Baroque
Baroque
period, era in the history of the Western arts roughly coinciding with the 17th
century. Its earliest manifestations, which occurred in Italy, date from the
latter decades of the 16th century, while in some regions, notably Germany and
colonial South America, certain of its culminating achievements did not occur
until the 18th century. The work that distinguishes the Baroque period is
stylistically complex, even contradictory. In general, however, the desire to
evoke emotional states by appealing to the senses, often in dramatic ways,
underlies its manifestations. Some of the qualities most frequently associated
with the Baroque are grandeur, sensuous richness, drama, vitality, movement,
tension, emotional exuberance, and a tendency to blur distinctions between the
various arts.
A
term used in the literature of the arts with both historical and critical
meanings and as both an adjective and a noun. The word has a long, complex and
controversial history (it possibly derived from a Portuguese word for a
misshapen pearl, and until the late 19th century it was used mainly as a
synonym for `absurd’ or `grotesque’), but in English it is now current with
three principal meanings.
Primarily,
it designates the dominant style of European art between Mannerism and Rococo.
This style originated in Rome and is associated with the Catholic
Counter-Reformation, its salient characteristics–overt rhetoric and dynamic
movement–being well suited to expressing the self-confidence and proselytizing
spirit of the reinvigorated Catholic Church. It is by no means exclusively
associated with religious art, however, and aspects of the Baroque can be seen
even in works that have nothing to do with emotional display–for example in
the dynamic lines of certain Dutch still-life paintings.
Secondly,
it is used as a general label for the period when this style flourished,
broadly speaking, the 17th century and in certain areas much of the 18th
century. Hence thus phrases as `the age of Baroque’, `Baroque politics’,
`Baroque science’, and so on.
Thirdly,
the term `Baroque’ (often written without the initial capital) is applied to
art of any time or place that shows the qualities of vigorous movement and
emotional intensity associated with Baroque art in its primary meaning. Much
Hellenistic sculpture could therefore be described as `baroque’.
The
older meaning of the word, as a synonym for `capricious’, `overwrought’ or
`florid’, still has some currency, but not in serious criticism.
Caravaggio
and Annibale Carracci are the two great figures who stand at the head of the
Baroque tradition, bringing a new solidity and weightiness to Italian painting,
which in the late 16th century has generally been artificial and often
convoluted in style. In doing so they looked back to some extent to the
dignified and harmonious art of the High Renaissance
, but
Annibale’s work has an exuberance that is completely his own, and Caravaggio
created figures with an unprecedented sense of sheer physical presence. From
the Mannerist style the Baroque inherited movement and fervent emotion, and
from the Renaissance style solidity and grandeur, fusing the two influences
into a new and dynamic whole. The supreme genius of Baroque art was Gianlorenzo
Bernini, an artist of boundless energy and the utmost virtuosity, whose
work–imbued with total spiritual conviction–dominates the period sometimes
called the `High Baroque’ (c. 1625-75). Slightly later, Andrea Pozzo marks the
culmination in Italy of the Baroque tendency towards overwhelmingly grandiose
display.
In
the 17th century, Rome was the artistic capital of Europe, and the baroque
style soon spread outwards from it, undergoing modification in each of the
countries to which it migrated, as it encountered different tastes and outlooks
and merged with local traditions. In some areas it became more extravagant (notably
in the fervent religious atmosphere of Spain and Latin America) and in others
it was toned down to suit more conservative tastes. In Catholic Flanders it had
one of its finest flowerings in the work of Rubens, but in neighbouring
Holland, a predominantly Protestant country, the Baroque made comparatively
slight inroads; nor did it ever take firm root in England. In France, the
Baroque found its greatest expression in the service of the monarchy rather
than the church. Louis XIV realized the importance of the arts as a propaganda
medium in promoting the idea of his regal glory, and his palace at
Versailles–with its grandiose combination of architecture, sculpture,
painting, decoration, and (not least) the art of the gardener–represents one
of the supreme examples of the Baroque fusion of the arts to create an
overwhelmingly impressive whole. (The German term Gesamtkunstwerk–`total
work of art’–has been applied to this ideal.) In France, as in other
countries, the Baroque style merged imperceptibly with the Rococo style that
followed it.
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