Baroque Art: Painting and Sculpture in the 17th Century
Baroque Painting
Baroque painting is the style of painting associated with the Baroque cultural movement. Painting assumed a prominent role in artistic expression, becoming the most characteristic expression of the weight of religion in Catholic countries and the bourgeois taste in Protestant countries. The best and most important painting during the period beginning around 1600 and continuing throughout the 17th century and into the early 18th century is identified today as Baroque. Baroque art is characterized by realism, rich, intense colors, and strong shadows. In contrast to Renaissance art, which usually showed the moment before an event occurred, Baroque artists chose the most dramatic point, the moment the action was occurring: Michelangelo, who worked during the High Renaissance, shows his David composed and still before fighting Goliath; the David of the Baroque artist Bernini is caught in the act of throwing a stone at the giant. Baroque art sought to evoke emotion and passion rather than the calm rationality that had been appreciated during the Renaissance.
Key Baroque Painters
Among the greatest painters of the Baroque period are:
- Caravaggio[4]
- Rembrandt[5]
- Rubens[6]
- Velazquez
- Poussin[7]
- Vermeer[8]
Caravaggio’s painting is heir to the humanist painting of the High Renaissance. His realistic approach to the human figure, painted directly from life and dramatically lit against a dark background, shocked his contemporaries and opened a new chapter in the history of painting. Baroque painting often dramatizes scenes using chiaroscuro light effects; this can be seen in works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Le Nain, and La Tour. There is a trend and a search that combines realism with the theatrical and the effectist.
Characteristics of Baroque Painting
- Color, light, and movement are the defining elements of pictorial form.
- Color predominates over line.
- Effects of depth, perspective, and volume are achieved with contrasts of light and color tones, rather than with the sharp, crisp lines of the drawing.
- Light becomes a fundamental element, drawing or blurring outlines, defining the environment and the atmosphere of the painting.
- The technique of chiaroscuro was perfected by many Baroque painters.
- An impression of movement was sought.
- Compositions are complicated, unusual perspectives are taken, and volumes are distributed asymmetrically.
- The dynamics of space, the vision of scenes in depth, the structure of compositions using diagonals, and the distribution of patches of light and color configure a dynamic space where contours are diluted.
There is absolute mastery of painting technique, both in oil painting on canvas and in fresco. This allows for great realism in pictorial representation. The imitation of reality theorized by the Renaissance is achieved, but without the idealization of the previous century. The mastery of technique, which very faithfully represents reality, sometimes tries to fool the viewer by means of optical illusions. This is especially true of Baroque illusionistic perspective, especially in vault paintings, which attempt to “break” visually by representing the sky and the suggestion of the infinite, a pictorial device already used by Mantegna in the Camera degli Sposi in the 15th century and by Correggio in his frescoes in Parma. These illusionistic decorations proliferated throughout the second half of the century and lasted beyond the Rococo period, in grand palaces across Europe, reinforcing the deception not simply with pictorial elements but also with the use of stucco and gold.
Baroque Sculpture
Baroque sculpture developed alongside architectural creations, especially in statues, as well as in the ornamentation of city squares, gardens, and fountains. In Spain, it also manifested itself in religious images carved in wood, called imaginerÃa, with which it was hoped to stimulate the faith of the people.
Characteristics of Baroque Sculpture
- A tendency to represent the human figure with perfect objectivity in all its aspects, both the most sublime and the most vulgar.
- Free compositional schemes, breaking away from geometric patterns and the balance of the Renaissance.
- Dynamically projecting outward. This instability manifests itself in the restlessness of the characters and scenes and in the breadth and bombast of the clothing.
- Representation of the nude in its pure state, as a frozen action, achieved through the influence of asymmetrical composition, dominated by diagonals, biased and slanted bodies, the technique of foreshortening, and intermittent blurred lines, which direct the work toward the viewer with great expressionism.
- Great importance is given to the nude, creating opposing compositional groups that allow light to influence the surfaces of the sculptures.
- Wood, marble, and other materials were preferably used.
Baroque Sculpture in Spain
In Spain, the subject matter is almost exclusively religious, and only in the area of the court is monumental sculpture made. Mythological and secular themes are absent. Altarpieces are also made, showing free-standing figures and bas-reliefs. Spanish Baroque sculpture stands out for its imaginerÃa, using wood as the material, following the Spanish tradition. These works use the technique of stew and polychrome. The figures are made for churches, convents, and for Holy Week processions. Realism is extended; the images appear with rich robes, natural hair, and glass eyes and tears. The purpose of these sculptures is to cause a profound religious emotion in the viewer.
Main Schools of Spanish Baroque Sculpture
In Spanish Baroque sculpture, two main schools can be distinguished:
- The Castilian School
- The Andalusian School