Chapter 17: Baroque Art

Catholic Church

In the seventeenth century, the _ was the largest source of artistic commissions, followed by monarchy and despotic regimes.

palaces

These are envisioned as the main component of an ensemble with gardens ingeniously organized to complement the structures they framed.

Key windows

These are observation stations where gardens are ingeniously arranged to symbolize man's influence over his surroundings.

Baroque Architecture

Buildings are built on high sites with artistically carved stairs that pour out toward the viewer and change direction and perspective as they ascend.

Genre painting

painting in which scenes of everyday life are depicted

Still life

a painting of a grouping of inanimate objects, such as flowers or fruit

Vanitas

a theme in still life painting that stresses the brevity of life and the folly of human vanity

Tenebroso/Tenebrism

a dramatic dark and light contrast in a painting

Impasto

a thick and very visible application of paint on a painting surface

Rubénistes

The Venetian Renaissance serves as an inspiration for Caravaggio, Rubens, and his group of adherents, known as _____.

Santa Maria della Vittoria

• By Carlo Maderno (1605–1620)
• Catholic church, originally dedicated to Saint Paul.
• Rededicated to the Virgin Mary in gratitude for a military victory in Bohemia in 1620.
• First story: six Ionic pilasters; emphasis placed on center of façade.

Santa Maria della Vittoria Interior

Saint Charles of the Four Fountains

• By Francesco Borromini (1638–1646)
• The building is designed with alternating convex and concave patterns and undulating volumes in both the ground plan and on the façade.
• It was built as part of a complex of monastic buildings for the Spanish Trinitarians

Versailles

• By Louis Le Vau and Jules Hardouin-Mansart
• This is the palace of King Louis XIV and subsequent kings and their courts.
• The palace expresses the idea of the absolute monarch; the massive scale of the project is indicative of the massive power of the king.

Hall of Mirrors (Versailles)

Part of Versailles used for court and state functions: embassies, births, and marriages were celebrated in this room.

Versailles Gardens

• A mile-long canal crossed by another canal forms the main axis of the garden
• more wooded and less elaborate plantings farther from the palace.
• Baroque characteristics

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

• By Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1647–1652)
• The saint was canonized in 1622
• interpretation of diary writings
• her pose suggests sexual exhaustion

Calling of Saint Matthew

• By Caravaggio (1597–1601)
• Story taken from a bible verse - Matthew 9:9
• Two figures on the left are so concerned with counting the money - not noticing Christ’s arrival.

Triumph of the Name of Jesus

• By Giovanni Battista Gaulli (1676–1679)
• A Last Judgment scene, placed over the barrel vault of the nave
• Inspired by Saint Paul’s epistle to the Philippians 2:10
• Message to the faithful: “the damned are cast into hell; the saved rise heavenward.”

Las Meninas

• By Diego Velázquez (1656)
• Painting originally hung in King Philip IV’s study.
• Central is the Infanta Margharita of Spain with her meninas (attendants), a dog, a dwarf, and a midget.

Marie de’ Medici Cycle

• By Peter Paul Rubens (1621-1625)
• 24 huge historical paintings allegorically retelling the life of King Henry IV’s wife.
• A series that contain three portraits; was placed in her home in Paris - Luxembourg Palace.

Self-Portrait with Saskia

• By Rembrandt (1636)
• This is the only image of Rembrandt with his wife together in an etching.
• The scene depicts the 30-year-old Rembrandt with his new bride.
• Not for sale; for private purposes only.

Woman Holding a Balance

• By Johannes Vermeer (c. 1664)
• The viewer looks into a private world in which seemingly small gestures take on a significance greater than what first appears.
• A family member may have posed for the painting, perhaps Vermeer’s wife, Caterina.

Fruit and Insects

• By Rachel Ruysch (c. 1664)
• Parallels Dutch interest in botany, and the growing of flowers for decorative and medicinal purposes.
• Not a depiction of actual flowers, but a construct of perfect specimens all in bloom at the same time.