As
mentioned earlier, movement, action and the expression of extreme passions were
among the distinctive characteristics of the baroque style. Movement
in painting and sculpture was expressed by compositions which were organised
around ‘unstable’ diagonal lines rather than the classical triangle or pyramid
as in the renaissance. (Rathus 2011: 278) Orazio Gentileschi’s ‘The Martyrs St
Cecilia, St Valerian and St Tiburzio with an Angel’ (ex. 1) is dominated by a spiral movement,
meanwhile Paul Peter Rubens’ ‘The Battle
of the Amazons’(ex.2) demonstrates a whirlwind composition. (Bazin 1964) In
sculpture the practice can be seen in Bernini’s ‘Apollo and Daphne’ (ex. 3) and
Francesco Mochi’s ‘St.Veronica’ (ex.4).
(Example
1 ‘The Martyrs St Cecilia, St Valerian and St Tiburzio with an Angel’ Orazio
Gentileschi)
(Bazin
1964: 37)
(Example
2 ‘The Battle of the Amazons’ Peter Paul Rubens)
(Bazin
1964: 64)
(Example 3 ‘Apollo and Daphne’ Gian Lorenzo
Bernini)
(Claus & Charles 2009: 26)
(Example
4 ‘St.Veronica’ Francesco Mochi)
(Claus & Charles 2009: 27)
Figures
in painting and art looked as if ‘they had been stopped in mid-action’,
(Victoria and Albert Museum 2009) as can be seen in Bernini’s ‘Apollo and
Daphne’ (ex.3), which captures the moment of Daphne’s last cry before being turned into a laurel tree, or
in his ‘Ecstasy of St. Teresa’ (ex.5), depicting the moment in which ‘the body
of the Saint becomes suddenly lifeless at the inrush of the Holy Spirit’.
(Bazin 1964: 26) Even more so, according to Simon Schama, Bernini aimed
to capture his sitters as they appeared just before or after they spoke.
(Schama 2010)
(Example
5 ‘Ecstasy of St.Teresa’)
(Bernini
2013)
In
portrait busts vitality is expressed by a slightly turned head such as appears
in the bust of Louis XIV by Bernini (ex.6), Charles II by John Bushnell (ex.7) and
Sir Christopher Wren by Edward Pierce (ex.8), Grande Condé by Antoine Coysevox
(ex.9). Out of the latter two British artists it was John Bushnell who was the
pioneering exhibitor of clear baroque direction in British sculpture. (Whinney
1992: 105)
(Example
6 ‘Bust of Louis XIV’ Gian Lorenzo Bernini)
(Bernini
2013)
(Example
7 ‘Charles II’ John Bushnell)
(Whinney
1992:102)
(Example
8 ‘Sir Christopher Wren’ Edward Pierce)
(Whinney
1992: 104)
(Example
9 ‘Grande Condé’ Antoine Coysevox)
(Bazin
1964: 130)
Bernini’s
sculptures ‘Ecstasy of St Teresa’ (ex.5) and his ‘Damned soul’ (ex.9) follow
the baroque aesthetic of portraying emotions at their extremes. It is thought
that in order to capture the right expression for the sculpture, Bernini
‘scorched his own arm in a naked flame’ as the sculpture is a self-portrait.
(Schama 2010) Even though Classical traditions dominated sculpture in
seventeenth-century France, Pierre Puget’s ‘Milo of Crotona’ (ex.10) realises
that trend by depicting the ageing athlete, whose hand is caught in a tree,
being eaten by a lion - a ‘symbol of the agony of helpless strength’. (Bazin
1964:127) Indeed, according to French academic
principles during the baroque, art was meant to express the essential moment of
the ‘change of fortune’ of the hero as it clearly does in Puget’s sculpture. (Norman
2001)
(Example 9 ‘Damned soul’ Gian Lorenzo Bernini)
(Bussagli 2004: 371)
(Example 10 ‘Milo of Crotona’ Pierre Puget)
(Bazin 1964:127)
Another
characteristic of baroque art was the idea of ‘integrating subject into space’.
(Bazin 1964: 65) This practice of creating compositions with the figures being
life-size or larger than life, on a scale proportionate to the painting size –
was characteristic of Italian baroque but is also manifested in the style of
the Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens. A notable example is his sequence of
twenty one large-scale paintings depicting the life of Marie de Medicis. (Bazin
1964: 68)
During
the baroque period in painting chiaroscuro technique gave way to tenebrism,
characteristically used by Caravaggio, which displayed sharp rather than
graduated contrasts of light. Lending an air of drama and mystery to the
paintings this technique of light and shade emulated theatrical spotlighting (ex.11;
ex.12). (Fichner-Rathus 2011: 278)
(Example
11 ‘Calling of St.Matthew’ Caravaggio)
(Kleiner 2010: 539)
(Example 12 ‘Judith Slaying Holofernes’ Artemisia Gentileschi)
Renaissance
idealization had already been began to be questioned in the works of Ludovico
Carracci, ‘The Lamentation’ (ex.13) which shocked sixteenth century critics
with its directness. The works of Caravaggio and Velasquez (ex.14) are in a
similar style, also painted from posed models to achieve an ‘intense feeling of
reality’. (Fahy 2003)
(Example
13 ‘The Lamentation’ Ludovico Carracci)
(The Metropolitan Museum of Art 2008)
(Example
14 ‘The Supper at Emmaus’ Diego Rodrigo de Sylva y Velasquez)
(The
Metropolitan Museum of Art 2006a)
The
‘predilection for illusion’ mentioned earlier, was expressed in baroque ceiling
paintings which gave the spectator ‘a feeling of being overhung by a whole
world of flying figures, that hover an soar in an imaginary place, or through
the open sky’. The genre among which’s exhibitors are Domenichino, Lanfranco
and Pietro da Cortona came to its apogee in the art of Padre Andrea Pozzo (ex.15)
(Bazin 1964:39)
(Example
15 ‘The Glory of Saint Ignatius’ Padre Andrea Pozzo)
(Bazin
1964:41)
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