Baroque Art : Baroque Renaissance

The Baroque era began in the year 1600, at the end of the Renaissance period (Kamien 99). The word Baroque has had several different meanings. Back in its time, the word Baroque has meant: Bizarre, Flamboyant, and Elaborately ornamented. Historians, however, used this word to indicate the particular style in all different forms of art that fills space; which includes canvas, stone, or sound (Kamien 99). The Baroque Period is also known as “the age of absolutism” because so many different rulers of the time used and abused their royal power to control their subjects. For example, in Germany, the duke of Weimar imprisoned the famous Johann Sebastian Bach into prison for a month just because Bach asked to leave his job as the Duke’s musician (Kamien 99). This era in time was also home to scientific discoveries by Newton and Galileo. The Baroque era has shaped the world, as they knew it, to what the people of the twenty-first century all know and love.

Baroque painting contained dramatic details, large in scale and was full of energy. This style was intentionally non-symmetrical. The painters of this time were looking to capture the real feelings of their subjects along with the movement or action taking place.

After the idealism of the Renaissance (c.1400-1530), Baroque art above all reflected the religious tensions of the age - notably the desire of the Catholic Church in Rome (as annunciated at the Council of Trent, 1545-63) to reassert itself in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. Thus it is almost synonymous with Catholic Counter-Reformation Art of the period. This period is often thought of as a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, theater, and music. The style began around 1600 in Rome, Italy, and spread to most of

Most forms of Catholic Baroque art are assertive and, as intended, assault ones senses. The evolution of religious art from the uniform composition characteristic of the Italian Renaissance through the evolving Mannerism in to the bold and striking Baroque was striking to say the least. The stylistic changes from Da Vinci's The Last Supper to Tintoretto's version in the 1590's bear a perfect example of this transition. The point of view in Da Vinci's was central and allowed for a

Artists that concentrated on the Baroque style of painting had an uncanny ability to display their style more so than the artists of the Renaissance era. In respect to their different approach towards shape, room, and work of art, the differences in their styles resulted in dissimilar descriptions. Renaissance and Baroque seem to concentrate towards the treatment of space, appearance, and color. This uniqueness affects the description of a painting and therefore it cannot be seen. More so, than in comparing Perugino's Christ delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to St. Peter from the Early Renaissance to Caravaggio's exchange of St. Paul from the Baroque style.

The era known as the Baroque period includes the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries in Europe. The Baroque style was a style in which the art and artists of the time focused upon details and intricate designs. Their art often appeals to the mind by way of the heart. During this time the portraits began to portray modern life, and artists turned their backs on classical tradition. Much of the art shows great energy and feeling, and a dramatic use of light, scale, and balance (Preble 302). Buildings were more elaborate and ornately decorated. These works of art created history and altered the progress of Western Civilization. Architecture such as the palace of Versailles, and artists like

•The creation of the baroque style—an art style full of emotion, flamboyancy, symbolism, vigor, and subtlety—largely as a product of the Catholic Church patronage of the arts

I am glad that you had mentioned the colors, shadow and lighting. This is exactly what caught my attention with his painting while looking at the painting and how they look so real. These were two different periods altogether, The renaissance era moved into the baroque era. There were changes made throughout the years from the elaborate to the renaissance time. Contrasts in style gathered alongside perspectives of the artist. The overwhelming patterns in Baroque art compare to those in Baroque music and writing. Some components of Baroque art incorporated a feeling of development, vitality, and pressure (whether genuine or inferred). I visual experience of the light and shadow upgrade the impacts of canvases and models. The primary normal for

After the peak of the Renaissance era of 1600 Rome, there was a move towards a style that was more dramatic and celebrated the church and the elite. This style melodramatically reaffirmed the emotional depths of the catholic faith and glorified both the church and monarch (History of Art, 1933:284). Baroque is distinguished by the grander sense of space in architecture, intense emotion and movement in painting and sculpture. Opulence and grandeur is often displayed in the ostentatious interiors homes of the elite and the church was highly decorated.

The Baroque Period (1600-1750) was mainly a period of newly discovered ideas. From major new innovations in science, to vivid changes in geography, people were exploring more of the world around them. The music of the baroque period was just as extreme as the new changes. Newly recognized composers such as Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, and Monteverdi were writing entirely new musical ideas and giving a chance for new voices to be heard that were normally not thought of sounds. Their musical legacy is still recognized today, and is a treasured discovery of outstanding compositions being reiterated with every performance of them.

A number of modern artists have focused on reflecting personal perception of the world through a contemporary Baroque style in art. The increasing popularity of Baroque nowadays is due to the complex processes that took place in society and the solutions the modern culture has to offer to resolve them. Truly, through the history, the emergence of Baroque elements has always reflected the complexity of human life, followed by technological progress and cultural exchange. Eventually, Baroque, the style characterized by extravagance and drama, has been defined as anti-classical, innovative and experimental, intended to touch directly the beholder, individual of diverse and pluralistic society.

Baroque “is a French variant of the Portuguese barroco, meaning an irregular, and therefore imperfect, pearl.” (Adams 333) Baroque originally began in Rome and prospered between 1590-1720 and was prevalent in in painting, sculpture, and architecture. Baroque artwork reflected the religious and political tensions of the time and was heavily influenced by the desire of the Catholic church in Rome. In relation to the meaning of the term Baroque “Baroque tended to be relatively unrestrained overtly emotional, and more energetic than earlier styles”. (Adams 333) This was in drastic contrast compared to the previous dominating style of idealism fostered by the Renaissance hence why it was dubbed “irregular”. Baroque artist tended to disregard aspects

With respect to the age of Baroque, I expect to unravel The Inspiration of Saint Mathew and Christ in the House of Mary and Martha. Caravaggio produced The Inspiration of Saint Matthew in the early 17th century (Cheremeteff, 2000). Diego Velázquez produced the second art during the year 1618. The two arts reflect a lot about the religious and cultural settings of the age of Baroque. For instance, Velázquez’s art reflects the classic Baroque Christian fusion of Martha and Mary Magdalene.

It is hard to believe that what began during the Renaissance would be followed by what we refer to as the Baroque period beginning in the 1600’s and later the Rococo. The term Baroque was first used in the eighteenth-century by critics in a negative way. “To the eyes of these critics, who favored the restraint and order of Neoclassicism, the works of Bernini, Borromini, and Pietro da Cortona appeared bizarre, absurd, even diseased—in other words, misshapen, like an imperfect pearl” (Camara, E., n.d. para. 12). Stylistic style differs in the Baroque period with the use of interrupted contours, dynamism, and instability. In addition, artists were moving toward a more realistic subject matter and not the idealized portrayals we saw in the Renaissance period.

There have been different artistic peaks throughout the history of humanity influenced by specific social, political or religious situations of the time. Those peaks shaped by certain styles had an important impact on art as we know it today. One of the most recognized styles of art of seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe were Baroque and Rococo styles.