Art Final Paper

Presentation 13 Baroque Rococo

Baroque

It is out of the Late Renaissance that a very different style develops. From about 1600 to 1750 the Baroque period artists used Renaissance techniques to move art in the direction of drama, emotion and splendor. The Baroque period had more varied styles than the Renaissance, yet much of the art shows great energy and feeling, a dramatic use of light, scale, and composition. These artists set aside the balanced harmony achieved by High Renaissance artist such as Raphael, Leonardo, and Michelangelo.

Caravaggio The Entombement of Christ

Oil on Canvas. 120”x80” 1604

These younger artists explored innovative use of space and arrangement of figures. We also see more intense ranges of light and shadow. This is an important feature of Baroque painting called tenebrism. It is when darkness becomes a dominating feature in the image. This effect heightens the dramatic element to the scene.

Caravaggio Supper at Emmaus

Oil on canvas 56”x72”

1601

Many artists, like Caravaggio, created extreme foreshortening to make it seem that objects or people were closer to the viewer. They seem to reach out towards us.

Artemisia Gentileschi Judith Slaying Holofernes

Oil on canvas. 78”x64” 1613

This work by Gentileschi, one of the very few female artists of the time, depicts a scene in the bible. The painter chooses to depict the most dramatic part of the story, the beheading of the general Holofernes.

The Baroque style of portraying drama is also evident in sculpture. Bernini was considering the best new sculptor of his time. Following in the footsteps of Donatello and Michelangelo, the artist also created his version of the biblical figure David.

Bernini David

Marble. 67” tall. 1623

But unlike the previous statues we see David actively pulled back, the moment right before he slings the stone to kill the giant Goliath.

Up in northern Europe (the Netherlands and Belgium) the Baroque styles were inspiring artistic change too. The very popular Peter Paul Rubens had aristocratic and Church patrons across Europe. He had spent time studying in Italy during the High Renaissance. His work was in such demand by the nobility and royalty of Europe that he established a large studio with many assistants. His work was visually dynamic, and his brushwork inspired many painters.

Peter Paul Rubens Massacre of the Innocents

Oil canvas. 55”x71” 1612

This Rubens work shows a familiar biblical scene, the crucifixion of Christ. For more dramatic emphasis he arranges the composition on a diagonal with dynamic twisting bodies. Unlike the previous periods the Baroque artists show lots of action and not much sense of stability.

Peter Paul Rubens The Raising of the Cross

One part of three-part work. Oil on panel. 15’x11’

1611

This painting by Rembrandt is typically called The Night Watch. At twelve feet by fourteen feet its an enormous painting that was commissioned by a military group. Normally a painting like this would have been very static and rigid. Rembrandt creates a dynamic scene with lots of motion and dramatic lighting to highlight certain figures.

Rembrandt van Rijn Militia Company of District II under the

Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq

(The Night Watch) Oil on canvas.

142”x172” 1642

Rembrandt was an accomplished painter and printmaker. He is known for his self-portraits too, producing many throughout his life. They create a sort of visual diary as he ages.

It is important to understand just how little the artist painted themselves in the prior centuries. These serve as examples of how artists were increasingly seen by society. Artists were slowly gaining more freedom to make what they were interested in.

Vermeer typically created smaller genre paintings that focused on lighting in a different way than the dramatic scenes of other Baroque artists. Vermeer’s works seem to raise daily activities to a heightened quiet introspection that reveal colors, textures and details of normal people’s lives.

Johannes (Jan) Vermeer The Milkmaid (The Kitchen Maid)

Oil on canvas. 18”x16” 1658

Johannes (Jan) Vermeer The Art of Painting

Oil on canvas. 47”x39” 1668

Diego Velázquez is perhaps the most well-known and important Spanish painter of the Baroque period. The artist spent much of his career as the personal painter for the king of Spain, Philip IV. Las Meninas stands out as one of the most consequential paintings from this period.

Diego Velázquez Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor)

Oil on canvas. 10 ½’ x 9’ 1665

Velázquez was most likely influenced by van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait that the king owned.

The painting is a visual riddle in which we must follow some clues to understand what the artist is doing. We see the maids of honor attending to the king’s daughter in the center with her large white dress.

Slightly above her head is a mirror reflecting the king and queen as they patiently sit for their portrait.

To the left we see the artist working on the enormous painting that we are looking at. In effect we are in the place of the king and queen.

Still-life paintings were also very popular and common during the Baroque period. A still life is a painting in which the subject is arranged by the artist on a tabletop, generally beginning with fruits or flowers, and including other food items and domestic utensils. This genre of painting originated in the Netherlands and initially served to celebrate the bounty of nature.

Juan van der Hamen. Peaches, pears and cherries in wicker baskets… Oil on canvas. 34”x52”. 1629

Though many still life paintings did not present just food, flowers or hunting trophies. Instead, the painters included items and objects for introspection of more serious concerns. These paintings may warn viewers of fleeting desires and provide moral directions in their use of allegorical symbols.

Pieter Claesz Still life with a

Skull and a Writing Quill Oil on wood.

9 ½”x14” 1628

And it is in French architecture where the Baroque period’s drama begins to appear in most extravagant ways. We can see the aristocratic splendor in the French royal palace of Versailles, built for King Louis XIV. The main palace and landscape was designed to present the nobility and wealth of the king and his country. The Hall of Mirrors, at the heart of the palace served as a stage for the king’s entrances and exits.

Such glassworks, paintings, and decoration were very expensive in that era. The King wanted a palace that supported the belief in the monarchy as the source of power. And it is precisely this display of opulence that will create the next biggest change and we will see how art responds.

By the 1730s in France, the heavy, theatrical qualities of Italian Baroque art gradually gave way to the decorative Rococo style, a light, playful version of the Baroque. The arts became frilly decorations for fashionable rich patrons. They wanted art that was ornamental to match the extravagant and often frivolous life of their French aristocratic lifestyle. The term Rococo refers to the French word Rocaille, which meant exuberant decoration and an abundance of curves.

Fountain nymphs by Lambert Sigisbert Adam at

Sanssouci palaceGustaf Lundberg Portrait of François Boucher. 1741

Probably the most indictive painting of the aristocratic life of ease is Fragonard’s Happy Accidents of the Swing. A well-dressed young woman swings in a garden as a young man lays in the bushes. We see the shoe she has just lost is gracefully flying down to him. Gone are the serious subjects of religion, celebration of rational thought, life of the common people; replaced with fanciful and carefree matters of the wealthy.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard Happy Accidents of the Swing

Oil on canvas. 32”x25” 1767

The next generation of French artists and intellectuals would rebel against the social irresponsibility portrayed in this type of art, which they saw as merely fluffy. The Enlightenment was already breaking out across Western Europe, and its new ideas of social equality and scientific inquiry would soon shake European culture.