Baroque Art in Europe

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Baroque Art in Europe
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Europe in the 17th Century
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Baroque The Ornate Age

• Baroque Art (1600-1750) succeeded in marrying the
  advance techniques and grand scale of the
  Renaissance to the emotion, intensity and drama
  of Mannerism.
• Baroque art was the most ornate and sumptuous in
  the history of art.
• While the term Baroque is often used negatively
  to mean over done and ostentatious, the 17th
  century not only produced such artistic geniuses
  as Rembrandt and Velasquez, but expanded the role
  of art into everyday life
• Artists now called Baroque came from all over
  Europe to Rome to study the masterpieces of
  Classical antiquity and the High Renaissance then
  returned home to interpret what they had learned
  in their own unique way.

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Baroque The Style

• Baroque styles varied widely, ranging from
  Italian realism to French flamboyance.
• However, the common element throughout Baroque
  art was the sensitivity to and the absolute
  mastery of Light in order to achieve maximum
  impact.
• The Baroque era began in Rome around 1600 with
  Catholic popes financing magnificent cathedrals
  to display the triumph of their faith over the
  Counter Reformation.
• From their it traveled to France where absolute
  monarchs ruled by divine right and spent amount
  comparable to the pharaohs to glorify themselves.
• In Catholic countries, like Flanders, religious
  art flourished, while in the Protestant lands of
  northern Europe, religious imagery was forbidden
• As a result art tended to be still life,
  portraits, landscapes and scenes from everyday
  life.

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• Louis XIV
• Rigaud
• 1701
• Oil on canvas
• C. 9X7
• Louvre

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The Baroque in ItalyPainting and Architecture

• Caravaggio
• Gentileschi
• Bernini
• Boromini

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Baroque Art in Italy

• Artists in Rome pioneered the Baroque style
  before it spread to the rest of Europe.
• Art academies had been established in Rome to
  train artists in the various techniques
  developed during the Renaissance.
• Artists could expertly represent the human body
  from any angle, portray the most complex
  perspective and realistically reproduce almost
  anything.
• Italian Baroque art differs from Renaissance art
  with its emphasis on emotion rather than
  rationality, on dynamic rather than static
  compositions.
• The most striking difference between Italian
  Baroque and Renaissance painting was the use of
  light to dramatize a composition.

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Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
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Caravaggio 1571-1610

• He was the first great representative of the
  Baroque style.
• Within his lifetime, Caravaggio was considered
  enigmatic, fascinating, a rebel, and dangerous.
• He burst upon the Rome art scene in 1600, and
  thereafter never lacked for commissions or
  patrons, yet handled his success atrociously.

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• An early published notice on him, dating from
  1604 and describing his lifestyle some three
  years previously, tells how
• "after a fortnight's work he will swagger about
  for a month or two with a sword at his side and a
  servant following him, from one ball-court to the
  next, ever ready to engage in a fight or an
  argument, so that it is most awkward to get along
  with him.
• In 1606 he killed a young man in a brawl and fled
  from Rome with a price on his head.
• In Malta in 1608 he was involved in another
  brawl, and yet another in Naples in 1609,
  possibly a deliberate attempt on his life by
  unidentified enemies.
• By the next year, after a career of little more
  than a decade, he was dead.

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• Huge new churches and palaces were being built in
  Rome in the decades of the late 16th and early
  17th centuries, and paintings were needed to fill
  them.
• The Counter-Reformation Church searched for
  authentic religious art with which to counter the
  threat of Protestantism, and for this task the
  artificial conventions of Mannerism, which had
  ruled art for almost a century, no longer seemed
  adequate.
• Caravaggio's novelty was a radical naturalism
  which combined close physical observation with a
  dramatic, even theatrical, approach to
  chiaroscuro, the use of light and shadow. In
  Caravaggio's hands this new style was the vehicle
  for authentic and moving spirituality.
• Famous and extremely influential while he lived,
  Caravaggio was almost entirely forgotten in the
  centuries after his death, and it was only in the
  20th century that his importance to the
  development of Western art was rediscovered.

Chalk portrait of Caravaggio by Ottavio Leoni,
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• Boy with a Basket of Fruit
• c. 1593
• Oil on canvas
• 70 x 67cm
• Galleria Borghese Rome

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• The Fortune Teller, 1596-97, Oil on canvas
• 99 x 131cm, Louvre, Paris

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• The Cardsharps, c. 1594, Oil on canvas
• 94 131 cm, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

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• Judith Beheading Holofernes, c. 1598, Oil on
  canvas
• 58 x 78 inches, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica,
  Rome

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• Narcissus
• 1598-99
• Oil on canvas
• 110 x 92 cm
• Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome

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• The Calling of Saint Matthew, 1599-1600, Oil on
  canvas
• C. 10 x 11 feet, Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei
  Francesi, Rome

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• The Martyrdom of St Matthew
• 1599-1600
• Oil on canvas
• 323 x 343 cm
• Contarelli Chapel
• San Luigi dei Francesi Rome

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• St. John the Baptist (Youth with Ram)
• c. 1600
• Oil on canvas
• 129 x 94 cm
• Musei Capitolini, Rome

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• David
• 1600
• Oil on canvas,
• 110 x 91 cm

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• The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, 1601-02, Oil on
  canvas
• 107 x 146 cm, Sanssouci, Potsdam

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• Supper at Emmaus, 1601-02, Oil on canvas
• 139 x 195 cm, National Gallery, London

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• Conversion of St Paul
• 1601
• The painting records the moment when Saul of
  Tarsus, on his way to Damascus to annihilate the
  Christian community there, is struck blind by a
  brilliant light and hears the voice of Christ
  saying, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou
  me?...And they that were with me saw indeed the
  light, and were afraid, but they heard not the
  voice..." (Acts 226-11).

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• The Crucifixion of Saint Peter
• 1600
• Oil on canvas
• 230 x 175 cm
• Cerasi Chapel
• Santa Maria del Popolo
• Rome
• This painting was commissioned at the same time
  as the Conversion of St. Paul, by Cardinal Cerasi.

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• Entombment
• 1603-04
• Oil on canvas
• c. 10x7 feet
• Vatican Museum
• One of many paintings confiscated from Roman
  churches and taken to Paris during Napoleon's
  occupation of Italy in 1798. It was one of the
  few paintings returned to Italy in 1815.

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• Madonna di Loreto
• 1603-05
• Oil on canvas
• 260 x 150 cm
• S. Agostino, Rome
• Caravaggio often used everyday people as models
  for his paintings.

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• Death of the Virgin
• 1606
• Oil on canvas
• 369 245 cm
• Louvre, Paris

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• Flagellation
• c. 1607
• Oil on canvas
• 390 x 260 cm
• Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte
• Naples

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• Beheading of Saint John the Baptist
• 1608, Oil on canvas, 361 x 520 cm, Saint John
  Museum, La Valletta

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• The Raising of Lazarus
• 1608-09
• Oil on canvas
• 380 x 275 cm
• Museo Nazionale, Messina
• Some critics claimed that Caravaggio used an
  actual corpse as a model for the figure of
  Lazarus.

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• Burial of St Lucy
• 1608
• Oil on canvas
• 408 x 300cm
• Bellamo Museum, Syracuse

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• Salome with the Head of the Baptist
• c. 1609, Oil on canvas, 116 x 140 cm, Palazzo
  Real, Madrid

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• David
• 1609-10
• Oil on canvas
• 125 x 101 cm
• Galleria Borghese
• Rome

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• David 1600
  David 1610

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• Caravaggios fame scarcely survived his death.
• His innovations inspired the Baroque, but the
  Baroque took the drama of his chiaroscuro without
  the psychological realism.
• He directly influenced the style of his companion
  Orazio Gentileschi, and his daughter Artemisia
  Gentileschi, and, at a distance, the Frenchmen
  Georges de La Tour and Simon Vouet, and the
  Spaniard Giuseppe Ribera.
• Yet within a few decades his works were being
  ascribed to less scandalous artists, or simply
  overlooked.
• Caravaggio never established a workshop and thus
  had no school to spread his techniques.
• Nor did he ever set out his underlying
  philosophical approach to art, the psychological
  realism which can only be deduced from his
  surviving work.
• Thus his reputation was doubly vulnerable to the
  critical demolition-jobs done by two of his
  earliest biographers, one, a rival painter with a
  personal vendetta, and the other an influential
  17th century critic, who had not known him but
  was under the influence of the French artist,
  Poussin, who had not known him either but hated
  his work.
• In the 1920s art critic Roberto Longhi brought
  Caravaggio's name once more to public attention,
  asserting that, Ribera, Vermeer, La Tour and
  Rembrandt could never have existed without him.
  And the art of Delacroix, Courbet and Manet would
  have been utterly different.
• The influential critic Bernard Berenson agreed
  With the exception of Michaelangelo, no other
  Italian painter exercised so great an influence.

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The Gentlesechi Family

• Orazio Gentileschi
• and his daughter Artemisia Gentileschi,

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Orazio Gentileschi

• 1563 - 1639
• Italian Baroque painter
• one of more important painters influenced by
  Caravaggio
• He was the father of the painter Artemisia
  Gentileschi.
• Lutenist
• c 1626.
• Oil on canvas

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Artemisia Gentileschi

• Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 -1652), was one of
  the first women artists to achieve recognition in
  the male-dominated world of post-Renaissance art.
  
• In an era when female artists were limited to
  portrait painting, she was the first woman to
  paint major historical and religious scenes.
• Born in Rome in 1593, she received her early
  training from her father, but after art academies
  rejected her, she continued study under a friend
  of her father, Agostino Tassi.
• In 1612, her father brought suit against Tassi
  for raping Artemisia.
• There followed a highly publicized seven-month
  trial.
• The trauma of the rape and trial had an enormous
  impact on Artemisia's painting.
• Her graphic depictions were cathartic and
  symbolic attempts to deal with the physical and
  psychic pain.
• The heroines of her art, especially Judith, are
  powerful women exacting revenge on such male
  evildoers as the Assyrian general Holofernes.
• Her style was heavily influenced by dramatic
  realism and the marked chiaroscuro of Caravaggio.

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• Susanna and the Elders (1610) was one of the
  first works of the young 17-year-old Artemisia.
• The painting depicts the biblical story of
  Susanna, a virtuous young wife sexually harassed
  by the elders of her community.
• Rather than showing Susanna as coyly or
  flirtatious (as many male artists had painted the
  scene), Artemisia takes the female perspective
  and portrays Susanna as vulnerable, frightened,
  and repulsed by their demands, while the men loom
  large, leering, menacing, and conspiratorial in
  her direction.

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• Judith Beheading Holofernes
• 1611-12
• Oil on canvas
• 158.8 x 125.5 cm
• Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples

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• Judith Beheading Holofernes
• 1612-21
• Oil on canvas
• 199 x 162 cm
• Galleria degli Uffizi
• Florence

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• Judith and her Maidservant
• 1612-1613
• Oil on canvas
• 114 x 93.5 cm
• Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence

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• Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting
• 1630s
• Oil on canvas,
• 96.5 x 73.7 cm
• Royal Collection, Windsor

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• Judith and Her Maidservant
• ca. 1625
• Detroit Institute of Arts

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• After her death, she drifted into obscurity, her
  works often attributed to her father or other
  artists.
• Art historian and expert on Artemisia, Mary D.
  Garrard notes that Artemisia "has suffered a
  scholarly neglect that is unthinkable for an
  artist of her calibre."
• Renewed and overdue interest in Artemisia in
  recent years has recognized her as a talented
  seventeenth-century painter and one of the
  world's greatest female artists.

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The Carracci Family

• The Other Italian Baroque Painters
• Agostino Carracci
• Annibale Carracci
• Ludovico Carracci

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Carracci vs Caravaggio

• Unlike Caravaggio, the Carracci were more
  interested in typically Florentine linear
  draftsmanship, as exemplified by Raphael.
• Their style also derived from Venetian painters
  with their use of glimmering colors and mistier
  edges.
• The family workshop in Bologna was called upon to
  paint numerous frescos, which they completed with
  technical mastery not seen since Michel angelo.
• Caravaggio on the other hand never painted in
  fresco.

Venus and Anchises, fresco detail Galleria of the
Palazzo Farnese, Rome Annibale Carracci, 1597-1603
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Palazzo Farnese

• Based on the prolific and masterful frescoes by
  the Carracci in Bologna, Annibale was recommended
  by the Duke of Parma, Ranuccio Farnese, to his
  brother, the Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, who wished
  to decorate the piano nobile of the cavernous
  Roman Palazzo Farnese in Rome
• In November-December of 1595, Annibale and
  Agostino traveled to Rome to begin decorating the
  Camerino with stories of Hercules, appropriate
  since the room housed the famous Greco-Roman
  antique sculpture of the super muscular Farnese
  Hercules.

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Legacy of the CarracciItalian Baroque Ceiling
Painting

• PIETRO DA CORTONA, Glorification of the Papacy of
  Urban VIII
• Palazzo Barberini, 1633-3

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• Giovanni Battista Gaulli
• Triumph of the Holy Name of Jesus
• 1672-85
• Church of Il Gesu, Rome
• Jesuit Church in Rome
• Gaullis work is the most extreme example of over
  the top, super illusionistic Baroque ceiling
  painting.

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• Detail of the Damned from the Triumph of the Holy
  Name of Jesus
• Note the twisting, contorted, foreshortened
  figures.

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Gianlorenzo Bernini

• Italian Baroque Sculpture

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Bernini

• 1598- 1680
• Greatest sculptor of the Baroque period
• Also an architect, painter, playwright, composer
  and theater designer.
• More than any other artist, with his public
  fountains, religious art, and designs for St
  Peters, he left his mark on the city of Rome
• Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius
• 1618-19
• Marble
• height c. 95 inches
• Galleria Borghese, Rome.

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• Apollo and Daphne
• 1622-25
• Marble
• height c. 100 inches
• Galleria Borghese
• Rome

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• David
• 1623-24
• Marble
• height 170 cm
• Galleria Borghese, Rome

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Renaissance David
Baroque David
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Bernini at the Vatican
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• The Baldachin
• 1624
• Bronze, partly gilt
• St. Peters Basilica
• Vatican
• A focal point of the churchs interior, is the
  canopy and altar beneath the central dome,
  marking the burial place of St. Peter.
• It is over 100 feet high

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• The Throne of Saint Peter
• 1657-66
• Marble, bronze, white and golden stucco
• St. Peters, The Vatican
• wooden chair The crowning achievement of
  Bernini's design for the decoration of St.
  Peter's can be found in his later work Cathedra
  Petri (Chair of St. Peter) located in the apse of
  the basilica.
• This large reliquary was designed to house the
  original of St. Peter's.

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• Above the chair is what is commonly known as the
  Glory.
• This is a combination of stucco putti and angels
  surrounding a stained glass window that is the
  actual light source for the apse.
• The window and dove act as the light and word of
  God and the Holy Spirit.
• Bernini diffused the light by using colored
  glass and reduced the harsh glare he so detested.

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• The Ecstasy of Saint Therese
• 1647-52
• Marble, stucco, gilt bronze
• Cappella Cornaro
• Santa Maria della Vittoria Rome

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St Peters Square and Colonnade
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• Outside Saint Peters Basilica Bernini designed
  and enormous piazza and surrounded it with two
  curving covered colonnades supported by rows of
  four columns abreast.
• Bernini intended the two arcades to be like the
  Churchs maternal arms welcoming pilgrims to
  Saint Peters.

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• Bernini
• Tritone Fountain
• Rome

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• Fountain of the Four Rivers
• The Ganges
• 1648-51
• Piazza Navona

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BorrominiDynamic Architecture

• 1599-1667

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Francesco Borromini

• What Caravaggio did for painting Borromini did
  for architecture.
• Just as Caravaggios figures seem to leap out at
  the viewer, Borrominis undulating walls also to
  come life with dramatic light and shadow.
• He was a rebellious, emotionally disturbed genius
  who died by suicide.
• He first worked as a stone cutter for Bernini,
  who became his arch rival.
• His buildings often displayed an odd
  juxtaposition of shapes
• Convex surfaces beside concave surface made his
  walls seem to ripple.
• Even though his buildings seem to be a random mix
  of shapes and surfaces, they are unified and
  cohesive

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San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, 1638-41
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• Borromini
• Façade of San Carlo alle Quartro Fontane
• Rome
• Borrominis trademark was alternating convex and
  concave surfaces to create the illusion of
  movement.

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• FRANCESCO BORROMINI
• Plan of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane
• Rome, Italy
• 16381641.
• Not exactly a basilica plan.

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• Painting of the cupola on the Church of St Agnes
  designed by Borromini in Rome

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Dome interior, San Carlo alle Quatrro Fontane
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Piazza Navona

• Original site of a stadium built by the Emperor
  Domitian in 86 CE
• The ruins of the stadium had been used in the
  Middle Ages for festivals and as a marketplace
• The family of Pope Innocent X, the Pamphilis, had
  a palace facing the piazza.
• The piazza became a center of urban renewal in
  1652 when Pope Innocent X and the Pamphillis
  decided to rebuild their palace and the Church of
  Saint Agnese who was martyred here
• Both Bernini and Boromini worked on the piazza

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• Four Rivers Fountain by Bernini
• Piazza Navona, Rome

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Façade of Sant Agnese in Agone by Borrominivery
Baroque, why?
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• Works referenced
• Janson, History of Art, Abrams 2001
• Marilyn Stockstads Art History Second Edition
  (Volumes one and two)
• Metropolitan Museum of Arts Timeline of Art
  History. Available online at http//www.metmuseu
  m.org/toah/splash.htm
• Strickland, Carol. The Annotated Mona Lisa. 1992
• The Web Gallery of Art. Available online at
  http//www.wga.hu
• http//www.artchive.com/artchive/E/el_greco.html