An Exhaustive Guide to Baroque Art: Italy, Spain, Flanders, Holland, and France

Transitional Painting and the Venetian Influence

Venetian Artistic Qualities: * Baroque painting often retains a "worldly" quality, characterized by a great delight in the everyday pageantry of wealthy Venice. * The Venetian style allows for massive compositions with many figures without the rigorous, sculptural drawing used by artists like Raphael and Michelangelo. * Instead of "cursing it out" (working it out sculpturally), the Venetians suggest forms through paint, allowing for the quick production of ambitious, large-scale works.
Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti): * Background: Known as a very fast painter. His name, Tintoretto, translates to "little dyer," reflecting his family's trade as fabric dyers. * The Last Supper: * This work is a late High Renaissance painting that serves as a precursor to the Baroque style. * Asymmetry: Unlike Leonardo da Vinci's symmetrical version, Tintoretto’s composition is diagonal. * Lighting: Christ is identified not through central placement, but by a "holy light." Light is the central focus of the painting. * Scale and Realism: The "cast of thousands" includes many figures beyond the twelve apostles, such as servants in the foreground who provide a sense of realism. * Mysticism: Smoke from oil lamps at the top of the painting transforms into angels, creating a mystical and emotional atmosphere.

The Baroque Era: Context and Principles

Timeline and Architecture: * The Baroque era is generally defined as the period from $1600$ to $1700$, though it began to emerge in the $1590\text{s}$. * Saint Peter's Basilica: Finally completed in $1626$. Michelangelo's contribution included the idea for the pointed dome with strong ribs and columns, projecting an image of power and structure.
Religious and Political Landscape: * Protestant Movement: The period was marked by the rise of Calvinists and Lutherans. * England: Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic Church in the $1530\text{s}$ due to the Pope’s refusal to grant his divorces. * The Netherlands: The northern part of the Netherlands became Protestant toward the end of the $1500\text{s}$.
Five Principles of Baroque Painting (from Study Sheet Number 2): * 1. Emphasis on Diagonals: Unlike the horizontals/verticals of the High Renaissance (which suggest order and calm), diagonals provide movement and instability. * 2. Emphasis on Emotional Effect: Focuses on the general emotional experience rather than a rational analysis of individual responses. * 3. Realism: Inclusion of gritty or mundane details (e.g., a cat looking at food, servants). * 4. Painterliness: Visible brushstrokes across the canvas. * 5. Excess/Abundance: Larger casts of characters and a sense of "too much is not enough."

The Academy of Bologna and Classicism

The Carracci Brothers: Lodovico, Agostino, and Annibale Carracci founded the Academy of Bologna in the late $1500\text{s}$. Annibale is considered the most important.
Mission: They sought a new style that satisfied the Council of Trent's requirements. The Church wanted art that appealed to ordinary people, looked to everyday life, and was realistic yet pleasant.
Artist as Intellectual: They shifted artist training from the traditional craftsman's workshop to an "academy," treating painters like poets or philosophers.
The "Perfect" Synthesis: They attempted to combine the best qualities of past masters: * The composition of Raphael. * The figure drawing of Michelangelo. * The color of the Venetian painter Titian.
Outcome: While influential and privately funded, the result is often seen by critics as "bland" because the synthesis lacked the original genius of the masters they imitated.
Stylistic Features: Their work followed the "Florentine point of view" by starting with preliminary drawings, making them more conservative than the direct nature-painting of the Venetians. Their work often looks "finished" with no visible brushwork.

Caravaggio and Radical Realism

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: * Originally from Caravaggio, a town near the French border. * Early Career: Painted directly from nature (influenced by Giorgione). His early self-portraits are often ironic and erotic, such as a portrait where he offers the viewer wine, comparing his own ripeness to that of fruit. * Genre Painting: A French term for pictures of people doing ordinary things in everyday life. Caravaggio's The Fortune Teller depicts a "sharp-dressed, cocky" young man with a sword having his palm read by a woman who may be stealing from him or suggesting a "naughty" subtext.
Mature Style and Influence: * The Calling of Saint Matthew ($1599$): Features contemporary clothes, strong side-lighting (creating a three-dimensional effect and hiding distracting details), and a diagonal streak of light. * Chiaroscuro/Tenebrism: The use of intense light and shadow to focus on important facial expressions. * Controversy and Realism: * David with the Head of Goliath: Caravaggio used his own head for Goliath and his "boyfriend" as David, creating a shocking allegory of their relationship. * Madonna of the Pilgrims: Noted for its extreme realism, including a child's "butt sticking out at the viewer" and common people from the street as worshipers. * Death of the Virgin: Criticized for depicting the Virgin Mary as looking like a "hooker" whose corpse had been pulled from the Tiber River. * Personal Life: He was a high-prolific but violent character. He killed a man in Rome, fled to Naples and Malta, and eventually died of malaria on a beach at the age of $36$.
Followers of Caravaggio: * Guercino: Nicknamed "Squid Eye" (or "Squint Eye") due to an eye injury. He used Caravaggio's deep side-lighting but combined it with rhythmic lines. * Artemisia Gentileschi: A female follower (daughter of Orazio Gentileschi) who painted realistic, often violent biblical subjects, such as Judith Slaying Holofernes, capturing the act of beheading with spurting blood. * Guido Reni: A more classical painter who imitated Raphael’s sweetness and grace, as seen in his ceiling painting Aurora.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini and High Baroque Sculpture

David: Sculpted by Bernini in his late teens (around age $18$). * Movement: Unlike Michelangelo’s David (who is seen before the act), Bernini’s David is captured in the middle of throwing the stone. * Realism: Shows flexing muscles and the realistic gesture of the figure biting his lower lip. * The Corkscrew: The sculpture is designed to be seen from all angles ($360$ degrees), with drapery that encourages the viewer to walk around it.
St. Peter’s Square: Bernini designed the massive colonnade. He described the architecture as "the arms of the church reaching out to hug the faithful."
The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa: * Based on an excerpt from Saint Teresa of Avila’s autobiography describing an angel piercing her heart with a golden spear. * Sensual Spirituality: The sculpture depicts an experience that is both physically sensual and deeply spiritual, a core characteristic of the Catholic Baroque.

The Spanish Golden Age

Context: Spain had close ties to Italy and the Counter-Reformation. Despite the defeat of the Spanish Armada in $1588$ and subsequent decline, this was a peak for Spanish art.
General Characteristics: Darkness, obsession with pain, and direct realism.
Key Artists: * Giuseppe (Jusepe) de Ribera: Trained in Florence; known for martyrdom scenes like The Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, which depicts the saint being flayed (intestines pulled out). * Bartolomé Esteban Murillo: Often sweet and appealing, though capable of realism. * Diego Velázquez: * Water Seller of Seville: A genre painting that bestows immense dignity on a modest man selling water. * Evolution: After studying the royal collection (including many Titians), his style became fluid and "silvery," focuses on atmosphere rather than crisp lines. * Self-Portraits: His portrait of his African assistant, Juan de Pareja (now in the Metropolitan Museum), was a "warm-up" for his portrait of Pope Innocent X. It was painted using only three colors (no blue). * Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor): A large-scale self-portrait of the artist painting the King and Queen (seen in a mirror) while their daughter refuses to pose. It is a masterpiece of light, depth, and illusion.

Peter Paul Rubens and the Flemish Baroque

Background: An aristocratic scholar and diplomat for the King of France. He successfully combined the northern skill for oil painting with Italian grandeur (the color of Venice and the drawing of Michelangelo).
Style: * The quintessential Baroque painter. * Rubenesque: A term derived from his preference for voluptuous, large women. * Raising of the Cross: An example of "too much is not enough." It features diagonal compositions, extreme emotion (blood, barking dogs, suckling children), and lush textures of flesh, armor, and landscape.

The Dutch Little Masters and Rembrandt

Protestant Context: Since art was banned from churches in Protestant Holland, artists turned to middle-class businessmen for patronage. Artists became specialized in specific niches (portraits, still life, landscape).
Portraiture and Genre: * Frans Hals: Known for flashing brushwork and capturing personality. Malle Babbe features a local woman from Haarlem with a pet owl and a beer, painted with free, rhythmic strokes. * Jan Steen: Specialized in storytelling genre paintings. His work The Feast of Saint Nicholas (Christmas) tells a story of a "bad boy" who received no presents and a "good girl" with candies.
Still Life and Landscape: * Still Life: These small paintings of expensive items (Chinese porcelain, citrus fruit, rugs) allowed the middle class to "own" luxury objects through their depictions. * Landscapes: Reflected the flat, sky-dominant topography of Holland. These were painted in studios from outdoor sketches, as paint tubes did not yet exist.
Rembrandt van Rijn: * Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp: A group portrait using diagonal compositions and Caravaggio-influenced sidelighting, but with a unique silvery "glow from within." * Self-Examination: Rembrandt produced many self-portraits throughout his life as a form of self-reflection, moving from a successful young man with his wife, Saskia, to a more painterly, thick-applied style in his later, modest years. * Etching Process: * 1. Cover a copper plate with varnish/shellac. * 2. Scrape the varnish with a stylus (no hard pushing required). * 3. Drop the plate into sulfuric acid to eat into the exposed grooves. * 4. Force ink into the grooves and wipe the surface. * 5. This allowed for much freer lines than traditional engraving. * Print Content: His etchings include humorous or realistic subjects, such as Adam and Eve (depicting realistic Dutch bodies rather than idealized nudes) or The Return of the Prodigal Son (which includes a dog in the foreground taking a "big crap"). * The Night Watch: A nearly life-sized group portrait featuring an ambitious use of light and shadow.
Jan Vermeer: * Focused on small-scale visual reality in Delft. * Optical Research: Vermeer likely used lenses or a camera obscura to project images onto his canvas, resulting in localized "out of focus" effects. * Color: Unlike many artists who used brownish tones, Vermeer used a full range of colors, including expensive blues. * View of Delft: A six-foot-wide painting, remarkably precise, representing one of the few views of the city from $400$ years ago.

France and the Royal Academy

Louis XIV (The Sun King): Asserted authority through the state-supported French Academy, which professionalized the arts (painting, Parquet floors, garden work like the Gardens of Versailles).
Classicism vs. Romanticism: * Nicolas Poussin (Classicism): * Spent most of his life in Rome. * Focused on the intellect, line, drawing, and tradition. * The Rape of the Sabine Women: A complicated, perfectly worked-out composition about patriotism. * Landscapes: Created "imaginary" landscapes using theatrical "flats" (foreground shadow, midground light, background distant light). * Peter Paul Rubens (Romanticism): * In this context, the term referred to an "irrational nostalgia for ancient Rome." * Focused on feeling, emotion, color, and direct realism.

Questions & Discussion

Assignments: The professor mentions that the two essays are worth $35\text{ apiece}$, totaling $70\%$ of the final grade. There are two classes left to turn them in.
Final Exam: On the $22\text{nd}$. It will be a multiple-choice exam taken at home.
Extra Credit: There is an extra credit assignment involving a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Students cannot simply research it; they must physically go to see the "amazing" details that aren't visible otherwise.
Ending: The professor checks attendance (Hailey, Charles Jackson, Emmanuel Braun, Steve) and advises students to do the quiz tonight.