Baroque Italian

Renaissance Art and Ideas

• Humanism:

  • Focuses on individuals' unique talents and abilities.

• Classicism:

  • Centered on the study of ancient Greek and Roman culture and art.

  • Rational, restrained

• Naturalism:

  • As seen in nature

• Classicism (or “classical”):

  • Inspired or influenced by ancient Greece or ancient Rome.

  • Characteristics:

    • Perfection of form

    • Emphasis on harmony and unity

    • Emotional control or restraint

  • Representational but idealistic (i.e., “better” than nature according to preconceived notions)

• Example: Michelangelo's Pietà (1497-1500)

The Reformation

• October 31, 1517: Martin Luther posted his Ninety-Five Theses.

• Doctrine: Principles, positions, and policies taught or advocated by a specific group.

• Liturgy: The official order and formula followed for public, religious services.

• Heresy: Opinion or doctrine at variance with established doctrine; one who commits heresy is a heretic.

• Vernacular: The native language.

• Secular: Pertaining to worldly things.

• Idolatry: The worship of idols.

• Martyr: One who sacrifices for a cause.

• Protestant Reformation:

  • Luther charged with heresy in August 1518

  • "Scripture alone"

  • Vernacular translation (“idea for idea”)

  • Against indulgences

  • "Faith alone"

• Seven Acts of Mercy:

  • Feed the hungry

  • Give drink to the thirsty

  • Clothe the naked

  • Shelter the homeless

  • Care for the sick

  • Visit the imprisoned

  • Bury the dead

• In 1503, Pope Julius II ordered the replacement of the old St. Peter’s Basilica with a new, larger one.

• 1524 Peasant Revolt:

  • Holy Roman Emperor Charles V declared Luther an outlaw.

  • Peasants revolted, resulting in 100,000 deaths.

  • Luther went into hiding, and the peasants felt betrayed.

• 1555 Peace of Augsburg:

  • Local German princes determine local religion.

• August 24, 1572: King Charles IX of France launched an attack against French Protestants.

  • 6,000 Protestants killed in Paris.

  • 14,000 killed in smaller cities across France.

• Examples of religious, social, and political conflict during the Reformation in Europe.

• John Calvin (1509-1564):

  • French religious reformer.

  • Calvinists in England were known as “Puritans.”

  • Believed all religious art was idolatrous.

  • Iconoclasm broke out in Northern Europe.

    • Iconoclasm: the destruction of images, especially images of veneration.

Baroque and the Counter-Reformation

• Baroque:

  • Period in Western history from approximately 1585-1750.

  • Styles associated with art, music, literature, and architecture.

  • Defined by religious tensions, war, and a new, more expansive worldview based on science.

  • Term derived from the Portuguese word barocco, meaning "an irregular pearl” and was initially used as an insult.

• Counter-Reformation:

  • The reform and resurgence of the Catholic Church in the 16th and 17th centuries, stimulated by the Protestant Reformation.

• The Council of Trent (1545-1563):

  • Catholic Church officials met for twenty-five sessions.

  • Reforms took place to eliminate corruption and combat losses to Protestantism.

• Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556):

  • Spanish Catholic monk who founded the Jesuit Order (aka: The Society of Jesus).

  • Stressed a return to fundamental dogma.

  • Strict enforcement of traditional teachings of the Catholic Church.

  • Jesuits took vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience, and also swore oaths of allegiance to the Pope, calling themselves “Soldiers of Christ.”

• Jesuits:

  • Stressed missionary activity and education.

  • Shared two fundamental elements with the Counter-Reformation:

    • Mysticism: Personal, intuitive experience of God.

    • Zeal: Militant fervor to submit and practice faith.

  • Demonstrated in Ignatius Loyola’s “Spiritual Exercises.”

    • Imagining vast fires and souls enclosed in fire.

    • Hearing wailing, howling, cries, and blasphemies.

    • Smelling smoke, sulphur, filth, and corruption.

    • Tasting bitterness of tears, sadness, and remorse.

    • Feeling the flames enveloping and burning souls.

• How did the Catholic Church react to the Reformation's views of religious art as blasphemous?

  • Reaffirmed the importance and power of images.

  • Declared that art was to be used as the “Bible of the Illiterate.”

  • New, dynamic, spectacular style with theatricality.

  • Art was to be devotional.

  • Art should be highly emotional, incite piety, and “sting the soul.”

• Theatricality: Defining characteristic of Baroque art is the change in the role of the viewer from passive observer to active participant.

  • Baroque art reaches beyond the boundaries of the picture plane, activating the space around it

  • Invisible Complement: verisimilitude

  • Dramatic foreshortening: scenes of chaos

  • “Moment of action”

  • Diagonals

  • Strong contrasts and sensuality

• Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610): Known as Caravaggio

• Chiaroscuro:

  • Dramatic modeling of form through the use of intense contrasts of highlights and shading.

  • The term is used in particular for the dramatic contrasts of light and dark introduced by Caravaggio.

• Tenebrism:

  • The style of painting associated with Caravaggio and his followers.

  • Scene engulfed in shadow with some figures dramatically illuminated by a concentrated beam of light: “spot light”

• Biblical Law - Rape Deuteronomy 22:29: "he must pay her father fifty pieces of silver. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he may never divorce her as long as he lives."

• Gentileschi utilizes the Invisible Complement – the space surrounding or outside of the artwork, but with which the artwork has an active relationship.

• Shows the most dramatic moment – the moment of the cut.

• The Book of Judith is not in the Protestant version of the Bible, so that makes the subject wholly “Catholic.”

• Judith was seen as the “pre- Mary,” Symbolically she was the virtuous, humble maiden who slays “the devil.”