Baroque

Etymology and use

The term “baroque”, like the majority of the periods or designations stylistics, is invented by critical posterior and not by the experts of arts Des. the artists of the time baroque did not think traditional baroques but . They use the forms of the Moyen-âge, the traditional orders, the pediments, a whole Modénature traditional exit of the models gréco-Romans.

The term is largely due, in its current meaning, with the historian of Swiss art of origin Heinrich Wölfflin (1864-1945) in its book Renaissance and Baroque where it identifies the baroque like a “movement imported in mass”, an art antithesis of the art of the Rebirth. It did not make distinctions between the Maniérisme and the baroque, which makes the modern authors, and it is unaware of the more recent phase, the Rococo which opens out in first half of the 18th century. In France and England, its study is taken with serious only starting from the prevalent influence that Wölfflin had acquired within the Germanic school.

The word is resulting from the Portuguese barroco which indicates an irregular pearl in the vocabulary used by the Joaillier S of the 16th century. It could also come from an obsolete Italian word, baroco meaning in logic scholastic, a Syllogisme with weak contents.

In 1694 (in full period baroque thus), the word, for the French Academy “says only pearls which are of an extremely imperfect roundness. A collar of pearls baroques”. Nearly one century later, in 1762, whereas the baroque is completed, in addition to its first significance, and always according to the same Academy, “he also says themselves to appeared, for irregular, odd, unequal. A baroque spirit. An expression baroque. A figure baroque. ”. At the 19th century, for the sixth edition of its dictionary, the Academy reverses the order of the definitions: the pearls pass to the second rank and the direction illustrated in the first. It is in 1855 that, for the first time, the word is used to describe the period and art succeeding the Rebirth under the feather of the Swiss historian of art Jacob Burckhardt in the Cicerone and that is not a chance if it is in the German world that is born this meaning from the word, the French and the English have at least their kings to describe the evolution of the styles (see Style Louis XIV, etc) whereas at the time Germany is divided into a myriad of microphone-States, the Kleinstaaterei . It is necessary to wait until a generation and 1878 so that the “style baroque” makes its entry in the Dictionnaire of the French Academy and that the definition loses a little its dépréciatif nature. It is true that the empress Eugenie gave to the last style preciousnesses and the Style Louis XV and that was born, which we call the Néobaroque: the rehabilitation can start and Wölffin to write its work to inform us on what is this so complex, tormented, irregular baroque and, at the bottom, more attractive than odd…

Evolution

See also: old Baroque, average Baroque, late Baroque

First steps

The germinal ideas of the Baroque are found in the work of Michel-Angel. The style baroque begins in the neighborhoods from 1600. The canon law promulgated with the Council of Thirty (1545-1563), by which the Catholic church wish that in the context of the churches, arts representative, paintings and the sculptures, address themselves to illiterate rather than to well educated people. It is gracefully offered to the inspiration of the baroque, which appeared nevertheless a generation later. This brought to a populist design of the function of ecclesiastical art such as saw many historians of art, leading to creations of the Caravage and the brothers Carracci, which worked with Rome about 1600 (in competition for commissions).

The historians of art, often Protestants, traditionally accentuated the fact that the style baroque evolved/moved at one time when the Catholic church reacted vis-a-vis several cultural movements producing a new science and new forms of Religion S - the Réforme. It was said that the monumental baroque was a style that the Papauté could instrumentaliser, as the absolute monarchies did it, by forcing a way of capable expression to restore its prestige, at the point of beginning how much symbolic system catholic Reform. That it was or not the case, its development had success with Rome where the Baroque architecture largely renewed the downtown area; perhaps the most important urban restoration.

Diffusion

The popularity and the success of the baroque are encouraged by the Catholic church when it decided that the dramatic side of the style of the artists of the baroque could promote religious topics with a direct involvement and emotional. It is an art of the Catholicism such which was defines between 1545-1563 by the Concile of Thirty whose most significant decree is the “Decree on the innovation and the relics of the saints, and on the holy images” . It is thus an art of the Counter-Reformation. However he will know strong resistances in the countries acquired to the Réforme, where an art Protestant will develop. England will remain nevertheless an important center of refusal, France also.

The laic aristocracy also regarded the dramatic effect of arts and the Baroque architecture as a way of impressing their visitors and their possible rivals. The palates baroques consist of a succession of course at the entry, anterooms, large staircases and rooms of reception, in an order of increasing splendor. Many forms of art - music, architecture and literature - are inspired from/to each other within this cultural movement.

The charm of the style baroque changes consciously, passing from the smoothness, of intellectual qualities of art mannerist of the 16th century to the visceral charm aiming at the directions. It employs a direct, simple, obvious and dramatic iconography. The Baroque art is inspired to a certain extent heroic tendencies by Annibale Carracci and its circle, and finds the inspiration through other artists like Corrège and Caravage and Federico Barocci, described sometimes nowadays as “proto-baroques”.

One often opposes the art of Carraches (brothers and cousin) to the art of Caravage by the terms of traditional and baroque, they are two influences opposed at the plastic level (what was defines by Wöfflin) which will have much influences on their successors.

Late baroque

Some consider that the initial baroque is supplanted by the style Rococo, beginning in France at the end of the years 1720, in particular in the interiors where decorative paintings and arts, and replaced by the Néoclassicisme at the end of the 18th century.

For others, drier and moderate, less dramatic and colourist, the last stage of the baroque is often seen like a called distinct demonstration late Baroque . (Cf Claude Perrault). The academic characteristics in the architectural style néo- Palladien, incarnated by William Kent, are a parallel development in the United Kingdom and in the British colonies: behind the doors, the drawing of the pieces of furniture of Kent is highly influenced by that of the pieces of furniture baroques of Rome and Genoa, elements carved, tectonic and hieratic, which were not judicious being not moved of their installation supplementing the construction of a wall. The baroque is a style of unit imposed by the use of rich and massive details.

Characteristics

The baroque was defined by Heinrich Wölfflin as the time when the Ovale replaces the Cercle in the center of the composition, balances substituted centralization, effects of color and of painting started to become increasingly prominent.

Some general analogies in music make useful the expression “Baroque music”. Sentences with the contrasted lengths, the harmony and the counterpoint dislodge the polyphony, and the orchestral colors more often appear. (Cf Baroque music). A fascination similar with an expression simple, strong, dramatic, where the rates/rhythms clear, full, syncopated replace the comparisons metaphysics, sophisticated and interlaced Maniéristes as John Donne. One feels the imagination strongly influenced by the visual developments of painting in the Paradis Lost of John Milton, an epopee baroque.

In painting, the Baroque expression is fuller than the Maniériste expression: less ambiguous, less obscure and mysterious, rather like the expression of the opera, a form of major Baroque art. The installation baroque rests on the Contrapposto (“swaying walk”), a tension in the form which moves the plans of the shoulders and the hips in two opposite directions.

Painting baroque

The theater baroque

August 1st Several authors write plays during the period baroque such as Corneille ( Comédies , " the comic Illusion ") and Molière ( Dom Juan ) in France; Shakespeare ( Romeo and Juliette ) in England; Tirso de Molina ( Marthe the excessively pious woman , comedy; the Misleading one of Seville , historical drama) and Lope de Vega ( the Star of Seville , Aimer without knowing which , comedies) or Calderon ( the Life is a dream ) in Spain. The theater baroque can be defined, initially, like negative traditional theater. With the intellectual analysis, the baroque prefers the emotion, perception, with the research of probability, the baroque promotes the illusion, with the unit of tone, the baroque privileges inconstancy and the paradox, to simplicity, the baroque opposes complexity.

In general, the literature baroque is marked by a strong implication of died and play of the illusion.

As in vanities in painting, death is used as metaphor of the time which passes, of irremediable, and of the transitory one. Contrary to the romanticism, death does not represent a mental anguish, but rather a metaphysical obviousness.

The illusion is also characteristic of the baroque which arises, étymologiquement, like an invaluable stone with multiple facets. Thus, many works are carrying various settings in abyss: in the Comic Illusion of Crow, the public attends the spectacle of a father who looks at his son evolving/moving in a medium which proves to be comedy. So the author gives more force to his plea in favor of the theater and involves in spite of him the public to be adhered to his point of view. The characters, just like the spectator, are, at one moment or with another, victims of the illusion. Pridamant believes his/her son died in worms 977, Matamore believes in its own lies. the Comic Illusion does not make only speak about the theater: by its characters, this part convenes also other widespread literary kinds with. Clindor is a hero picaresque, i.e. daring and opportunist, wandering and adventurous, while Alcandre seems to be a misadventure of the magi present in the pastoral ones. In the same way, the character of Matamore corresponds to the type of the soldier fanfaron present in the Latin comedies. The illusion also makes it possible to say the truth: one sees it in the part Hamlet , of Shakespeare. The Hamlet young person knows that the current king, his uncle, killed his own brother, in other words the father of the young hero. He makes represent under the eyes of the king a scene of murder similar in all points to that which we did not see, but that we know by the speech of the phantom of king Hamlet assassinated by his brother. The king, in front of this representation, leaves the scene. In this part, illusion and truth meet curiously and thus cause a giddiness at the spectator. Don Juan of Molière also puts in scene a character baroque: inconstancy. For the tempting Hero, “all the pleasure of the love is in the change”, this thesis applies in all the fields and thus joined the movement baroque.

Esthetics baroque rests on the movement, inconstancy, contradiction, the antithesis. The characters pass from a pallet of feelings to another. One is in excess, paroxysm. The speech gives to see more than to hear; it is a question of showing, to convene the images by the process rhetoric of the hypotypose. Whereas traditional esthetics seeks the unit, the baroque takes pleasure in plurality, from where its taste for accumulation. The baroque gives the two slopes of a medal: the truth is indissociable lie, like reality is dream, as the life is death.

With the theater, the baroque is also translated grace a certain setting into scene (lights, plays, costumes, decorations…) who highlights the characters of the movement.

The sculpture baroque

In sculpture baroque, the whole of figures took a new importance, there were a dynamic movement and an energy carried by human forms - they are rolled up in volutes around a central swirl, or reach towards outside spaces neighborhood. For the first time, the sculpture baroque had several ideal visual angles. A characteristic of the sculpture baroque was to add additional carved elements, for example, dissimulated lightings or fountains. Architecture, the sculptures and the fountains of Bernini (1598-1680) gave the characteristics highly in charge of the style baroque. Bernini was without any doubt the most important sculptor of the period baroque. It approached Michel-Angel, from the point of view of its multiple competences: Bernini carved, worked as architect, painted, wrote parts and put in scene spectacles. At the end of the 20th century, Bernini was very recognized for its sculpture, at the same time for its virtuosity to cut the marble and its capacity to create forms combining physical and spirit. It was also a good sculptor of busts much in demand of the powerful ones.

The Cornaro vault: the chief of total work of art

The Transverberation of holy Therese (1645-52), created for the Cornaro vault of the church Holy-Marie-of-the-Victoire with Rome, us helps to include/understand the baroque. The vault designed for the Cornaro family as an auxiliary space on a side of the church is a chief of total work of art.

Bernini worked a brick box forming a scene on which pâme a holy white marble Therese surrounded by an architectural polychrome marble framing appearing a window to light the statue by the top. In light relief, the groups of faces carved of the Cornaro family occupy of the cabins, along two side walls of the vault. The observer is placed, like a spectator-witness of the mystical extase of the holy one. Therese d' Avila is strongly idealized in an imaginary decoration. The statue reports its mystical experiment told with the nuns about the Carmélites. It described the love of god like an extreme arrow there boring its heart. Bernini concretizes this image literally by representing a Ange, gold an arrow to the hand, a such Cupid, in a posture of inclination to the top of smiling it and him. The figure angelica plunges the arrow in sounds heart or withdraws it to him. The face of holy reflects the anticipation of the extase or its blooming.

The mixture of religion and erotism, one of the aspects of the genius baroque, shocked a long time, either neo-classic reserve, or decency victorienne. Bernini, a catholic excessively pious person, is not tempted to make the satire of a nun but to incarnate in the marble a complex truth drawn from the religious experiment. Therese describes her physical reaction to the spiritual illumination in a language of extase used by many mystics and the representation of Bernini is sincere.

The Cornaro family promotes itself discreetly in this vault, it is represented laterally, it attends the event since the balconies. As with the opera, Cornaro have a privileged position compared to the spectator, in their private cabin, with more close to the holy one; the spectator nevertheless has the best seen. It is a private vault, in the direction where nobody could say mass to the furnace bridge under the statue (at the 17th century and probably until 19th) without the permission of the family; but the only thing which separates the observer from the image is the barrier of the furnace bridge. The functions of spectacle show at the same time the mysticism and the pride of the family.

The Baroque architecture

Néobaroque architecture

Opera, Charles Garnier (Paris)
Opera Semper (Dresden)

Dance and theater baroques

In the field of the theater, the development of vanities, multiple changes of intrigue, and a variety of circumstances characteristic of the Maniérisme (tragedies of Shakespeare for example) are supplanted by the opera which gathers all arts in a unified whole.

The Danse baroque was popular at the time baroque.

Literature and philosophy baroques

Baroque music

See too

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