Essay about Baroque Period (1600-1750) General Background

Lisa Jardine’s Ingenious Pursuits: Building the Scientific Revolution provides a comprehensive breakdown of the discoveries that defined the Scientific Revolution and the history behind them. The story of the scientific revolution truly begins with a separation between the Catholic Church and the denizens of Europe brought on by the Protestant Reformation. This separation led directly to the questioning of the church and what they deemed to be true. The growing suspicion of the church applied not only to the politics and religious views but the scientific “facts” the church was built upon. The suspicion of these scientific facts quickly grew to an open challenging of these facts, The Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution is something we have all studied in our grade school years and the discoveries of people such as Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei are well documented and arguably common knowledge but Jardine’s book Ingenious Pursuits encapsulates the scientific revolution in a new light. Jardine accomplishes this by telling the stories of some of the greatest achievements of the Scientific Revolution. These stories reveal the collaborations of some of histories most brilliant minds as well as the secrecy amongst them and uncover the motives that fueled many of these accomplishments.

Over the course of the years, society has been reformed by new ideas of science. We learn more and more about global warming, outer space, and technology. However, this pattern of gaining knowledge did not pick up significantly until the Scientific Revolution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Scientific Revolution started, which concerned the fields of astronomy, mechanics, and medicine. These new scientists used math and observations strongly contradicting religious thought at the time, which was dependent on the Aristotelian-Ptolemy theory. However, astronomers like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton accepted the heliocentric theory. Astronomical findings of the Scientific Revolution disproved the fact that humans were

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.

"The growth of commerce and industry led to the technological advances, which in turn stimulated, and were stimulated by science.” (p. 403) The European scientific revolution was fueled by the blending of “liberal” and “servile” arts, in other words, science and technology. Because of the European expansion taking place throughout the world, new commerce and industries were advancing, creating the need for new technology and science. The theories and inventions that Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton provided were the fist major advances during the scientific revolution, and perhaps were the most profound.

The Scientific Revolution was a time of scientific questioning in which tremendous discoveries were made about the Earth. It has been referred to as “the real origin both of the modern world and the modern mentality” (Mckay, 596) and caused the foremost change in the world-view. This revolution occurred for many reasons. Universities were established in Western Europe in order to train lawyer’s doctors and church leaders and philosophy became a major study alongside medicine, law, and theology. The Renaissance stimulated scientific progress because mathematics was improved, texts were

The Scientific Revolution was a period of the development of the new and modern theories of science and universe. This development took place from 16th century to 17th century. This concept was widely accepted by the people of Europe. This period changed the beliefs which were not accurate and changed the status of women in the society. Many scientists, such as Nicolas Copernicus, Johannes Kepler and Sir Issac Newton changed the European history with the help of new discoveries and knowledge and disagreement with the Catholic Church.

Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Europeans’ world view was affected by several scientific breakthroughs. This period of achievement is referred to as the Scientific Revolution. The Scientific Revolution was not a single event, rather a series of events with contributions from many people. Some of its main causes include individuals, the book written by Nicolaus Copernicus, and the loss of power by the Catholic church. During this period, scholars made lasting contributions that continue to affect the modern world.

The Scientific Revolution was at its height during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with many supporters and critics of the works of scientists. It was the transition from the medieval, philosophical and religious perspective to a secular and rational perspective. One of the biggest debates that defined the Scientific Revolution was the debate over whether the universe was geocentric (with the earth at the center of the universe), or heliocentric (with the earth revolving around the sun). The works of these scientists was influenced by political leaders for their desire in power, the clash of ideas between religious leaders and institutions, and differentiation towards female scientists and unorganization in research. In all, each of these three parts of society contributed to the Scientific Revolution in very important ways.

     Throughout this research paper the topic is going to be along the lines of the Baroque Art in Europe and North America, which comes from chapter nineteen of our Art History book. The main purpose is to review major ideas and principles in this chapter by writing an analysis of certain points that were highlighted. For example, certain techniques that were used to define the Baroque Art, major sculptures, architectures, and paintings, and also just some general background information about this time period. I decided to write on this subject because when reading the chapters, the Baroque period seemed to catch my attention the most due to the amazing architecture that

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.

From 1600-1750 the world shifted from Renaissance art to a new period, the Baroque. This art combined the technique, skill, and grand scale of the Renaissance with the emotion and intensity of Mannerism. Not only were artistic geniuses produced but art expanded into everyday life as well. Religious scenes and figures continued to become more realistic and human looking. Artists began painting everyday scenes full of everyday people. Even portraits became more lively and exciting. Three pieces of art exemplify this period, "The Nightwatch", "The Kitchenmaid", and "St. Jerome in His Study".

The scientific revolution was one of the greatest times in the 16th century and its ideals have proved to last to this very day. The great minds of the scientific revolution brought forth new concepts and vastly complex while each one is rooted in a basic fundamental. Some of these ideas and fundamentals were of the outside world, aka space, the planet and the stars, motion, and physics. One of the best minds of this time was, of course, Galileo Galilei. This great astronomer was a marvel at his work, he introduced controversial concepts that the church did not accept but those that he believed were to be true. Written by Galileo himself, this letter to the Grand Duchess professed his great discoveries and how they changed old ideas and

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.

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.

To understand the characteristics of Baroque style is to truly understand artistic measures of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Baroque, a single word describing an entire period of art, can be broken down into more than one actual form of art. The new European age birthed this developing style of architecture, coming from ideas on religion and politics. Set apart in three different countries, visitors of St. Peter’s Basilica, Versailles, and Hampton Court Palace, engulf themselves in historic Baroque styles and beauty. The international style “was reinterpreted in different regions so that three distinct manifestations of the style emerged” (Matthews 392). The florid, classical, and restrained baroque design of the three different buildings gives us a historic lesson on the reasoning behind its purpose.