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The Baroque Age I:
Glamour and Grandiosity, 1600–1715

A New European Age

A new European age, the “Baroque Age” dawned in 1600. The Catholic Church continued its march against Protestantism and powerful sovereign secular states became the norm across the land.
Baroque is 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, and music.
The Baroque period offered secular rulers a magnificence and vastness that enhanced their political power.

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Hall of Mirrors, Palace at Versailles (1678-84)

With its great length, elaborate design, and luxurious decorations the Hall of Mirrors is a fitting symbol of the Baroque Age

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Absolutism, Monarchy, and the Balance of Power

The Baroque Age was beset by almost constant warfare, but was also an age of great scientific discoveries and intellectual ferment.
As the Seventeenth century opened, France was ruled by Henry IV, the first of the Bourbon dynasty. Henry was a converted Huguenot and allowed limited freedom of worship. However, he was assassinated in 1610 and during the next hundred years France became the model of the absolutist state.
Louis XIII was dominated by the gifted and ruthless Cardinal Richelieu, who was the virtual ruler of France from 1624 until his death in 1642. Richelieu would be immortalized in Alexander Dumas historical novel “The Three Musketeers”.

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Europe in 1714

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Absolutism, Monarchy, and the Balance of Power

Gifted with political ability Richelieu worked tirelessly to wrest power from the nobles and increase national authority at home and across Europe. An opportunist in religious matters, he restricted religious freedom for Huguenots in France but supported Swedish Protestants because it suited his international aims.
Richelieu’s pragmatic policies and successes were continued by his protégé and iron-fisted successor, Cardinal Mazarin, who served as regent for the young king Louis XIV. During the 1640’s and 1650’s Mazarin’s policies moved France closer to absolutism.
This coincided with the beginning of a golden age in France. French politics and culture would dominate Europe and French would become the language of diplomacy.

Cardinal Richelieu and his Successor Cardinal Mazarin

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Absolutism, Monarchy, and the Balance of Power

When Cardinal Mazarin died Lois XIV, at the age of 24, began to rule France in his own right. adherent of the concept of the divine right of kings, which advocates the divine origin of monarchical rule.
Louis (often called the “Sun King”) continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from the capital.
He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France and, by compelling many members of the nobility to inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy.
Louis, through his ministers and bureaucratic machine, controlled every phase of French life, from economics to culture.
By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs and consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule in France that endured until the French Revolution.

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Rigaud,
Louis XIV of France
(1700)

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Le Pere, View at Versailles (1668)

Palace of Versailles

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England and Limited Monarchy

England also saw a turn to absolute monarchy. After the death of Elizabeth I, the Stuart dynasty began. James I claimed to rule by divine right, but certain aspects of English government held royal power in check.
Specifically the English property-owning classes served together in Parliament. The upper nobility in the House of Lords and the middle class members in the House of Commons, saw themselves as the king’s partners in government.
Additionally, the Calvinist minority in England was not despised by the Anglican majority.
When James I was succeeded by his son Charles I

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England and Limited Monarchy

James I was succeeded by his headstrong son, Charles I, who also believed in the divine right of kings and thought he could govern according to his own will. Many of his subjects opposed his policies, in particular the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent, and perceived his actions as those of a tyrant.
Civil war broke out in England (1642-51) and Charles I lost and was beheaded for high treason in 1649. The monarchy was abolished and a republic called the Commonwealth of England was established with Oliver Cromwell as “Lord Protector.”
However Cromwell turned the Commonwealth into a military dictatorship and after his death, Parliament invited Charles I’s son, to return from exile in France and take the thrown.

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Charles I and Oliver Cromwell

English Civil War Pikemen and Musketeers

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England and Limited Monarchy

This period was known as the “Restoration” and Charles II was often called the “Merrie Monarch” because of his hedonism. He had an uneasy relationship with Parliament until his death in 1685.
Upon his death his brother, James II became king. James Catholicism and his belief in royal power caused more conflict with Parliament and in the “Glorious Revolution of 1688” he fled England and Parliament replaced him with his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange.
William and Mary signed the English Bill of Rights of 1689. This action both signaled the end of several centuries of tension and conflict between the crown and Parliament and England became a classic example of limited monarchy under written laws and would ultimately lead to the principle that government should rest on the consent of the people.

James II and William and Mary of Orange

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Rulers of France and England During the Baroque Period

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Warfare in the Baroque Period

Warfare was crucial in establishing the great power systems on Europe, because the most successful states were those in which the king could marshal his country’s resources behind military goals.
Warfare and diplomacy became means of keeping the existing power system in check using balance of power principles to prevent any one state from gaining too much control.
A side effect of this system was to regulate many countries, such as Spain and Portugal, to secondary power status, to end any significant role for lesser states like Florence and Venice, and to see the rise of new powers such as Prussia and the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

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The Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648

The Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648. Fought largely on German soil, this war was actually four separate wars that represented the last great continent-wide struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism.
It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history, and one of the longest.
Initially a war between Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmenting Holy Roman Empire, it gradually developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers of Europe, becoming less about religion and more a continuation of the France-Hapsburg battle for European political pre-eminence.
The Thirty Years’ War was actually a series of four interconnected wars in central Europe. Besides the great powers of France, Austria, Brandenburg (soon to be Prussia), the war included, at one time or another Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Venice, Norway, the Netherlands, and various German states.

The Thirty Years’ War

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Soldiers of the Thirty Years’ War

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Soldiers of the Thirty Years’ War

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The Thirty Years’ War

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The Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648

The Thirty Years' War saw the devastation of entire regions, with famine and disease significantly decreasing the population of central Europe. Fully 20% of the German population died during the conflict.
The Peace of Westphalia, which ended the conflict forced Catholics and Protestants to recognize one anthers existence, allowed for the toleration of Calvinism, allowed for the independence of various German states (and the rise of Prussia as a major power).
The Netherlands and Sweden rose as major military powers, but France, by shifting its loyalty from the Catholics to the Protestants emerged the most powerful.
After 1630 the role of religion in European politics receded. This was, perhaps, the greatest achievement of the Thirty Years’ War.

Gerard Tier Borch, The Swearing of the Oath of Ratification of the Treaty of Muenster (1648)

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Part of the Peace of Westphalia, the Treaty gave the United Provinces of the Netherlands

Independence from Spain

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War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14)

The Wars of Louis XIV, 1665–1713. Louis XIV of France used various means, including diplomacy and marriage, to assert French might on the continent, but warfare was his major instrument for gaining power. He fought most of the states of Europe in four separate wars to increase French power.
In 1701 when the Hapsburg King of Spain died without a successor, both Louis XIV and Emperor Leopold of Austria (both related to the Hapsburgs by blood and marriage) claimed the throne.
This led to the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14). During this war Louis XIV fought most of the major powers of Europe. This war is considered by many to be the first “world war.”
At the Treaty of Utrecht the “balance of power was reasserted, French expansionism was curtailed, and what are the modern boundaries of France established. Additionally, England gained prominence as a world sea power.

Battle of Denain
War of the Spanish Succession
(1712)

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Spanish Royal Artillery

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The Austrian-Turkish Wars

During the early 1600’s the Austrian Hapsburg were fighting a series of border skirmishes and battles with the Ottoman Turks. Over territory in eastern Europe
After the Thirty Years’ War the Hapsburgs again turned their attention to the Turks. From 1664-1699 there was almost constant warfare between the two, included the Siege of Vienna (1683), which was a devastating loss for the Ottomans.
By 1699 the exhausted Ottomans are forced to cede all of Hungary, Transylvania, Croatia, and Slavonia to Austria. This signals the once mighty Ottoman Empire’s collapse into slow decline.
This was brought about by a line of weak and degenerate sultans, corrupt and ambitious viziers, dissension by the formerly elite Janissaries, and other internal problems in the Ottoman Empire.

Siege of
Vienna
(1683)

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Calvary Battle, Siege of Vienna (1683)

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Technology

The matchlock arquebus was augmented by the bigger and heavier matchlock musket, which could fire from longer distances and pierce heavier armor. Eventually a lighter version of the musket replaced the arquebus.
By about 1630 an improved musket, using a superior “flintlock” design was introduced. The flintlock used a flint and steel to ignite the powder and was much safer and efficient.
Paper cartridges were also designed that held both the gunpowder and the musket ball together ready for use.
The invention of the “plug” bayonet allowed the unloaded musket to be used as a weapon (but could not be fired with the bayonet attached).
Later the vastly superior “socket” bayonet (developed around 1670) allowed the musketeer to use fire his musket with the bayonet attached. The bayonet eventually led to the phasing out of pikemen in the armies.

Dutch Musketeer (1608)

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Matchlock Arquebus

Matchlock Musket

w/ Plug Bayonet

1650's Era English Flintlock Musket

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Paper Cartridge

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Plug and Socket Bayonets

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The Baroque: Variations on an International Style

The Baroque mentality originated in a search for stability and order in a restless age. Artists and writers sought to reveal the order they believed lay beneath the seeming chaos of life.
The international style of Baroque was reinterpreted in different regions so that three distinct manifestations emerged.
“Florid Baroque” developed in Italy and flourished in Spain and central Europe, was dominated by Catholic religious ideals and the Counter-Reformation.
“Classical Baroque” was aristocratic and courtly and associated with French tastes.
“Restrained Baroque” arose in the middle-class of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and aristocratic England. Its style was simpler and less ornate than either the florid or classical baroque.

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The Florid Baroque

Florid Baroque is illustrated by the architecture and sculpture of Gianlorenzo Bernini. Bernini redesigned the Piazza of St. Peter’s with a huge public square, sweeping colonnades, and statutes of saints.

Bernini’s most famous sculptures are those made for the interior of St. Peter’s including altars, tombs, reliefs, statues, and liturgical furniture.

His masterpiece among these ornate works is the “baldacchino,” the canopy, mainly bronze, that covers the spot where St. Peter’s bones are believed to lie.

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Gianlorenzo Bernini, Piazza of St. Peter's (1665-67)

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Gianlorenzo Bernini, Piazza of St. Peter's (1665-67)

Gianlorenzo Bernini,
Baldacchino
in St. Peter's Basilica (1624-33)

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Gianlorenzo Bernini,
The Ecstasy of
St. Teresa
(1645-52)

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The Florid Baroque: Painting

Caravaggio (1573-1610) was the first great florid baroque painter and he rejected mannerism in favor of dramatic realism.

He uses striking color and the dynamic use of darkness to give his paintings a look of both drama and realism.

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Caravaggio,
The Conversion
of St. Paul
(1600-01)

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Caravaggio

“Judith Beheading Holofernes” (1598-1599

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Caravaggio

“The Taking of Christ” (1602)

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The Florid Baroque: Painting

Artemisia Gentileschi,(1593-1653) was a great female painter of the florid school who was indebted to the style of Caravaggio, although her style may actually be superior.

As you can see, her style is very similar to Caravaggio, but she brings a somewhat more stylized use of color while maintaining the same dramatic contrast of dark and light.

Artemisia Gentileschi, “Judith and her Maidservant with the Head of Holoferne”
(1625)

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“Self-Portrait as a Lute Player”
(1625)

Artemisia Gentileschi,
Judith and Her
Maidservant
(1613-14)

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Artemisia Gentileschi,

Mary Magdalene

(1610)

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Diego Velázquez, Pope Innocent (1650)

Diego Velázquez (1559-1660)

was a Spanish painter

who was the leading

artist in the court of King Philip IV and

one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age.

Diego Velázquez,
Las Meninas
(The Maids of Honor)
(1656)
Velázquez lacks the intense drama of Caravaggio but continued to use intense light and shadows for effect.

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The Florid Baroque: Painting

Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), one of the most famous baroque artists was known for his display of ripe sensuality and his portrayal of voluptuous female nudes.

Rubens was a Flemish painter, and a major proponent of an extravagant fluid Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality.

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Peter Paul Rubens,

The Three Graces (1635)

Peter Paul Rubens,
“Venus at the Mirror” (1615)

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Rubens, The Judgment of Paris, (ca.1606)

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Rubens, Venus and Adonis, (1612)

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Rubens, Venus, Cupid, Baccchus and Ceres, (1612)

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Rubens, “Jupiter and Callisto” (1613)

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Rubens, “The Hermit and the Sleeping Angelica” (1626)

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Rubens, “Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus” (1617)

Andrea Pozzo's Painted Ceiling in the Church of St. Ignazio
(1621-25)
Is an example of “Illusionistic Ceiling Fresco” which constructed imaginary continuation of architectural features.
Illusionism is a florid Baroque feature.

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The Classical Baroque

The Architecture of Classical Baroque is best exemplified by the splendor and grandiosity of the Palace at Versailles (which was shown earlier).
Classical values dominated baroque painting in France. In pursuit of ancient Roman ideals, classical baroque artists painted mythological subjects, stressed idealized human bodies, and cultivated a quietly elegant style.

Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) was the leading painter of this genre, creating his own detached approach to the subject matter and a feeling for the unity of human and nature.

Pousin, Landscape with Orpheus and Eurydice (ca. 1640’s)

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Poussin, “Death of Germanicus” (1628)

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Poussin,
Les Bergers d’Arcadie” (1637) and Inspiration of the Poet” (1630)

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The Restrained Baroque

The leading painters in Restrained Baroque centered in England and the Netherlands. They appealed to democratic sentiments that reflected common human experiences.
Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69) the greatest of all Dutch painters, he is recognized as one of the premier painters in European history.
Having achieved youthful success as a portrait painter, Rembrandt's later years were marked by personal tragedy and financial hardships.
Yet his etchings and paintings were popular throughout his lifetime, his reputation as an artist remained high, and for twenty years he taught many important Dutch painters

Rembrandt , “The Night Watch” (1642)

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Rembrandt

“The Prodigal Son in a Tavern”

(1635)

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Rembrandt

“Bathsheba at Her Bath”

(1654)

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Rembrandt

Danaë

(1636)

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Rembrandt

A Woman Bathing in a Stream

(1655)

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Rembrandt

“A Polish Nobleman”

(1637)

Rembrandt

Self-Portrait”

(1640)

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The Restrained Baroque

Jan Vermeer (1632-75) was another great Dutch painter who specialized in domestic genre scenes.

Vermeer worked slowly and with great care, using bright colors and sometimes expensive pigments. He is particularly renowned for his masterly treatment and use of light in his work.
Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes. Almost all his paintings are apparently set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft; they show the same furniture and decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly women.

Jan Vermeer, The Lacemaker (1664)

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Jan Vermeer, “Girl with a Wine Glass” (1659)

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Jan Vermeer,

“The Milkmaid” (1658)

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The Restrained Baroque

Judith Leyster (1609-1660), was one of the few Dutch female artists. She specialized in genre scenes, portraits, and still-lifes. The number of surviving works attributed to her varies. Some claim it is fewer than 20, others claim about 35 remain.

All of these Dutch artists were able to flourish due to the expanding Dutch market in commercial art.

Judith Leyster

“The Happy Couple” (1630)

Judith Leyster

“Serenade” (1629)

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Judith Leyster

“The Proposition” (1631)

Judith Leyster

“Jolly Toper” (1639)

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The Restrained Baroque

Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) was a painter in England, which lacked the Dutch art market and, as such, painting was controlled by the desires of the aristocracy.

Anthony Van Dyck, “Triple Portrait of Charles I” (1641)

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Anthony Van Dyck, “Lords John and Bernard Stuart”
(1639)

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Anthony Van Dyck,
Henrietta Marie and the Dwarf, Sir Jeffery Hudson (1633)

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Anthony Van Dyck,

Charles I at the Hunt

(1635)

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Christopher Wren,

St. Paul's Cathedral, London

(1675-1710)

Wren was the most

famous architect of

Restrained Baroque

St Paul's, Seen Across the River Thames,

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Baroque Literature

Drama was France’s greatest contribution to baroque literature. Although strictly controlled by royal authority, great tragedians like Pierre Corneille (1606-84) and Jean Racine (1639-99) based on Spanish legends and Roman themes.
Molière (1622-73) was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature. He analyzed the foibles of French life and used social satire and farce, including pratfalls, mistaken identities, sight gags, puns, and slapstick to create works that are still performed today,
England’s outstanding contribution to literature is found in the work of John Milton (1608-74) and his supreme literary accomplishment “Paradise Lost.” The poem concerns the Biblical story of the Fall of Man; the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton's purpose, stated in Book I, is to "justify the ways of God to men".
It is considered by critics to be Milton's major work, and helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time.

Molière and John Milton

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Baroque Music

Baroque music forms a major portion of “classical music” canon, being widely studied, performed, and listened to even today.
Composers of the Baroque era include Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750); George Frederic Handel (1685-1759); and Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (1678-1741).

Opera started in Italy at the end of the 16th century and soon spread through the rest of Europe.

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text (called a libertto) and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting.

Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederic Handel

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The Legacy of the Baroque Age

European system of great powers begins and lasts until the modern era.
Mercantilism, where a nation’s trade policies work to increase national wealth is begun and practiced until the modern era.
Western religious identity and the division into Protestant and Catholic camps.
Classical music and opera make an deep impression in the field of music.
Many great works of art and architecture that are recognized to this day are created.
There is a great fascination with King Louis XIV’s absolutist court and absolutism reaches its zenith under the “Sun King”.