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ART HISTORY 132

Baroque: Italian

Baroque: Italian

  • context: ecclesiastical
  • Council of Trent (c. 1565)
  • part of the larger [Catholic] Counter Reformation
  • defined role assigned to arts in Catholic Church
  • headings:
  • 1) clarity, simplicity & intelligibility
  • 2) realistic interpretation
  • in contrast to Renaissance idealization
  • appropriateness of age, gender, type, expression, gesture & dress
  • 3) emotional stimulus to piety

Bernini
(1598-1680)

  • significance: successor to Michelangelo
  • unique ability to capture essence of narrative moment
  • aim: to synthesize/unify sculpture, painting and architecture into coherent conceptual and visual whole
  • patrons: many associated w/ papacy
  • early age, came to attention of papal nephew, Scipione Borghese
  • knighted at age 23, by Gregory XV
  • Urban VII, Alexander VII, Clement IX
  • quality of naturalism: realism
  • light: used as metaphorical device in religious settings
  • often, hidden light source intensifies focus of religious worship

Bernini

Bust of Scipione Borghese (1632)

  • subject: portraiture
  • patron: Cardinal Scipione Borghese
  • maternal uncle elected to papacy as Pope Paul V (1605)
  • placed SB in charge of internal and external political affairs
  • entrusted w/ finances of papacy and Borghese family
  • B’s first patron (c. 1618-24); also patron of Caravaggio
  • composition: dynamic
  • narrative moment: mid-speech
  • quality of naturalism: realistic

Bernini

  • Apollo and Daphne (1622-25)
  • patron: Cardinal Scipione Borghese
  • subject matter: early 17C Italian poetry
  • see Ovid’s Metamorphoses
  • intellectual context: frustrated desire and enduring despair and pain, provoked by love
  • meaning: personal, special resonance for SB, who was widely ridiculed for his attraction to other men
  • narrative moment: transformative
  • A reaching out toward river nymph D, just as she is transformed into laurel tree by her father
  • prevent D from being burned by touch of god of sun
  • figural type: androgynous male (see Hellenistic Greek)

Bernini

  • David (c. 1625)
  • patron: Cardinal Scipione Borgheses
  • commissioned to decorate Galleria Borghese at private villa
  • style: “dynamic” tendencies
  • influences: Hellenistic Greek
  • Baroque qualities:
  • spatial order: active vs. self-contained
  • realism of detail & differentiation of texture
  • drapery: abstract play of folds & crevasses
  • attempting pictorial effects traditionally outside sculpture’s domain

Classical Greek Discus Thrower (c. 450 BCE)
vs.
BERNINI’s Italian Baroque David (c. 1625 CE)

*

(Left) DONATELLO’s Italian Early Ren. David (c. 1450)
vs.
(right) BERNINI’s Italian Baroque David (c. 1625)

(Left) BERNINI’s Italian Baroque David (c. 1625)
vs.
(right) MICHELANGELO’s Italian High Ren David (c. 1500)

Bernini

  • Cornaro Chapel (c. 1650)
  • function: funerary
  • dedicated: Saint Teresa
  • mystic of Spanish Counter-Reformation
  • 1st Carmelite nun to be canonized
  • aesthetic influence: Humanism
  • materials: multimedia
  • marble panels
  • painted ceiling
  • gilded bronze
  • sculpture portraits
  • lighting: windows, both hidden & apparent

Detail (“transverberation”) of Bernini’s
Ecstacy of St. Teresa
(c. 1650)

(Left) Detail of BERNINI’s Italian Baroque Ecstasy of St. Teresa (c. 1650)
vs.
(right) MICHELANGELO’s High Renaissance Pietá (c. 1500)

Baroque: Italian
“Realist” tendency

  • Caravaggio (1573-1610)
  • biography: in permanent revolt against authority
  • fled Rome because charged w/ manslaughter
  • died of malaria
  • style: “realist” tendency
  • rejection of Mannerism
  • interest in surface textures & appearances
  • human figure not prettified
  • narrative: heightened emotion
  • moment of recognition
  • powerful foreshortening
  • light/shadow: dramatic chiaroscuro
  • spatial order: systematically destroys space between event in painting and viewer

Caravaggio

  • Calling of St. Matthew (c. 1600)
  • narrative: NT
  • moment of recognition
  • genre scene: anachronistic
  • mundane environment
  • contemporary clothes
  • composition: dynamic
  • narrow range of browns & flesh tones
  • punctuated by primaries that circulate vision through composition
  • light: chiaroscuro & “tenebrism”
  • dark setting envelopes occupants
  • sharply lit figures
  • e.g., Christ’s gesture highlighted by sharply descending diagonal


Caravaggio

  • Conversion of St. Paul (c. 1600)
  • narrative: NT
  • moment of recognition
  • emotional stimulus to piety
  • figures: realistic
  • setting: ambiguous & distilled
  • composition: clarity, simplicity & intelligibility
  • color: narrow range
  • punctuated by compliments
  • lighting: tenebrism & chiaroscuro
  • spatial order: shallow
  • dramatic foreshortening
  • overlapping

Caravaggio

  • Entombment (c. 1600)
  • narrative: emotional stimulus to piety
  • spatial order: shallow depth; distilled
  • foreshortening
  • overlapping
  • figures: realistic
  • agedness
  • corpse of Christ
  • discolored
  • dangling arm
  • composition: dynamic
  • compact, distilled arrangement
  • visually coherent
  • color: narrow range
  • punctuated by primaries
  • light: “tenebrism” & chiaroscuro
  • dark background
  • selective illumination
  • establishes volume & mass

Caravaggio

Caravaggio’s Italian Baroque Entombment (c. 1600)
vs.
Raphael’s High Renaissance Deposition (c. 1500)

CARAVAGGIO’s Italian Baroque Entombment (c. 1600)
vs.
MICHELANGELO’s High Renaissance Pieta (c. 1500)

Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus
(c. 1600)

Baroque: Italian
“classicizing” tendency

  • Carracci (1560-1609)
  • aesthetic: “classicizing”
  • movement against Mannerist artificiality
  • training: private teaching academy
  • drawing from life & Roman sculptures, coins, medallions
  • clear draftsmanship
  • medium: fresco (“Grand Manner”)
  • figures: heroic
  • characteristics:
  • illusionistic surfaces
  • High Renaissance decoration
  • draws inspiration from
  • Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel
  • Raphael’s frescos in Vatican

CARRACCI’s
“classicizing” tendency Italian Baroque
Flight into Egypt
(c. 1600)

Carracci

  • Farnese Gallery
  • style: “Classicizing”
  • patron: Farnese
  • program: mythological themes
  • see Ovid's Metamorphosis
  • also alludes poem written by Lorenzo de Medici (c. 1475)
  • format: illusionistic enhancement of architectural space (“quadri riportati”)
  • themes: mythological
  • moralizing messages
  • hidden religious content

Carracci’s Triumph of Bacchus & Ariadne
Farnese Gallery (c. 1600)

Carracci

  • Farnese Gallery (con’t.)
  • Polyphemus & Galatea
  • subject: mythological
  • P  cyclops
  • G sea nymph
  • figure: free adaptation of ancient Greek sculpture
  • Classical Discobolus
  • Hellenistic Laocoön
  • reverses legs
  • one arm extended down, other up
  • head tilted

Carracci’s Italian Baroque Polyphemus and Galatea (c. 1600 CE)
vs.
Myron’s Classical Greek Discus Thrower (c. 450 BCE)

Carracci’s Italian Baroque Polyphemus and Galatea (c. 1600 CE)
vs.
Hellenistic Greek Laocoön (c. 150 BCE)

RENI’s “classicizing” tendency
Italian Baroque
Aurora
(1613-14)

IMAGE INDEX

  • Slide 3: Portrait of Bernini by BACICCIO (c. 1665)
  • Slide 4: BERNINI. Bust of Scipione Borghese (1632), marble, 31in. high, Galleria Borghese, Rome.
  • Slide 5: BERNINI. Apollo and Daphne (1622-25), marble, 96 in. high, Galleria Borghese, Rome.
  • Slide 6: BERNINI. David (c. 1625), Marble, , lifesize, Galleria Borghese, Rome.
  • Slide 7: Comparison between Classical Greek Discuss Thrower (c. 450 BCE) vs. BERNINI’s Baroque David (c. 1625).
  • Slide 8: (Left) DONATELLO’s Early Renaissance David (c. 1425); and (right) BERNINI’s David (c. 1625)
  • Slide 9: (Left) MICHELANGELO’s HIGH Renaissance David (c. 1500); and (right) BERNINI’s David (c. 1625)
  • Slide 10: BERNINI. Cornaro Chapel (c. 1650), Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.
  • Slide 11-12: BERNINI. The Ecstasy of Saint Therese (c. 1650), Marble, Cappella Cornaro, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.

IMAGE INDEX

  • Slide 13: CARAVAGGIO. Detail of self-portrait from David (1606- 07), Oil on wood, 90.5 x 116 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
  • Slide 14: CARAVAGGIO. The Calling of Saint Matthew (1600), Oil on canvas, 10' 7 1/2" X 11' 2”, Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome.
  • Slide 15: Detail of Christ and St. Peter from CARAVAGGIO’s Calling of St. Matthew.
  • Slide 16: CARAVAGGIO. Conversion of St. Paul (1600-01), Oil on canvas, 90 1/2 x 70 in., Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.
  • Slide 17: CARAVAGGIO. Entombment (c. 1600), Oil on canvas, 300x 203 cm., Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome.
  • Slide 18: Detail of Mary from CARAVAGGIO’s Entombment.
  • Slide 19: Comparison between CARAVAGGIO’s Entombment (c. 1600) vs. RAPHAEL’s High Renaissance Descent from the Cross (c. 1500).

IMAGE INDEX

  • Slide 20: CARRAVAGIO. Supper at Emmaus (1601), Oil on canvas, 77 by 55 in., National Gallery, London.
  • Slide 21: Portrait of Annibale CARRACCI.
  • Slide 22: CARACCI. Flight into Egypt (c. 1603-04), Oil on canvas, 4’ x 7’6”, Galleria Doria Pamphili, Rome.
  • Slide 23: CARACCI. Loves of the Gods (c. 1600), Ceiling frescoes in the gallery, Palazzo Farnese, Rome.
  • Slide 24: CARRACCI. Bacchus and Ariadne, central ceiling panel from Farnese Gallery (c. 1600).
  • Slide 25: CARRACCI. Polyphemus and Galatea, from Farnese Gallery (c. 1600).
  • Slide 26: Comparison between (Left) CARRACCI’s Polyphemus and Galatea vs. (right) Classical Greek Discuss Thrower (c. 450 BCE).
  • Slide 27: Comparison between (left) CARRACCI’s Polyphemus and Galatea vs. (right) Hellenistic Greek Laocoön (c. 200 BCE).
  • Slide 28: RENI. Aurora (1613-14), ceiling fresco in the Casino Rospigliosi,Rome.