Baroque and Neoclassicism in Arts: Architecture, Sculpture, and Painting
Baroque Art
Architecture
Exuberance (decorative excess). Living plants and cajón. The transept tends to be small or disappear. A single ship. First Stage: Dim Baroque, the influence of Juan de Herrera. Wood and gypsum (poor materials). Encamonada vault: wood covered with plaster. Juan Gómez de Mora (clergy of Salamanca, Plaza Mayor, Casa de la Panadería, Madrid City Council) and Toledo, Altarpiece Clerecía (zigzag broken line, spiral columns). Second Stage: Outside Baroque, plane stipes (inverted triangles): Plaza Mayor de Salamanca, Retablo of St. Steven, Crane Obradoiro, Palacio del Marqués dos Aguas, Cathedral of Murcia, sacristy of the Cartuja, facade of San Telmo in Seville, Palacio de Oriente.
Sculpture
Little marble, polished wood with a gold touch, stew technique. Gregorio Fernández (drama, wrinkled clothing, extreme realism and color contrast): Pietà, Christ Bound to the Column, Reclining Christ, Descent, Baptism of Christ. Juan Martínez Montañés (gentle Baroque, weighted diagonal canon, loincloth, very long, many altarpieces): St. Jerome, Adoration of the Shepherds, San Cristóbal con el Niño, The Child Jesus, The Blind Girl (line serpentinata), Passion of Christ, Christ of Clemency. Juan de Mesa (disciple of Montañés, Cordoba, more naturalism and realism, much of its production dedicated to brotherhoods, stylization of figures, more colorful than Montañés, cylindrical element): V. of the Cuevas, C. del Amor, C. of the Good Death, C. Agony, Great Power, V. of the Anguish. Alonso Cano (Granada, soft, taste, small, engineer from the base): V. de la Oliva, S. Diego de Alcalá, Immaculate, San Antonio de Padua and the Child. Francisco Salzillo (soft style, movement, naturalism): Prayer in the Garden, Bethlehem, Arrest (Kiss of Judas).
Painting
Two stages, dark, will clear the palette, religious and mythological themes and genres, look for the morbid. Jusepe de Ribera (Valencia, Naples, the Spaniard, Caravaggio influence, some sweetness and psychological characteristics): St. Francis’ Vision, Woman with a Beard, The Calvary, Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew, Apollo Skinning Marsyas, Isaac Blessing Jacob, Jacob’s Sleep, Immaculate Conception, Clubfoot. Francisco de Zurbarán (Extremadura, Seville, dark, detailed and naturalistic characters, many monks, contrast of lights): Apostles of St. Thomas, Adoration of the Magi, Fray Gonzalo de Illescas, Fray Jerónimo Pérez, Miracle of St. Hugo in the Refectory, St. Casilda.
Neoclassicism
Architecture
Ruins of fashion. Two stages: first in Rome, second acceptance and diffusion of its principles through academies. Juan de Villanueva (Fernando VI Academy, blunt, 26 years wet architect, neo-Palladianism, architect of the Escorial, for the children of Carlos III makes Casita del Príncipe and Casita del Infante, two recreational Palladian villas in the mountains of Madrid, promoted to the direction of Fernando VI Academy, and named senior master of Madrid City Council): Palace of Science and Astronomical Observatory, hexastyle porches, Arco de la Victoria in Paris, Arco Carrousel.
Sculpture
Antonio Canova (great sculptor, son and grandson of stonecutters): allegory of sculpture, group of Daedalus and Icarus, award-winning works Theseus and the Minotaur, Love and Psyche, Tomb of Clement XIII. Quality, sense of style, parietal graves made in Rome, tomb of Maria Christina of Austria. In Paris, Napoleon acclaimed portrait of the emperor and his mother and sister half-naked lying on a divan. After Napoleon’s fall, he went to Paris for the pope to recover treasures looted from the Vatican by the French. Invited to London to opine on the Parthenon marbles that Lord Elgin had moved to the British Museum. Made the Three Graces for the Duke of Bedford. The last assignment was the conference of representatives of North Carolina, and a statue of George Washington for the Raleigh Parliament. Before dying, Washington sent a portrait dressed as a Roman emperor, inspired by Dionysus of Parthenon. A fire destroyed this work, known by a plaster copy kept in the Gipsoteca of Possagno: Paulina Bonaparte.
Painting
Jacques-Louis David (political artist committed to the ideals of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic empire): painted in Rome The Oath of the Horatii, which became the manifesto of European neoclassical painting. The Horatii children swear to defend Rome eternally. David is a harbinger of modernity, in an instant passion, drama. David returned to Paris acclaimed. Also made The Death of Socrates, The Death of Marat. When the revolution broke out, he was named deputy and voted for the decapitation of Louis XVI. Also enforced fashion and taste, short and loose hairstyles for men and classic design for women’s clothing and furniture, as in the portrait of Madame Récamier, equestrian portrait of Napoleon Crossing the Alps and The Coronation of Napoleon in Notre Dame. He fled to Brussels, where he clarified the neutral tones of his palette, anticipating Romanticism: Andromache Mourning Hector, Napoleon Crossing the Alps.