The Baroque World
1560 - 1774
The Counter-Reformation Spirit
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Council of Trent (1545-1563)
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Redefined doctrines, reaffirmed dogmas
Assertion of discipline, education
New artistic demands, purpose
Society of Jesus, Jesuits
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Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556)
Missionaries, educational improvement
Seventeenth-Century Baroque
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Commitment to strong emotional statements
Sense of psychological exploration
Technical virtuosity
Rich, ornate, elaborate, fanciful
Strong emotionalism
Invention of new and daring techniques
Galileo Galilei
• founder of modern physics and
astronomy
• used the new technology of the telescope
to prove Copernicus correct, as well as to
observe the inconstancy of the heavens
(craters of the moon, sunspots, phases of
venus, moons of Jupiter)
• convicted by the Church Inquisition for
heresy and forced to recant his
scientifically accurate conclusions because
the Church believed the heavens to be
unalterable and perfect, and the Earth to
be the center of the universe. The Church
was wrong and the scientist was right—and
Pope John Paul II finally exonerated
Galileo in 1980.
Rene Descartes, founder of modern
philosophy
Cogito ergo sum!
In books such as his Discourse on
Method (1637) and Meditations
(1641), he rejects received truths of
Aristotle
Begins philosophical analysis of the
condition of being by basing all
claims on logical observations, not
received truths.
After all, our perceptions may be
misleading, and thus must also be
subjected to rigorous analysis and
fact checking.
John Donne, a “metaphysical” English Baroque poet. In his very
clever and technical poems such as “The Flea” and “The
Valediction” he sought to give new intellectual expression to
emotional states, often using naturalistic and scientific imagery.
John Donne’s
“The Flea”
A baroque “metaphysical”
poem
Note the poet’s use of
elaborate naturalistic and
scientific metaphors.
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.
O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.
John Milton
in Paradise Lost he combined a reformation
sensibility with a Baroque interest in
psychological states
Visual Arts in the Baroque Period
Painting in Rome
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Caravaggio (1573-1610)
Dramatic naturalism, realism
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Brutal, pessimistic
Emotional, psychological
Chiaroscuro
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The Calling of St. Matthew (1597-1601)
The Martyrdom of St. Matthew (c. 1602)
As a point of contrast, here is Byzantine and Medieval Art: it is flat, iconic,
not realistic, religiously symbolic. Contrast this with Caravaggio’s religious
paintings in the following slides…
Caravaggio
The Calling
of St.
Matthew
(1597-1601)
Carravagio,
The
Martyrdom of
St. Matthew
(c. 1602)
(you can see
why Matthew
wasn’t so
eager to be
called!)
Visual Arts in the Baroque Period
Roman Baroque Sculpture and Architecture
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Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)
Chief architect of Counter-Reformation
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Built fountains, palaces, churches for Vatican
Religious-themed sculptures
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David (1623)
Saint Teresa in Ecstasy (1645-1652)
Bernini
David
(1623)
Contrast
with Donatello
and Michelangelo
Bernini
Saint Teresa in
Ecstasy (16451652)
Baroque Art in France
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The Palace of Versailles
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Louis XIV = the Sun King
Grandiose symbolism of the palace
Baroque extremes matched with Classical
simplicity
Hyacinthe Rigaud (16591743)
Portrait of Louis XIV
(1701)
Baroque Art in Spain
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Diego Velázquez (1599-1660)
Vitality of scene
Lives of ordinary people
Las Meninas (1656)
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Color
Space
Reality of detail
Las
Meninas
(1656)
Baroque Art in Northern Europe
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Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)
Hélène Fourment and Her Children
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Intimate, tender
Personalized emotionality
The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus
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Restless energy, sense of action
Female nudity, ample proportions
Baroque Art in Northern Europe
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Jan Vermeer (1632-1675)
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Inner contemplation, repose
Light, stillness
Baroque Art in Northern Europe
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Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669)
Spiritual matters, problems of existence
The Night Watch (1642)
Self-understanding through self-portraits
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Psychologically reflective
Tragic nature of human destiny
Emotionality through virtuosity
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1626
1627
1629
1633
1640
1658
1661
1668
1669
End of slide show