AP European History
Literature & Art of the 16th and 17th Centuries
Handout 4-3
I. Art after the Renaissance
* Mannerism – Art changed following the death of Raphael in 1520 as it became
more emotional, filled with dissonance, and increasingly based on the
imagination. Less emphasis was placed on balance, weight, and symmetry
as paintings were made to look more off-balance and diffuse. The term
“Mannerism” came from Italian term “di maniera” (work done to a
particular style rather than nature). Many of these artists were more
eccentric, and their paintings included lurid colors, distorted figures,
unreal lighting, movement, and tension.
II. Baroque Art – largely the 17th century
* The Baroque art style followed the Renaissance and emerged out of the
Mannerist era. In general, it is often more complex, ornate, emotional,
intense, and dramatic compared to the earlier Renaissance work.
* The term “baroque” has come to have a negative connotation for being
almost “overdone,” but the 17th century produced a number of artistic
greats (including Rembrandt and Velasquez).
* It evolved in Rome around 1600 as artists from all over Europe came to
study the masterpieces of classical antiquity and the high Renaissance,
and they then returned home to put their own “cultural spin” on their
artwork. Thus, the styles varied greatly – from Italian realism to
French flamboyance – but they all shared a sensitivity to and absolute
mastery of light to achieve the maximum emotional impact.
* It initially evolved as a corollary to the Catholic (Counter) Reformation as
the Church began to commission artwork to enflame the senses, to
glorify God, and to bring people closer to God. The Pope wanted
magnificent, awe-inspiring work. Such powerful religious art became
prominent in Spain and Italy while French artists moved towards more
classical and secular themes in their work.
* Louis XIV and other monarchs during the era of absolutism spent tons of
money to glorify themselves, leading to Versailles and other extravagant
palaces, buildings, and furnishings.
* Many Protestant nations of northern and western Europe (like England and
Holland) forbid religious imagery so Baroque art in these areas became
focused on still lifes, portraits, landscapes, and daily life scenes. Northern
Baroque art still possessed a theatrical, stage-lit exuberance and drama.
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III. Literature
* Literary figures of the 1500’s and 1600’s reflected both a continuation of old
medieval and religious values and a new emphasis on the nature of
humanity and questions of reality.
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* Spanish Literature:
-- Spain was heavily Catholic and was devoutly religious; no Protestant
Reformation ever occurred because of the entrenched power of the
Church and the Inquisition.
-- Spanish nationalism was also inexorably linked to religious piety,
leading to a major emphasis on the ideals of chivalry – mainly
loyalty and honor.
-- Thus, Spanish literature remained more “medieval” that that found in
England and France.
-- Miguel Cervantes (1547-1616) was born in Alcala, Spain as the son of
a nomadic physician. After working for a Cardinal as a youth, he
became a soldier and was decorated for his bravery at the Battle
of Lepanto in 1571. His ship was captured by pirates in 1575,
leading to five years of slavery in Algiers.
-- He became a tax collector on his return, and he wrote his most famous
work while in prison for padding his tax accounts.
-- Don Quixote de la Mancha first appeared in 1605, and it is a satire of
chivalric romances that were so popular in Spain. Yet, many
scholars insist that it is only satire on the surface, arguing that
Cervantes had a deep affection for Don Quixote and leading it to
be an object of study for philosophers and theologians.
-- Don Quixote is an unstable middle-aged man who has read too many
chivalric romances, and he finally comes to believe that he is an
aspirant to knighthood and must prove his worthiness by brave
deeds. He acquires a rusty suit of armor, mounts an old horse
(Rozinante), and chooses a peasant girl named Dulcinea for his
inspiration. He fancies her to be a noble lady to whom he can
dedicate his life, and he sets forth on inane quests (like fighting
windmills) to prove himself.
-- His foil, Sancho Panza, is a clever, worldly peasant who serves as his
squire, and Sancho Panza watches his friend with amusement,
skepticism, and sympathy.
-- The story ends tragically with Don Quixote’s humiliating defeat by a
well-meaning friend who, disguised as a knight, bests Don Quixote
and forces him to renounce his quest for knighthood. He does not
“come to his senses”; rather, he dies in his old village as a shamed
and broken-hearted old man.
-- Cervantes seems to admire both the religious idealism of Don Quixote
and the down-to-earth realism of Sancho Panza.
* William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
-- He was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, living there most of his life except
when he was writing in London. He married Anne Hathaway at
age 18 in 1582 with whom he had three children by 1585. He
acquired a broad knowledge of Renaissance learning and literature
while working as a schoolteacher; he was not simply a “self-taught
genius.”
-- He enjoyed his “country gentleman” lifestyle, making fun of the
Puritans and enjoying the new commercialism and bawdy
pleasures of the Elizabethan age.
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-- He was a modern-day conservative, accepting social rankings and
traditional power structure, and he viewed government in
simple terms (like Richard III) while promoting true patriotism.
-- He was a member of and principal dramatist for the King’s Men, and
many of his plays were performed at the royal court under the
tenure of Edmund Tillney, Queen Elizabeth’s Master of Revels.
-- English drama had already developed into an eclectic mix of styles –
tragedies, comedies, morality plays, and even Italian short stories.
-- Thomas Kyd (author of the first Hamlet) and Christopher Marlowe
(author of many tragedies) greatly influenced Shakespeare with
their models for plot, character, poetry, and style.
-- He was brilliant for his insight into human motivation and behavior.
-- Histories: Richard III (a very early play – 1593)
-- Comedies: Mostly written between 1598-1602; Much Ado About
Nothing, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night; The Tempest (his
last play) was written in 1611
-- Tragedies: Romeo and Juliet (1597), Hamlet (1603), Othello (1604),
King Lear (1605), and Macbeth (1606)
-- Ben Johnson noted: “He was not of an age, but for all time.”
* John Milton (1608-1674)
-- He was the son of a devout Puritan and lived during the English Civil
War, and he was well-educated man who studied both Christian &
pagan classics. He grew to love the open, congenial, intellectual
atmosphere found in Italy, and the Phlegraen Fields near Naples
later became the model for hell in Paradise Lost. In addition, the
Villa d’Este may have been the paradise model Paradise Regained.
-- He believed strongly in the importance of integrity and character as he
was a man of deep conviction and principle.
-- He joined the Puritan struggle against Charles I in 1639, and he used his
literary talents to write pamphlets to defend the Presbyterian form
of church structure and worship. After a failed marriage, he wrote
several tracts defending divorce, a factor in Parliament’s passage
of a censorship law in 1643; in response, Milton wrote
Areopagitica, an impassioned defense of freedom of the press.
-- He believed that the government should have the least possible control
over the private lives of individuals, and he began to affiliate with
the “Independents” who favored the total dissolution of the
state church in favor of local congregational autonomy.
-- He also defended the execution of King Charles I, and during his intense
labor on this tract, he became blind.
-- He completed Paradise Lost in 1665, hoping to give England a lasting
epic like Homer’s Iliad or Virgil’s Aeneid, and he chose biblical
subject matter to reflect contemporary theology. He was more
Arminian in his belief, rejecting the complete notion of
Predestination and affirming the notion that human beings must
take responsibility for their actions and their fate.
-- His masterpiece is a study of the destructiveness of pride and of the
redeeming possibilities of humanity.
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-- It involves the revolt of Satan in heaven and the fall of Adam on Earth.
He was particularly intrigued by the motives of Satan, and he
makes Satan to be a great, tragic figure who represents absolute
corruption of potential greatness.
-- His later work focused on the need to appreciate and to make the most
of all that we have (possibly influenced by his blindness), and
this theme is prominent in Paradise Regained (1671), the story of
Christ’s temptation in the wilderness.
* John Bunyan (1628-1688)
-- He was a Puritan English author whose masterpiece is The Pilgrim’s
Progress (1678). He received only a basic education and served
for two years in Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army, and the
fervor of this crusade and the imagery of warfare are prominent
in his work.
-- He went to prison for fiery preaching following the Restoration of 1660.
He stayed in prison for years because of his refusal to give up
preaching as the Puritans considered religious compromise to be
a tragic flaw.
-- He wrote Grace Abounding, his pious, personal autobiography, while
in prison, and like the Puritans, this work reflects a complete
belief in Predestination, the concept that individuals are totally
helpless without God’s grace. The successful struggle against
the flesh and the world gave evidence that they were God’s elect.
-- The Pilgrim’s Progress deals with the question of salvation, whether
flaws or complacency in the fact of temptation meant that one
was not saved. In the story, a man named Christian travels with
his friends Hopeful and Faithful to the Celestial City where they
must deny spouse, children, and all earthly security in search of
eternal life. They must resist the temptations of Vanity Fair and
Worldly-Wiseman along the way, and they endure a long, dark
night in Doubting Castle.
IV. Baroque Music – from around 1600 through 1750
* Baroque music changed greatly from the Renaissance with increasingly
complex music (especially with varied ___________) and a number of
different forms, styles, and conventions. Many of these composers used
voices and instrumentation to help highlight and to structure the ______.
-- The first ________ were written and performed on church steps.
-- Much of the music was written for the _____________, organ, and/or
orchestras as the _______ developed later.
-- __________: repeating a single melody several times with slight
variations on different voices and instruments
-- ________________: weaving together two or more separate melodies
-- _________: a musical composition (usually with three movements) for
an orchestra and one or more instrumental soloists
-- __________: a Baroque-era composition (often religious but at times
secular) involving both vocal and instrumental components
-- _____: a solo vocal piece – usually within a larger musical composition
-- __________: an introductory musical theme that then repeats after each
stanza in a musical composition
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* Antonio ______ – Italian composer famous for his concertos and other virtuoso
compositions including _________________________
* George Friedrich ________ – German composer who spent much of his career
in England and is famous for the Water Music and for _______________
(which includes “The _________________ Chorus”)
* Johann Sebastian _________ – German composer who is famous for countless
concertos, cantatas, and other musical works (mostly – but not entirely –
religious) including “________________________,” the “B Minor Mass,”
and the “___________________ Concertos.”
V. Mannerist, Baroque, and Rococo Artists/Artworks to Know
* Spanish
-- El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos)
-- “The Burial of Count Orgaz”
-- Diego Velasquez
-- “Las Meninas” (“The Maids of Honor”)
* Italian
-- Parmigianino
-- “Madonna with the Long Neck”
-- Tintoretto
-- “Christ Before Pilate”
-- Caravaggio
-- “Death of the Virgin:
-- “Supper at Emmaus”
-- “The Calling of St. Matthew”
-- Artemesia Gentileschi
-- “Judith and Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes”
-- Gianlorenzo Bernini
-- “The Ecstasy of St. Theresa”
-- Canaletto (Antonio de Canal)
-- “View of Venice”
-- “On the Grand Canal”
* Flemish
-- Sir Peter Paul Rubens
-- “The Descent from the Cross”
-- “Samson and Delilah”
-- “The Garden of Love”
-- Sir Anthony van Dyck
-- “Charles I at the Hunt”
* Dutch
--Ruisadel (“Big Sky” paintings)
-- “Windmill at Wijk-bij-Duurstede”
-- Gerard Ter Borch
-- “Parental Advice”
-- Frans Hals
-- “The Jolly Toper”
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-- Rembrandt van Rijn
-- “The Night Watch”
-- “Belshazzar’s Feast”
-- “Aristotle Contemplating a Bust of Homer”
-- “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp”
-- Johann Vermeer
-- “The Kitchenmaid”
-- “Artist in His Studio”
* English
-- William Hogarth (political cartoonist/satirist)
-- “Chairing the Member”
-- “Marriage a la Mode”
-- Sir Christopher Wren (architect, steeple trademark, built over 50
churches in London after the Great Fire of 1666)
-- St. Paul’s Cathedral
* French
-- Nicolas Poussin
-- “The Burial of Phocio”
-- “Rape of the Sabine Women”
-- Claude Lorrain
-- “The Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah”
--Versailles and the Hall of Mirrors
-- Antoine Watteau
-- “Pilgrimmage to Cythera”
-- Jean Honore Fragonard
-- “Stealing a Kiss”
-- “The Swing”
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