The Baroque
The Baroque in Spain
Original from Portuguese: perla barroca
misshapen pearl
Spain: Catholic Counter-Reformation (art
of mystical spirituality) and absolutist
monarchy (monarchs patronized projects
and artists)
Repercussions in American colonies
Spanish Baroque Architecture
Few commissions from Phillip II. Phillip used
Italian artists for his El Escorial palace
Palace, mausoleum, monastery to St.
Lawrence
Influenced by Michelangelo’s St. Peter’s
Gold and silver from the New World
La Compania in Cuzco Peru and Cathedral
of Mexico: Triumph of Christianity over
native faiths.
Velazquez
Diego Velazquez, court painter to Philip IV
Realist; bold color and brushwork
Did not attain Rubens’ social status
Las Meninas: genre painting
King and Queen and painter in painting
Red cross: nobility awarded to him by
King
Cervantes and Don Quixote
Idealistic knight confuses real world with
chivalric fantasy
Draws people and changes them
Cervantes: Greatest literary work of 17th
century
Sancho represents reality who brings Don
Quixote back from his fantasy
Don Quixote
Contrast between reality and fantasy, truth
and falsehood, issues of life and death
Spanish Inquisition executed heretics on
flimsy evidence like Don Quixote’s
fantasies
Masterpiece about the chief intellectual
problems of his age
The Baroque in Italy
More exuberant baroque style in Italy
New buildings and artistic patronage
exceeding Renaissance
Ornamentation, dramatic and theatrical,
monumental scale of works
The Baroque Master Bernini
Pope Urban VIII hired Gianlorenzo Bernini
to beautify Rome
Surpassed Renaissance architects in
ambition and scope
Baldacchino, Piazza to St Peter’s,
Colonnade: arms of the Church to
welcome worshippers
Sculpture: dynamic, energetic
David: ready to cast his stone, coiled to
release in baroque diagonal. Face selfportrait of Bernini
Cornaro Chapel: Ecstasy of St. Teresa:
Saint’s union with God
Teresa consumed with love for God
Sculpted figures of Cornaro family in
balconies witness vision
Baroque religious emotionalism
Italian Baroque Painting
Caravaggio: Dramatic chiaroscuro to depict
biblical scenes. Italian peasants for models
The Calling of St. Matthew: anachronistic
shows deep belief in salvation of sinners
Artemisa Gentileschi: pupil of Caravaggio.
Judith Slaying Holofernes foreground light
propels action forward: dramatic
The Birth of Opera
By 17th century Italy losing ground in the arts
except in opera
Opera: musical theater, sung, with orchestra
and staged with costumes and sets
Florentine Camerata
Claudio Monteverdi: Orfeo: Orpheus descends
to Hell to rescue Euridice
Expanded recitatives
Solos convey intense feelings
Chordal dissonances create discomfort
that anticipates a resolution
Interest in human emotion evidenced in
Caravaggio’s and Bernini’s works
Aria: independent song revealing
feelings of character. Showcased the
virtuosity of singers
Opera seria and opera buffa
Vivaldi and Italian Baroque
Music
Vivaldi: musical director of conservatory.
Virtuoso of the violin from Venice, Master of the
baroque concerto, musical form with small
group of instrument in contrasts with a larger
orchestra.
The Four Seasons: Brilliant composition of four
dramatic episodes connected by a recurring
melody. Studied by Bach later.
Absolutism
Absolute monarchies: solution to
maintain social order; control of every
aspect of national life
Hobbes didn’t believe humans could rule
themselves
Louis XIV: L’etat, c’est moi!
The Baroque in France
Reign of Louis XIV-- “Sun King” 1660
Sponsored arts and theater--controlled
them via the academies: Rules revived
Greek and Roman forms: neoclassical
style flourished alongside Italian baroque
Versailles
Balanced and lavish--compromise between
neoclassical rules and baroque excess
Enlarged the hunting lodge; eventually moved
his court there--50,000 p, 20,000 h
Le Vau, Le Notre, Lebrun
Mansart--Hall of Mirrors
Established French national style
The Performing Arts at
Versailles
Academie Francaise: judged in matters of
literary form and taste--rules for theater
5 acts, unities of time and place provide a moral
lesson
Moliere: attacked hypocrisy of French society:
Tartuffe, The Would-Be Gentleman, The
Imaginary Invalid his best plays. Wit and
observation of society.
Lully collaborated with Moliere in
comedy-ballets
Became the head of the Royal
Academy of Music
He developed classical ballet with five
basic foot positions.
Employed professional women dancers
Composed 20 operas--never achieved
greatness of Italian operas
Rubens and Poussin: Painters
of the Court
Rubens: (Flemish)master of baroque style
Dynamic compositions with lavish color: Marie
de Medici’s 21 canvases
Themes of aristocracy: hunting, history,
mythology, portraits
Rape of the Daughter of Leucippus, Henry IV
Receiving the Portrait of Marie de Medici
Poussin
Baroque Neoclassicism: cool and defined
figures as classical statues
Clarity of The Holy Family on the Steps
Pyramidal grouping from the Renaissance
Regularity of structure
Academic tastes
Music of the Protestant
Baroque
No absolutist monarch to impose rules
and tastes
Small German courts provided patrons
Johann Sebastian Bach
Excelled in both secular and sacred music.
Was not known outside his area.
Two features of baroque music: counterpoint
and basso continuo
Six Brandenberg Concertos
Appointed music director of St. Thomas
church in Leipzig
Cantatas (over 300): choral work for
Lutheran worship
The “Well-tempered Keyboard”
Musical exercises proved that any stringed
keyboard instrument could be tuned to
accommodate all 24 major and minor keys.
Prelude free form--shows off the keyboard
player’s ability
Fugue--musical form developed in counterpoint
St. Matthew’s Passion
The Dutch Baroque
Vigorous commerce and political
independence in the Netherlands
Churches bare, but public halls decorated
with paintings
Demand for paintings eliminated need for
patrons
Vermeer
Unknown in his day: now regarded as a
master of light and color
Feel for the Dutch interior
The Allegory of Painting and The Milkmaid
Thirty canvases
Rembrandt
Dutch from Amsterdam--mastered all
popular subjects of his age
Transcended his peers in visual and
psychological richness
The Night Watch--group portraits
commissioned by Dutch civic groups as
complex as Velazquez and El Greco’s
masterpieces
Lost patrons, his wife, his child.
Religious work: Christ Healing the Sick
Etching: lines scratched on a waxcovered metal plate. Plate treated with
acid that etches the metal; prints then
taken from the plate.
Self Portraits: more than 60
Psychological insight
Christopher Wren’s London
St. Paul’s: Gothic, Renaissance and
baroque styles
Influenced by Bernini and Mansart
After the fire of London he constructed the
new St. Paul’s
Handel
German by birth, adopted by England.
Leading composer of baroque period.
Trained in Italy, wrote operas
King George I was his patron
Oratorios: narrative choral work with
operatic elements but without action,
scenery or costumes: Messiah
Handel’s Messiah
Presented in Dublin Ireland 1742
Jesus’ birth, death and resurrection
Hallelujah chorus: British king stood up
and started a tradition
Scientific Revolution
Spanned the late Renaissance and
Baroque Periods
Two principles:
– Empircism
– Verification of truths
Overthrew Aristotle’s views
Separated science from the Church
Scientists and Philosophers
Copernicus--heliocentrism
Kepler—laws of planetary motion
Galileo—used telescope to observe
planets
Descartes—Discourse on Method
Newton—Mathematical Principles
Locke— Two Treatises on Government
Hobbes—Leviathan