A dramatic version of life under a tumultuous disguise, the Baroque took center stage in many cultures throughout early 17th- to mid-18th century Europe, responding to an age riven with religious conflict, absolute monarchy and the shattering impact of scientific revelation upon long-held certainties. As the Catholic Church’s answer to the Protestant Reformation, Baroque art was all about grandeur, drama and emotional intensity designed to provoke awe and worship in a counterpoint to Renaissance equilibrium. Painters, sculptors and architects used aggressive lighting, vivid colors and dynamic compositions designed to invoke the audience’s emotions and immerse them in an environment that brought the religious experience to life. This mannerism was exported from Italy to Spain, Flanders, France and beyond, modified by local tastes but retaining its emphasis on luxuriousness and expressiveness.
Chiaroscuro, the contrast of light and dark, was a style Caravaggio innovated in painting to increase realism and psychological tension in religious depictions that featured ordinary people instead of idealized figures. His Calling of Saint Matthew depicts a moment of divine intervention in a dark, seedy tavern; the ray of light shining on the surprised apostle-to-be expresses redemption with realism. This tenebrism was to be a development that set the tone for numerous artists, among them Artemisia Gentileschi, whose intense and dramatic depictions of formidable heroines told from a woman’s perspective reflect her own experiences of deliberate violence, which she transforms into epic stories of resilience. Meantime, in Flanders Peter Paul Rubens rejoiced in life’s energy and plenty with swirling compositions and fatty flesh tones, as stripes of sheer exuberance that sent Baroque reeling into epicurean excess in his embodied mythological cycles.
In truth, sculpture soared to new heights of expressiveness in the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini whose Ecstasy of St. Theresa blends marble, light and architecture so as to portray a mystical vision in theatrical ecstasy – flying drapery and agonised faces that Cbrob with religious zeal. In Rome, Bernini’s fountains and designs for the piazzas transformed art into urban spectacle: public spaces that served as stages of divine and royal authority. In Spain, religious fervor turned inward in the hands of Zurbarán and Velázquez’s somber still lifes and court portraits spoke to a quiet profundity amid the Counter-Reformation frenzy. Las Meninas by Velázquez is an ingenious game with perspective and reality, where the artist places himself in a royal scene that challenges our understanding of perception and power.
Architecture latched onto the Baroque’s affection for the spectacle, taking shape in curvaceous facades and imaginations of endless space, such as Borromini’s rippling walls and Saint Peter Square’s prodigious colonnades. In France, Versailles in the time of Louis XIV (1658–1715) was the epitome of absolutism, its vast salons decorated and adorned with colossal decorative ceilings by Charles Le Brun to present allegorical scenes glorifying the Sun King. Music and theater were intertwined with the visual arts, in total environments designed to engulf the spectator’s senses and support ideological messages, whether sacred or profane.
The Baroque’s influence lives on in its emotional directness and technical bravura, reminding us of art’s ability to reflect the fears and hopes of an era. By wielding drama and illusion, Baroque artists crystallized the human soul in flux as no one had done before them, shaping Romanticism (and even what cinema now does with it) in their wake. This era’s fearless marriage of faith and power and feeling still thrills, convincing new generations that art can serve the heart as much as the eye.