The Baroque Style - Introduction

In the 17^th and early 18^th century a glance at the various disciplines of European art revealed an overarching trend for dynamism, theatricality, grandiosity and elaborate ornamentation. (Kleiner 2010: 649) A great force behind the emergence of this style, which we now recognise as baroque, was the Catholic Church which as an attempt to counter the threat of the Reformation required art which would ‘restore Catholicism’s predominance and centrality’. (Kleiner 2010: 649) This was done through art which contrary to the previous practice was understood by the educated elite spoke to ‘prince and peasant alike’. (Downes 2013) This gave birth to art which ‘addresses the senses directly and reaches the intellect through the emotions rather than through reason. (Downes 2013)

However, even outside of the Church, art was full of drama as it was seen as a means to express the passions of the soul – a subject with which contemporary philosophers were greatly occupied with. The passions, such as love, anger, boldness, suffering, tenderness among others, were supposed to be portrayed in their most extreme form. (Bazin 1993: 23) In sculpture this was achieved through ‘movement and action’ (Bazin 1993:28) bringing about a ‘realistic immediacy’, as if the figures had been ‘stopped in mid-action’. (Victoria and Albert Museum 2009)

In fact a ‘predilection for artifice’ and ‘pretense for illusion’ were among the distinctive features of baroque, inspiring art from ceiling painting to theatre (where great advances were made in stage machinery). (Bussagli & Reiche 2009:15)

Striving for grandeur to display power was not limited to the religious sphere. Families were competing in displaying their wealth through church patronage and splendour of their own palaces. (Bennett Oates 1981:79) Symbolic devices, such as those used to convey the glory of the Catholic Church, also abounded in secular art. For example, repeated patterns on the palace facades were meant to symbolise absolute power. (Victoria and Albert Museum 2009)  Inside, the saloni and in particular the gallery, were the designed spaces for displaying the family paintings, sculpture amid furniture made for display rather than use (such as colossal ‘throne-like chairs’ and cabinets made of exotic materials) (Bennett Oates 1981: 79) 

Baroque fashion was extremely extravagant, especially in France where, by the financial strain it imposed on the aristocracy, it was also a tool for stifling any opposition to the king and sustaining the power of the crown. (A. R Batterberry & M. Batterberry 1977:144) In Protestant territories such as Cromwell’s England and the Netherlands a more austere style reigned in clothing. (A. R Batterberry & M. Batterberry 1977:140)