Baroque Research

Overview of events that influenced the Baroque time period:

1610 – Ascension of Louis XIII to the French Throne

1618-1648 – The Thirty Years War

1625 – Reign of Charles I

1626 – Discovery of New York

1642 - Death of Galileo Galilei

1643 – Reign of Louis XIV

1660 – End of Commonwealth of England & Return of Monarchy during English Restoration

1667 – Completion of St. Peter’s Square

From 1630-1680s the height of its prime, Baroque art became particularly famous during the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Its bold realism and lively movement gave an emotional appeal advertising the spirit of the Catholic Church (Catholicism). Originating in Rome, Italy Baroque art was highly influential throughout Europe. And though it covered Catholicism it still portrayed many non-religious themes, like still life, portraits and mythical subjects.

Bernini from Rome created art through sculpture and architecture within northern Europe and like Sir Anthony van Dyck worked in a Baroque style in Britain.

What makes Baroque?

Characteristics that make up Baroque:

·         It depicts a sense of importance when focusing on portraits, as they have a sombre mood yet the focal point of the paintings are created in such detail and the foreground has more pigment than the background.

·         The background seems to be more bluntly painted rather than the foreground which seems to have more detail creating a sense of importance.

·         Also they narrate moral/stories known in Catholicism creating visual representation of the religion to inspire and the people follow their faith more as the country was very religious in those times which influenced everything.

·         Uses colour, usually dulled to create a 3D effect,

·         Realism.

Materials used:

·         Oil paintings,

·         Canvas.

Baroque artists used swirls and upward diagonals movements which results in techniques such as Tenebrism and Chiaroscuro. Throughout their paintings they use creamy and broad brush work which usually showed thick impasto.

Figures:
Baroque style is quite realistic and looks to be influenced by important figures of the decade like Charles the second and then Louis XIV, who succeed him thereafter.  As well as dukes 'Henry Howard, 6th Duke of Norfolk c.1670–5 by Gilbert Soest'

The Reign of Louis XIV, dubbed ‘The Sun King’, was very influential on the Baroque art style and his reign is one of the longest of the modern era. The Sun King was more interested in the fine arts than in politics and government affair. This resulted in Louis leaving behind some impressive architectural achievements, including the Place Vendôme.

As Louis was interested in the fine arts, he created many appropriate backdrops for artistic life at the court of Louis XIV, who surrounded himself with thousands of artists, aristocrats and composers. Louis had many servants that attended the wellbeing of royal guests that were invited to the King’s many feasts. His Majesty himself had various different costumes which he loved to perform in by dancing.  Due to his love of the arts, Louis acted as a generous supporter of the artists, with an ulterior motive to immortalize himself in paintings and literature, he showered them with money to allow them to produce these fine arts. However, this money was being provided by taxes that his subjects had to pay. In my opinion, this wasn’t fair or ethical as Louis was spending money on his lavish lifestyle whereas his subjects suffered without even a glimpse of his wellbeing. As he was presented to be wealthy and generous, his subjects were suffering with little money to spend on their necessities just to survive. ‘Louis XIV liked to act as a generous patron and supporter of artists’ (https://www.dw.com/en/louis-xiv-what-frances-sun-king-did-for-art/a-18688154)

Inspiration:

·         Religion,

·         People,

·         Visual connection to a higher power,

·         Mythical object to give a realism.

Architecture

Baroque architecture originated in the late 16^th century in Italy which then spread through Germany and the colonial south America. When the Catholic Church advertised emotional and faithful relationships within religion most of it was represented within the churches, alongside the baroque art, evolving form oil paintings to a physical form.

Characteristics:

·         Oval and dynamic representation of motion and sensuality.

·         Qualities include grandeur, drama, curvaceousness, rich surface treatment twisted elements and glided statuary.

·         There was no holing back with applying bright colours, illusory, vividly painting ceilings

Artists of this media included Bernini, Maderno, Borromini, and Guarini.

Impacts on Britain can be seen in the works of Christopher Wren. And the late Baroque style is
commonly referred to as Rocco.

Significant developments:

An Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei provided a number of scientific developments that laid the foundation for future scientists. His research of the laws of motion and improvements on the telescope helped the understanding of the world and universe today.

Overall I think baroque art is interesting as it uses realism to create paintings that are realistic. I also like the fact that the colours are dulled to as it showed they were thinking about making things as realistic to create a visual representation of what they were experiencing. I like the aesthetic of the paintings and architecture but the reason they were created causes moral concerns that I find unfair. This is because these were created to focus a nation to perceive a subject through one opinion and that was of the church or the monarchs.   

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/b/baroque