Baroque Period Notes

Lecture 11 builds upon previous content on the Renaissance, shifting into the Baroque period.
Lecture 11 focuses on the Baroque, with a transition to the Rococo in the following lecture.

The Baroque period involves the amalgamation of arts using illusion and movement to create unified spatial experiences.
Exploration of how human vision is culturally structured and how perspective is manipulated through anamorphic projection.

Discussion of the Council of Trent and its impact on cultural attitudes towards Catholicism.
Examination of how the Council influenced the design of churches and spaces of worship.

The Baroque marks the emergence of the sonography of the city, where designers begin to shape urban spaces within a city.
Focus on the areas between buildings rather than the buildings themselves.
Exploration of the relationship between perspective, painting, set design (sonography), and urban design.
Examples include Piazza San Pietro by Bernini.

Quote by Tom Gunning: Understanding the world is governed primarily by our perceptual system and how we see and cognitively understand real from fictive.
Human vision is structured by culture, which is a learned visual practice.
Distinction between visually looking at something versus being a passive onlooker.
Architects manipulate perspective to fool the eye, building upon previous techniques from the Renaissance.
The Baroque period (1600s-early 1700s) combines sculpture, visual art, painting, surveying, optics, architecture, and engineering to create an emotional effect.

Pre-Renaissance painting (Giotto-esque period) uses diminution to layer scenes from foreground to background with intuitive perspective.
Composition is based on the hierarchy and diminution of figures.
Renaissance painting, exemplified by Piero della Francesca, uses systematized perspective for a highly accurate space.
Religious symbolism remains significant.

Perspective system maintains a powerful story; mathematical accuracy is secondary.

Anamorphic projection is used to embed abstract or codified images within a pictorial composition, viewable from specific locations.
Contemporary examples include advertising on sports fields designed to be viewed by television cameras.
Anamorphic perspective can be used as a trompe-l'oeil to create an illusion of space.

Dutch examples of peephole cameras showcase paintings inside a box, creating an illusion of three-dimensional views.
Paintings appear abstract unless viewed through the peephole.

The Baroque combines theatrical effects with spatial domains, integrating real space into the illusion of the image.
Pictures absorb the room to maximize spatial illusion and emotional affect.

Mastery of perspective in the High Renaissance and Baroque periods led to new ways of applying spatial illusion in stage set design and urban environments.

The foreshortening creates the illusion that the colonnade is bigger and longer than it is.

Exterior is conventional, but the interior contains visual illusions.
Architect Andrea Pozzo manipulates architecture to create illusions, combining real and fake volumes.
A circle on the floor marks the viewpoint where the illusion of Saint Ignatius's ascension is visible.
Viewers in the Baroque period would have found the illusion moving and surprising.
The dome is an illusion created because they ran out of money to build it.
He records a method that can be reproduced by other painters in his books.
Invented a method called quadratura.

The Council of Trent gives impetus for architects to use illusion techniques in church design.
The Reformation and Counter-Reformation periods led to personalization of religion in Catholic countries through dramatic effect.

The Council of Trent was formed in response to the Protestant Reformation led by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other early Protestants.
The Protestants protested against corruption within the church and its clergy.
The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort composed of ecclesiastical configuration, religious orders, spiritual movements, and political dimensions.
The Baroque emerges after this period as a re-celebration with mastery in painting, illusion, sculpture, and architecture.

Paintings and sculptures must convey Christian doctrine, follow scriptures and legends of saints, and observe laws of decorum, no nudity.
Churches must satisfy liturgical needs, not merely be beautiful.

Use of the facade as a scenographic theater stage to align with the viewer.
Examples from the Piazza Del Popolo. The city is an architectural space with streets, destination, squares, buildings.

Piazza San Pietro uses perspective to manipulate viewpoint, amplifying the theatrical celebration of the Vatican.
Bramante early symmetrical plan; Michelangelo dome and facade; Moderna extends the plan.
Bernini rethinks the connection between Saint Peter's and Central Rome, creating an oval colonnade.
Mussolini then comes along and gets rid of the original view and completes the axial urban plan.
Giant orders are used by Bernini.
Perspective composition directs movement and creates drama.

Human vision is culturally structured; perspective is manipulated through projection.
Cultural impacts of the Council of Trent influenced the Baroque use of sonography and the combination of arts in church design.
Sonography and geometry emerged in Piazza San Pietro, with concepts like gate, path, and goal utilized.