• Identify major figures in Baroque humanities and their works. (CO1)

Baroque Age

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What is Baroque?Generally the term “Baroque” refers to art intended to involve the audience emotionally.

The Catholic Church supported baroque style art during the Counter-Reformation. The Council of Trent decided to use Baroque art to counter the Protestant threat.

Baroque art was designed to counter the ultra-refined and highly stylized paintings of the Mannerist period.

BaroqueMannerist

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Work continued on St. Peter’s Basilica, with Carlos Maderno heading the project.

Baroque Artists

Grandmont, Jean-Pol. Basilique Saint-Pierre-Rome (2). 2011. JPG.

When Gianlorenzo Bernini took over, he added a colonnade to the design.

Baroque Artists

Baroque Artists

Caravaggio was a great religious painter whose work established one of the two major directions of painting in the Baroque age. His works represent the emotional and dramatic side of Baroque.

The other approach, typified by Annibale Carracci, was more academic and intellectual rather than emotional, with action carefully controlled.

Baroque Artists

The Baroque era produced a new musical form known as opera, which is essentially a stage work sung to the accompaniment of an orchestra.

One of the most prolific Baroque composers was Antonio Vivaldi, whose most popular work is The Four Seasons. 

Baroque and Opera

Despite its dependency on Rome, Baroque art thrived outside Italy. In Holland, merchants and tradespeople collected art by Baroque Dutch painters such as Pieter De Hooch, Frans Hals, Judith Leyster, and Rembrandt van Rijn.

All of these painters were notable for their distinct use of lighting to create atmosphere. Jan Vermeer used light to inform the observer that every object of vision has been observed and recorded.

Baroque Artists

Peter Paul Rubens, born in Germany, established himself as an artist in Antwerp. Known for his rich, lush style, he earned an international reputation through commissioned works he did for the royal courts of Europe.

Baroque Artists

Rubens’ assistant, Anthony Van Dyck, was the greatest portrait painter of the age.

Baroque Artists

Diego Velazquez, royal painter for Philip IV of Spain, was linked to the Baroque artists by his feelings for space and light. 

The reign of King Louis XIV saw Paris become increasingly the center of the Western art world. Using his Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, Louis defined absolute standards by which to judge the art of the period.

The Academy was divided by a debate about whether line or color is superior in art. Louis XIV approved a facade for the new east wing of the Louvre which banished all vestiges of Baroque sensuality in favor of a strict and linear classical line. He then turned his attention to the Palace of Versailles, the seat of government in France.

In England, Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt St. Paul’s cathedral in 1675-1710. Late in the Baroque age, Italian opera began to go out of style.

German composer George Frederick Handel turned from operas to oratorios, sacred operas sung without costume or acting. Handel’s most famous oratorio is his Messiah

King Louis XIV

The other great Baroque composer was Johann Sebastian Bach, the grand master of the Baroque style and composer of many complicated fugues.

The almost mathematical precision of Bach’s fugues and the keen observation demonstrated in Vermeer’s paintings reflect the scientific spirit of the Baroque Age. 

Johann Sebastian Bach

Francis Bacon’s development of the principles of the scientific method, with its emphasis on careful observation, was echoed throughout the Baroque.

In Holland, Anton Van Leeuwenhoek developed a powerful microscope, while Galileo Galilei was the first to develop the telescope and use it to observe the heavens.

René Descartes did for modern philosophy what Bacon had done for science. Thomas Hobbes developed the notion of the social contract as an alternative to anarchy, while John Locke had more faith in people’s ability to govern themselves.

Baroque writers displayed an uncommon interest in exploring the mysteries of love and exploring their relationship to God.

John Donne is considered among the finest poets of any age, while John Milton’s poems reflected his own blend of Puritan theology and classical humanism. 

Science in Baroque

Miguel de Cervantes wrote the greatest of all picaresque novels, Don Quixote, which, for the first time in Western literature, explored the conflict between reality and the imagination.

Don Quixote

References

Grandmont, Jean-Pol. Basilique Saint-Pierre-Rome (2). 2011. JPG.

All non-cited images were gathered from the free domain and are not under any copyright law restrictions. All images gathered from wikipedia.org.