571-1610)

Rubens, Peter Paul (Belgian, 1577-1640)

Vouet, Simon (French, 1590-1649)

de Ribera, Jose, (Spanish, 1591-1652)

Gentileschi, Artemisia (Italian, 1593-1652)

Poussin, Nicolas (French, 1594-1665)

Francisco de Zurburán (1598-1664)

Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo (1598-1680)

Velázquez, Diego (Spanish, 1599-1660)