Le baroque ( prononcé / bəˈrɒk / en anglais britannique , / bəˈroʊk / aux États-Unis et [baʁɔk] en français ) est un style artistique occidental qui s'est épanoui du début du XV...
Le style baroque, par le contraste, le mouvement, l'exubérance des détails, les couleurs profondes, la grandeur et la surprise, suscitait l'admiration. Apparu au début du XVIIe siècle à Rome, il se répandit rapidement dans le reste de l'Italie, en France, en Espagne et au Portugal, puis en Autriche, dans le sud de l'Allemagne, en Pologne et en Russie. Dès les années 1730, il évolua vers un style encore plus flamboyant, le rocaille ou rococo , qui se manifesta en France et en Europe centrale jusqu'au milieu du XVIIIe siècle. Dans les territoires des empires espagnol et portugais, notamment dans la péninsule Ibérique, il perdura, parallèlement à de nouveaux styles, jusqu'au début du XIXe siècle.
Dans les arts décoratifs , le style baroque emploie une ornementation abondante et complexe. La rupture avec le classicisme de la Renaissance se manifeste différemment selon les pays, mais un point commun demeure : le point de départ est partout constitué des éléments ornementaux introduits par la Renaissance . Le répertoire classique est foisonnant, dense, complexe et chargé, afin de provoquer un effet de surprise. Parmi les nouveaux motifs introduits par le baroque, on trouve le cartouche , les trophées et les armes, les corbeilles de fruits ou de fleurs, et d’autres encore, réalisés en marqueterie , en stuc ou sculptés.
Pendentif en forme de sirène , réalisé en perle baroque (le torse) avec des montures en or émaillé serties de rubis, probablement Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York).
Le mot anglais « baroque » vient directement du français . Certains chercheurs affirment que le mot français provient du terme portugais « latin « roman péninsule Ibérique préromaine ) . D'autres sources suggèrent un terme latin médiéval utilisé en logique, « baroco » , comme source la plus probable
Au XVIe siècle, le mot latin médiéval la logique scolastique pour caractériser tout ce qui paraissait absurdement complexe. Le philosophe français Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) a contribué à donner au terme Charles Quint . Plus tard, le mot apparaît dans une édition de 1694 du Dictionnaire de l'Académie française , qui définit le baroque comme « employé uniquement pour les perles imparfaitement rondes ». Un dictionnaire portugais de 1728 décrit de même Federico Barocci (1528–1612).
Au XVIIIe siècle, le terme commença à être employé pour décrire la musique, et ce, de manière peu flatteuse. Dans une critique satirique anonyme de la première d’ Hippolyte et Aricie de Jean-Philippe Rameau
en octobre 1733, publiée dans le Mercure de France en mai 1734, le critique écrivait que la nouveauté de cet opéra était « Jean-Jacques Rousseau , musicien, compositeur et philosophe, écrivait dans l’ Encyclopédie en 1768 : « La musique baroque est celle où l’harmonie est confuse et chargée de modulations et de dissonances. Le chant est dur et artificiel, l’intonation difficile et le mouvement limité. Il semble que ce terme vienne du mot « baroco » employé par les logiciens. »
En 1788, Quatremère de Quincy
définit le terme dans l’ Encyclopédie Méthodique comme « un style architectural très orné et tourmenté ».
Les termes français Jacob Burckhardt , qui écrit que les artistes baroques « méprisent et maltraitent le détail » par manque de « respect pour la tradition ».
En 1888, l'historien de l'art Heinrich Wölfflin publia le premier ouvrage académique sérieux sur le style, Renaissance und Barock , qui décrivait les différences entre la peinture, la sculpture et l'architecture de la Renaissance et du Baroque.
Le style baroque en architecture est né des doctrines adoptées par l' Église catholique lors du concile de Trente (1545-1563), en réaction à la Réforme protestante . La première phase de la Contre-Réforme avait imposé à l'architecture religieuse un style austère et académique, séduisant les intellectuels mais non la masse des fidèles. Le concile de Trente décida alors de s'adresser à un public plus large et déclara que les arts devaient communiquer les thèmes religieux avec une implication directe et émotionnelle. De même, l'art baroque luthérien se développa comme un marqueur identitaire confessionnel, en réaction à la Grande Iconoclasme des calvinistes .
Les églises baroques étaient conçues avec un vaste espace central, permettant aux fidèles de se tenir près de l'autel, surmonté d'un dôme ou d'une coupole laissant pénétrer la lumière. Le dôme était l'un des éléments symboliques centraux de l'architecture baroque, illustrant l'union du ciel et de la terre. L'intérieur de la coupole était richement décoré de peintures d'anges et de saints, ainsi que de statuettes d'anges en stuc, donnant aux fidèles l'impression de lever les yeux vers le ciel. Une autre caractéristique des églises baroques est la quadratura : des peintures en trompe-l'œil au plafond, encadrées de stuc, réelles ou peintes, foisonnant de représentations de saints et d'anges et reliées par des détails architecturaux aux balustrades et aux consoles. Les quadratura représentant des Atlantes sous les corniches semblent soutenir le plafond de l'église. Contrairement aux plafonds peints de Michel-Ange dans la chapelle Sixtine , qui combinaient différentes scènes, chacune avec sa propre perspective, à regarder une à la fois, les peintures des plafonds baroques étaient soigneusement réalisées pour que le spectateur, assis au sol dans l'église, voie l'ensemble du plafond dans la perspective correcte, comme si les personnages étaient réels.
Au cours du Haut Baroque, l'intérieur des églises baroques s'enrichit d'une ornementation croissante, centrée autour de l'autel, généralement placé sous la coupole. Parmi les œuvres décoratives baroques les plus célèbres du Haut Baroque figurent la Chaire de Saint-Pierre (1647-1653) et le baldaquin de Saint-Pierre (1623-1634), tous deux réalisés par Gian Lorenzo Bernini et conservés dans la basilique Saint-Pierre de Rome. Le baldaquin de Saint-Pierre illustre l'équilibre des contraires dans l'art baroque : les proportions gigantesques de l'œuvre contrastent avec l'apparente légèreté du dais ; de même que le contraste entre les colonnes torsadées massives, le bronze, l'or et le marbre qui la composent et les draperies fluides des anges sur le dais. La Frauenkirche de Dresde constitue un exemple remarquable d'art baroque luthérien. Achevé en 1743 à la demande du conseil municipal luthérien de Dresde, il fut comparé, par les observateurs du XVIIIe siècle, à la basilique Saint-Pierre de Rome.
La colonne torsadée à l'intérieur des églises est l'un des éléments caractéristiques du baroque. Elle confère à la fois une impression de mouvement et une manière inédite et spectaculaire de refléter la lumière.
Le cartouche était une autre caractéristique du décor baroque. Il s'agissait de grandes plaques sculptées dans du marbre ou de la pierre, généralement ovales et à surface arrondie, portant des images ou des textes en lettres dorées. Placées à l'intérieur des bâtiments ou au-dessus des portes, elles transmettaient des messages aux personnes se trouvant en dessous. Elles témoignaient d'une grande variété d'inventions et se retrouvaient dans tous types d'édifices, des cathédrales et palais aux petites chapelles.
Les architectes baroques utilisaient parfois la perspective forcée pour créer des illusions d'optique. Pour le Palazzo Spada à Rome, Francesco Borromini a employé des colonnes de dimensions décroissantes, un sol qui se rétrécit et une statue miniature dans le jardin adjacent pour donner l'illusion qu'un passage mesurait trente mètres de long, alors qu'il n'en faisait en réalité que sept. Une statue au bout du passage paraît grandeur nature, bien qu'elle ne mesure que soixante centimètres de haut. Borromini a conçu cette illusion avec l'aide d'un mathématicien.
Le premier édifice romain à arborer une façade baroque fut l' église du Gesù en 1584 ; d'une grande sobriété selon les critères baroques ultérieurs, elle marqua néanmoins une rupture avec les façades Renaissance traditionnelles qui l'avaient précédée. L'intérieur de cette église demeura très austère jusqu'au baroque tardif, période où il fut richement orné.
À Rome, en 1605, Paul V fut le premier d'une série de papes à commander des basiliques et des églises conçues pour inspirer l'émotion et l'admiration par une profusion de formes, une richesse de couleurs et des effets dramatiques. Parmi les monuments les plus marquants du premier baroque figurent la façade de la basilique Saint-Pierre (1606-1619), ainsi que la nouvelle nef et la loggia qui reliaient cette façade à la coupole de Michel-Ange de l'ancienne église. La nouvelle conception créait un contraste saisissant entre l'imposante coupole et la façade disproportionnée, ainsi qu'un contraste, sur la façade elle-même, entre les colonnes doriques et la masse imposante du portique.
Au milieu et à la fin du XVIIe siècle, ce style atteignit son apogée, donnant naissance au baroque flamboyant. De nombreuses œuvres monumentales furent commandées par les papes Urbain VIII et Alexandre VII . Le sculpteur et architecte Gian Lorenzo Bernini conçut une nouvelle quadruple colonnade autour de la place Saint-Pierre (1656-1667). Les trois galeries de colonnes, disposées en une ellipse géante, équilibrent la coupole imposante et confèrent à l'église et à la place une unité et l'impression d'un théâtre grandiose.
Francesco Borromini fut un autre grand novateur du baroque italien , dont l'œuvre majeure est l' église San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane ou Saint-Charles-des-Quatre-Fontaines (1634-1646). Le sentiment de mouvement n'est pas donné par le décor, mais par les murs eux-mêmes, qui ondulent, et par des éléments concaves et convexes, notamment une tour ovale et un balcon insérés dans une traverse concave. L'intérieur était tout aussi révolutionnaire ; l'espace principal de l'église était ovale, sous un dôme ovale.
Les plafonds peints, foisonnant d'anges et de saints et ornés d'effets architecturaux en trompe-l'œil, constituaient une caractéristique importante du baroque italien. Parmi les œuvres majeures, on peut citer L'Entrée de saint Ignace au Paradis d' Andrea Pozzo (1685-1695) dans l' église Sant'Ignazio de Rome , et Giovanni Battista Gaulli dans l'église du Gesù à Rome (1669-1683), qui présentaient des figures débordant du cadre et un éclairage oblique dramatique ainsi que des contrastes d'ombre et de lumière.
Le style se répandit rapidement de Rome à d'autres régions d'Italie : on le retrouve à Venise dans l'église Santa Maria della Salute (1631-1687) de Baldassare Longhena , une structure octogonale très originale surmontée d'une immense coupole . Il apparaît également à Turin , notamment dans la chapelle du Saint-Suaire (1668-1694) de Guarino Guarini . Le style commence aussi à être utilisé dans les palais ; Guarini conçoit le Palazzo Carignano à Turin, tandis que Longhena dessine le Ca' Rezzonico sur le Grand Canal (1657), achevé par Giorgio Massari et orné de peintures de Giovanni Battista Tiepolo . Une série de violents tremblements de terre en Sicile nécessita la reconstruction de la plupart de ces palais, et plusieurs furent bâtis dans le style exubérant du baroque tardif ou du rococo .
L'Église catholique en Espagne, et plus particulièrement les Jésuites , furent le moteur de l'architecture baroque espagnole. La première œuvre majeure de ce style fut la chapelle San Isidro à Madrid , commencée en 1643 par Pedro de la Torre . Elle contrastait l'extrême richesse ornementale de l'extérieur avec la simplicité de l'intérieur, divisé en de multiples espaces et jouant sur la lumière pour créer une atmosphère mystérieuse. La cathédrale de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle fut modernisée par une série d'ajouts baroques à partir de la fin du XVIIe siècle, avec notamment un clocher très orné (1680), flanqué ensuite de deux tours encore plus hautes et plus richement décorées, appelées l' Obradorio , ajoutées entre 1738 et 1750 par Fernando de Casas Novoa . Un autre monument emblématique du baroque espagnol est la tour de la chapelle du palais San Telmo à Séville , œuvre de Leonardo de Figueroa .
Grenade, conquise aux Maures au XVe siècle, possédait un style baroque bien particulier. Le peintre, sculpteur et architecte Alonso Cano conçut l'intérieur baroque de la cathédrale de Grenade entre 1652 et sa mort en 1657. On y observe des contrastes saisissants entre les imposantes colonnes blanches et les ornements dorés.
L'architecture baroque espagnole la plus ornementée et richement décorée est appelée style churrigueresque , du nom des frères Churriguera , qui ont principalement œuvré à Salamanque et à Madrid. Parmi leurs réalisations figurent les édifices de la Plaza Mayor de Salamanque (1729). Ce style baroque très ornementé a influencé de nombreuses églises et cathédrales construites par les Espagnols en Amérique.
Les architectes du baroque espagnol ont exercé une influence considérable bien au-delà des frontières de l'Espagne ; leur travail a fortement marqué les églises construites dans les colonies espagnoles d'Amérique latine et des Philippines. L'église construite par les Jésuites pour le Collège San Francisco Javier à Tepotzotlán , avec sa façade baroque ornée et sa tour, en est un bon exemple.
La salle plénière baroque du Sénat néerlandais dans le bâtiment du Parlement, le Binnenhof , à La Haye, 1666.
L'architecture baroque néerlandaise représente une interprétation singulière et sobre du style baroque, façonnée par le contexte culturel, religieux et politique de la République des Provinces-Unies au XVIIe siècle. Contrairement à l'architecture baroque exubérante et théâtrale des régions catholiques comme l'Italie et l'Espagne, la variante néerlandaise privilégiait la sobriété, l'équilibre et la clarté. Cette modération reflétait les valeurs protestantes de la République, ainsi que la mentalité pragmatique d'une société marchande prospère qui accordait autant d'importance à la fonction qu'à la forme.
Plutôt que des courbes audacieuses et une ornementation exubérante, l'architecture baroque néerlandaise se caractérise par la symétrie, les proportions classiques et une utilisation maîtrisée des éléments décoratifs. Influencée par la Renaissance , le classicisme et l'œuvre d'architectes tels que Jacob van Campen et Pieter Post , elle présente souvent des façades ordonnées, des pilastres, des frontons et une ornementation soigneusement dosée. La brique était le matériau dominant, fréquemment associée à des accents de pierre naturelle, ce qui renforçait à la fois la durabilité et la sobriété visuelle. Les bâtiments civiques, les hôtels de ville et les demeures privées illustrent parfaitement ce style, le Palais royal d'Amsterdam figurant parmi ses monuments les plus emblématiques.
En définitive, l'architecture baroque néerlandaise incarne une expression typiquement nationale de l'esprit baroque, privilégiant la dignité au spectaculaire et l'harmonie à l'exubérance. Elle illustre comment un mouvement artistique international a pu s'adapter aux traditions et aux valeurs locales, donnant naissance à un style à la fois indéniablement baroque et profondément néerlandais.
Palais de Rogalin, Rogalin , Pologne, architecte inconnu, 1768–1774
De 1680 à 1750, de nombreuses cathédrales, abbayes et églises de pèlerinage richement ornées furent construites en Europe centrale, en Autriche, en Bohême et dans le sud-ouest de la Pologne. Certaines étaient de style rococo , un style distinct, plus flamboyant et asymétrique, issu du baroque, qui le remplaça en Europe centrale durant la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle, avant d'être à son tour supplanté par le classicisme.
Les princes des nombreux États de cette région ont également choisi le style baroque ou rococo pour leurs palais et résidences, et ont souvent fait appel à des architectes formés en Italie pour les construire.
Un exemple remarquable est l' église Saint-Nicolas (Malá Strana) à Prague (1704-1755), construite par Christoph Dientzenhofer et son fils Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer . La décoration recouvre l'intégralité des murs intérieurs. L'autel est placé dans la nef, sous la coupole centrale, et entouré de chapelles. La lumière pénètre par la coupole et par les chapelles. L'autel est entièrement cerné d'arcades, de colonnes, de balustrades courbes et de pilastres en pierre colorée, richement ornés de statues, créant ainsi une confusion délibérée entre l'architecture et le décor. L'ensemble architectural se métamorphose en un théâtre de lumière, de couleurs et de mouvement.
L'un des plus beaux exemples d'église rococo est la basilique des Quatorze Saints Auxiliaires (Basilika Vierzehnheiligen) , une église de pèlerinage située près de Bad Staffelstein , non loin de Bamberg, en Bavière (sud de l'Allemagne). Conçue par Balthasar Neumann, sa construction s'est étalée de 1743 à 1772. Son plan est composé d'une série de cercles imbriqués autour d'un ovale central, l'autel étant placé en son centre. L'intérieur de cette église illustre l'apogée du style rococo. Un autre exemple remarquable de ce style est l'église de pèlerinage de Wies ( Wieskirche J.B. et Dominikus Zimmermann et se trouve au pied des Alpes , dans la commune de Steingaden , district de Weilheim-Schongau , en Bavière (Allemagne). Sa construction s'est déroulée entre 1745 et 1754, et l'intérieur a été décoré de fresques et de stucs dans la tradition de l' école de Wessobrunner . Il est aujourd'hui inscrit au patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO .
Le baroque français s'est développé de manière très différente des versions locales, ornementées et spectaculaires, du baroque italien, espagnol et du reste de l'Europe. Il apparaît plus austère, plus dépouillé et plus sobre, préfigurant le néoclassicisme et l'architecture des Lumières . Contrairement aux édifices italiens, les bâtiments baroques français ne présentent ni frontons brisés ni façades curvilignes. Même les édifices religieux évitent l'intense théâtralité spatiale que l'on retrouve dans l'œuvre de Borromini . Ce style est étroitement associé aux constructions réalisées pour Louis XIV (règne : 1643-1715), et c'est pourquoi on l'appelle aussi le style Louis XIV . Louis XIV invita le maître du baroque, Bernini, à soumettre un projet pour la nouvelle aile est du Louvre , mais le rejeta au profit d'un projet plus classique de Claude Perrault et Louis Le Vau .
Le principal projet royal de l'époque fut l'agrandissement du château de Versailles , commencé en 1661 par Le Vau et décoré par le peintre Charles Le Brun . Les jardins furent conçus par André Le Nôtre afin de mettre en valeur l'architecture. La Galerie des Glaces , pièce maîtresse du château, ornée de peintures de Le Brun, fut construite entre 1678 et 1686. Mansart acheva le Grand Trianon en 1687. La chapelle, conçue par Robert de Cotte , fut terminée en 1710. Après la mort de Louis XIV, Louis XV ajouta le Petit Trianon, plus intime , et le théâtre, richement décoré. Les fontaines des jardins furent conçues pour être vues de l'intérieur et contribuer à l'effet dramatique. Le château fut admiré et imité par d'autres monarques européens, notamment Pierre le Grand de Russie, qui visita Versailles au début du règne de Louis XV et fit construire sa propre réplique au palais de Peterhof , près de Saint-Pétersbourg, entre 1705 et 1725.
Grand escalier du sanctuaire de Bom Jesus do Monte , Braga, Portugal, par Jean V et de Joseph Ier ont entraîné une augmentation des importations d'or et de diamants, durant une période appelée absolutisme royal, ce qui a permis au baroque portugais de s'épanouir.
L'architecture baroque au Portugal bénéficie d'une situation particulière et d'une chronologie différente du reste de l'Europe.
Elle est conditionnée par plusieurs facteurs politiques, artistiques et économiques, à l'origine de plusieurs phases et de diverses influences extérieures, aboutissant à un mélange unique , souvent mal compris par ceux qui recherchent l'art italien et qui y voient plutôt des formes et un caractère spécifiques lui conférant une variété typiquement portugaise. Un autre facteur clé est l'existence de l'architecture jésuite, également appelée « style simple » (Estilo Chão ou Estilo Plano) , qui, comme son nom l'indique, est plus sobre et d'apparence quelque peu austère.
Ces édifices sont des basiliques à nef unique, comprenant une chapelle principale profonde, des chapelles latérales (avec de petites portes pour la communication), sans décoration intérieure ni extérieure, avec un portail et des fenêtres simples. C'est une construction fonctionnelle, qui a pu être érigée dans tout l'empire avec quelques adaptations mineures, et conçue pour être décorée ultérieurement ou lorsque les ressources économiques le permettraient.
En réalité, le premier baroque portugais ne souffre d'aucune faiblesse architecturale, car le style sobre se prête aisément à la transformation par la décoration (peinture, faïence, etc.), métamorphosant les espaces vides en décors baroques somptueux et élaborés. Il en va de même pour l'extérieur. Par la suite, il est facile d'adapter le bâtiment au goût du temps et du lieu, et d'y ajouter de nouveaux éléments et détails. Pratique et économique.
Avec un plus grand nombre d’habitants et de meilleures ressources économiques, le nord, en particulier les régions de Porto et de Braga , a connu un renouveau architectural, visible dans la longue liste d’églises, de couvents et de palais construits par l’aristocratie.
Tsarskoïe Selo , Pouchkine, Russie, par Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, 1749-1756
L'avènement du baroque russe, ou baroque pétrinien , fait suite à un long voyage de Pierre le Grand en Europe occidentale en 1697-1698, au cours duquel il visita les châteaux de Fontainebleau et de Versailles ainsi que d'autres monuments architecturaux. À son retour en Russie, il décida de faire construire des monuments similaires à Saint-Pétersbourg , qui devint la nouvelle capitale de la Russie en 1712. Parmi les premiers grands monuments du baroque pétrinien figurent la cathédrale Pierre-et-Paul et le palais Menchikov .
À Moscou , le baroque Narychkine s'est largement répandu, notamment dans l'architecture des églises orthodoxes orientales à la fin du XVIIe siècle. Il s'agissait d'une combinaison du baroque d'Europe occidentale et des styles folkloriques traditionnels russes .
Le baroque dans les Amériques coloniales espagnoles et portugaises
Façade de l' église des Jésuites de Cusco , Pérou, par Jean-Baptiste Gilles et Diego Martínez de Oviedo, 1576–1668
Peintures murales coloniales préservées de 1802 représentant l'Enfer, de Tadeo Escalante, à l'intérieur de l'église de San Juan Bautista à Huaro , Pérou
Du fait de la colonisation des Amériques par les pays européens, le baroque s'est naturellement diffusé dans le Nouveau Monde , trouvant un terrain particulièrement favorable dans les régions dominées par l'Espagne et le Portugal . Ces deux pays étaient des monarchies centralisées et profondément catholiques, soumises de fait à Rome et aux partisans de la Contre-Réforme baroque . Des artistes européens ont émigré en Amérique et y ont créé des écoles. Avec la forte présence de missionnaires catholiques , dont beaucoup étaient des artistes talentueux, ils ont donné naissance à un baroque aux multiples facettes, souvent influencé par le goût populaire. Les artisans créoles et indigènes ont largement contribué à conférer à ce baroque des caractéristiques uniques. Les principaux centres de développement du baroque américain qui subsistent encore sont (dans cet ordre) le Mexique , le Pérou , le Brésil , Cuba , l'Équateur , la Colombie , la Bolivie , le Guatemala , le Nicaragua , Porto Rico et le Panama .
Tableau à l'intérieur d'une église du XVIIIe siècle au Honduras.
Il convient de mentionner tout particulièrement le « baroque missionnaire », développé dans le cadre des réductions espagnoles de territoires s'étendant du Mexique et du sud-ouest des États-Unis actuels jusqu'en Argentine et au Chili. Ces réductions concernaient des établissements indigènes organisés par des missionnaires catholiques espagnols afin de les convertir au christianisme et de les acculturer à la vie occidentale. Il en résulta un baroque hybride influencé par la culture indigène, où prospérèrent les créoles et de nombreux artisans et musiciens indigènes, parfois lettrés, dont certains possédaient un grand talent. Les récits des missionnaires rapportent souvent que l'art occidental, et notamment la musique, exerçait une influence hypnotique sur les forestiers, et que les images des saints étaient perçues comme dotées de grands pouvoirs. De nombreux indigènes se convertirent, et une nouvelle forme de dévotion naquit, d'une intensité passionnée, empreinte de mysticisme, de superstition et de théâtralité, qui se délectait de messes festives, de concerts sacrés et de mystères.
Aux Philippines , ancienne colonie espagnole pendant plus de trois siècles, un grand nombre d' édifices baroques sont préservés. Quatre d'entre eux, ainsi que la ville baroque et néoclassique de Vigan , sont inscrits au patrimoine mondial de l'UNESCO . Bien qu'ils ne bénéficient pas d'un classement officiel, la vieille ville de Manille et la ville de Tayabas recèlent toutes deux un important patrimoine architectural de l'époque baroque espagnole.
Porte et pisanie de l'église des Saints Constantin et Hélène, monastère d'Horezu, architecte ou sculpteur inconnu, 1692-1694
Balustrade maximaliste du
Twisting columns and railings of the Mogoșoaia Palace, Mogoșoaia, unknown architect, early 18th century
Cartouche on a damaged stone in the courtyard of Antim Monastery, Bucharest, unknown sculptor, late 17th-early 18th century
As we saw, the Baroque is a Western style, born in Italy. Through the commercial and cultural relationships of Italians with countries of the Balkan Peninsula, including Moldavia and Wallachia, Baroque influences arrive to Eastern Europe. These influences were not very strong, since they usually take place in architecture and stone-sculpted ornaments, and are also mixed intensely with details taken from Byzantine and Islamic art.
Before and after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, all the art of Wallachia and Moldavia was primarily influenced by that of Constantinople. Until the end of the 16th century, with little modifications, the plans of churches and monasteries, the murals, and the ornaments carved in stone remain the same as before. From a period starting with the reigns of Matei Basarab (1632–1654) and Vasile Lupu (1634–1653), which coincided with the popularization of Italian Baroque, new ornaments were added, and the style of religious furniture changed. This was not random at all. Decorative elements and principles were brought from Italy, through Venice, or through the Dalmatian regions, and they were adopted by architects and craftsmen from the east. The window and door frames, the pisanie with dedication, the tombstones, the columns and railings, and a part of the bronze, silver or wooden furniture, received a more important role than the one they had before. They existed before too, inspired by the Byzantine tradition, but they gained a more realist look, showing delicate floral motifs. The relief that existed before too, became more accentuated, having volume and consistency. Before this period, reliefs from Wallachia and Moldavia, like the ones from the East, had only two levels, at a small distance one from the other, one at the surface and the other in depth. Big flowers, maybe roses, peonies or thistles, thick leaves, of acanthus or another similar plant, were twisting on columns, or surround door and windows. A place where the Baroque had a strong influence was columns and the railings. Capitals were more decorated than before with foliage. Columns have often twisting shafts, a local reinterpretation of the Solomonic column. Maximalist railings are placed between these columns, decorated with rinceaux. Some of the ones from the Mogoșoaia Palace are also decorated with dolphins. Cartouches are also used sometimes, mostly on tombstones, like on the one of Constantin Brâncoveanu. This movement, is known as the Brâncovenesc style, after Constantin Brâncoveanu, a ruler of Wallachia whose reign (1654–1714) is highly associated with this kind of architecture and design. The style is also present during the 18th century, and in a part of the 19th. Many of the churches and residences erected by boyards and voivodes of these periods are Brâncovenesc. Although Baroque influences can be clearly seen, the Brâncovenesc style takes much more inspiration from the local tradition.
As the 18th century passed, with the Phanariot (members of prominent Greek families in Phanar, Istanbul) reigns in Wallachia and Moldavia, Baroque influences come from Istanbul too. They came before too, during the 17th century, but with the Phanariots, more Western Baroque motifs that arrived to the Ottoman Empire had their final destination in present-day Romania. In Moldavia, Baroque elements come from Russia too, where the influence of Italian art was strong.
Vanitas Still Life; by Maria van Oosterwijck; 1668; oil on canvas; 73 x 88.5cm; Kunsthistorisches Museum
Baroque painters worked deliberately to set themselves apart from the painters of the Renaissance and the Mannerism period after it. In their palette, they used intense and warm colours, and particularly made use of the primary colours red, blue and yellow, frequently putting all three in close proximity. They avoided the even lighting of Renaissance painting and used strong contrasts of light and darkness on certain parts of the picture to direct attention to the central actions or figures. In their composition, they avoided the tranquil scenes of Renaissance paintings, and chose the moments of the greatest movement and drama. Unlike the tranquil faces of Renaissance paintings, the faces in Baroque paintings clearly expressed their emotions. They often used asymmetry, with action occurring away from the centre of the picture, and created axes that were neither vertical nor horizontal, but slanting to the left or right, giving a sense of instability and movement. They enhanced this impression of movement by having the costumes of the personages blown by the wind, or moved by their own gestures. The overall impressions were movement, emotion and drama. Another essential element of baroque painting was allegory; every painting told a story and had a message, often encrypted in symbols and allegorical characters, which an educated viewer was expected to know and read.
Early evidence of Italian Baroque ideas in painting occurred in Bologna, where Annibale Carracci, Agostino Carracci and Ludovico Carracci sought to return the visual arts to the ordered Classicism of the Renaissance. Their art, however, also incorporated ideas central the Counter-Reformation; these included intense emotion and religious imagery that appealed more to the heart than to the intellect.
Peter Paul Rubens was the most important painter of the Flemish Baroque style. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of classical and Christian history. His unique and immensely popular Baroque style emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality, which followed the immediate, dramatic artistic style promoted in the Counter-Reformation. Rubens specialized in making altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.
One important domain of Baroque painting was Quadratura, or paintings in trompe-l'œil, which literally "fooled the eye". These were usually painted on the stucco of ceilings or upper walls and balustrades, and gave the impression to those on the ground looking up were that they were seeing the heavens populated with crowds of angels, saints and other heavenly figures, set against painted skies and imaginary architecture.
In Italy, artists often collaborated with architects on interior decoration; Pietro da Cortona was one of the painters of the 17th century who employed this illusionist way of painting. Among his most important commissions were the frescoes he painted for the Palazzo Barberini (1633–39), to glorify the reign of Pope Urban VIII. Pietro da Cortona's compositions were the largest decorative frescoes executed in Rome since the work of Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel.
François Boucher was an important figure in the more delicate French Rococo style, which appeared during the late Baroque period. He designed tapestries, carpets and theatre decoration as well as painting. His work was extremely popular with Madame de Pompadour, the Mistress of King Louis XV. His paintings featured mythological romantic, and mildly erotic themes.
The dominant figure in baroque sculpture was Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Under the patronage of Pope Urban VIII, he made a remarkable series of monumental statues of saints and figures whose faces and gestures vividly expressed their emotions, as well as portrait busts of exceptional realism, and highly decorative works for the Vatican such as the imposing Chair of St. Peter beneath the dome in St. Peter's Basilica. In addition, he designed fountains with monumental groups of sculpture to decorate the major squares of Rome.
Baroque sculpture was inspired by ancient Roman statuary, particularly by the famous first century CE statue of Laocoön and His Sons, which was unearthed in 1506 and put on display in the gallery of the Vatican. When he visited Paris in 1665, Bernini addressed the students at the academy of painting and sculpture. He advised the students to work from classical models, rather than from nature. He told the students, "When I had trouble with my first statue, I consulted the Antinous like an oracle." That Antinous statue is known today as the Hermes of the Museo Pio-Clementino.
In Spain, the sculptor Francisco Salzillo worked exclusively on religious themes, using polychromed wood. Some of the finest baroque sculptural craftsmanship was found in the gilded stucco altars of churches of the Spanish colonies of the New World, made by local craftsmen; examples include the
Four-poster bed from the Château d'Effiat; Louvre
Cabinet with caryatids; Musée des Arts décoratifs, Strasbourg, France
Pier table; 1685–1690; carved, gessoed, and gilded wood, with a marble top; 83.6 × 128.6 × 71.6cm; Art Institute of Chicago, US
Cupboard; by André Charles Boulle; marquetry on an oak frame, gilt-bronze; 255.5 x 157.5cm; Louvre
Commode; by André-Charles Boulle; marquetry of engraved brass and tortoiseshell, gilt-bronze mounts, antique marble top; 87.6 x 128.3 x 62.9cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City)
German slant-front desk; by Ferdinand Plitzner; Art Institute of Chicago
During the first period of the reign of Louis XIV, furniture followed the previous Louis XIII style, and was massive, and profusely decorated with sculpture and gilding. After 1680, thanks in large part to the furniture designer André-Charles Boulle, a more original and delicate style appeared, sometimes known as Boulle work. It was based on the inlay of ebony and other rare woods, a technique first used in Florence in the 15th century, which was refined and developed by Boulle and others working for Louis XIV. Furniture was inlaid with plaques of ebony, copper, and exotic woods of different colors.
New and often enduring types of furniture appeared; the commode, with two to four drawers, replaced the old coffre, or chest. The canapé, or sofa, appeared, in the form of a combination of two or three armchairs. New kinds of armchairs appeared, including the fauteuil en confessionale or "Confessional armchair", which had padded cushions ions on either side of the back of the chair. The console table also made its first appearance; it was designed to be placed against a wall. Another new type of furniture was the table à gibier, a marble-topped table for holding dishes. Early varieties of the desk appeared; the Mazarin desk had a central section set back, placed between two columns of drawers, with four feet on each column.
The term Baroque is also used to designate the style of music composed during a period that overlaps with that of Baroque art. The first uses of the term 'baroque' for music were criticisms. In an anonymous, satirical review of the première in October 1733 of Jean-Philippe Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie, printed in the Mercure de France in May 1734, the critic implied that the novelty of this opera was "du barocque," complaining that the music lacked coherent melody, was filled with unremitting dissonances, constantly changed key and meter, and speedily ran through every compositional device.Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was a musician and noted composer as well as philosopher, made a very similar observation in 1768 in the famous Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot: "Baroque music is that in which the harmony is confused, and loaded with modulations and dissonances. The singing is harsh and unnatural, the intonation difficult, and the movement limited. It appears that term comes from the word 'baroco' used by logicians."
Common use of the term for the music of the period began only in 1919, by Curt Sachs, and it was not until 1940 that it was first used in English in an article published by Manfred Bukofzer.
The baroque was a period of musical experimentation and innovation which explains the amount of ornaments and improvisation performed by the musicians. New forms were invented, including the concerto and sinfonia. Opera was born in Italy at the end of the 16th century (with Jacopo Peri's mostly lost Dafne, produced in Florence in 1598) and soon spread through the rest of Europe: Louis XIV created the first Royal Academy of Music. In 1669 the poet Pierre Perrin opened an academy of opera in Paris, the first opera theatre in France open to the public, and premiered Pomone, the first grand opera in French, with music by Robert Cambert, with five acts, elaborate stage machinery, and a ballet.Heinrich Schütz in Germany, Jean-Baptiste Lully in France, and Henry Purcell in England all helped to establish their national traditions in the 17th century.
Several new instruments, including the piano, were introduced during this period. The invention of the piano is credited to Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) of Padua, Italy, who was employed by Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany, as the Keeper of the Instruments. Cristofori named the instrument un cimbalo di cipresso di piano e forte ("a keyboard of cypress with soft and loud"), abbreviated over time as pianoforte, fortepiano, and later, simply, piano.
Marie de' Medici, and in the beginning the members of the court themselves were the dancers. Louis XIV himself performed in public in several ballets. In March 1662, the Académie Royale de Danse, was founded by the King. It was the first professional dance school and company, and set the standards and vocabulary for ballet throughout Europe during the period.
Literary theory
Heinrich Wölfflin was the first to transfer the term Baroque to literature. The key concepts of Baroque literary theory, such as "conceit" (concetto), "wit" (acutezza, ingegno), and "wonder" (meraviglia), were not fully developed in literary theory until the publication of Emanuele Tesauro's Il Cannocchiale aristotelico (The Aristotelian Telescope) in 1654. This seminal treatise—inspired by Giambattista Marino's epic Adone and the work of the Spanish Jesuit philosopher Baltasar Gracián—developed a theory of metaphor as a universal language of images and as a supreme intellectual act, at once an artifice and an epistemologically privileged mode of access to truth.
Dramaturgy of Central Europe in the Baroque
Walter Benjamin’s study of the Baroque in The Origin of German Tragic Drama, is a notoriously difficult but also exceptionally beloved major historical standard on the period. According to its conceit the work concentrates on Baroque drama though in fact the content of this study is extraordinarily diverse and even arcane in both the depth and range of its contents, dealing with an overwhelming heterogeneity of material in this historical terrain—though especially focusing its attention on Central Europe and (while Austrians of the Holy Roman Empire are sometimes mentioned and even Spanish under the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand) concentrating on Germany.
A major theme of the work is Benjamin’s mapping of the way in which the period arises in reaction to the collectively traumagenic violence of the Thirty Years War. This was a war in which virtually all of Europe participated at the bloody climax of the Reformation, though it was fought more or less exclusively in the Holy Roman Empire with all major powers (with the exception of England and Russia, who nevertheless became embroiled or were effected in various ways) sending their armies to meet in battle on that terrain.
For Walter Benjamin in his study of the Origin, the almost pathological-seeming (or at any rate historically aberrant and intense) elaboration of detail and tendency toward recursive involutions or even the horror vacui quality of cultural production characteristic of the era arises as a psychic defense or digressive suppression of terror and anomie in the absence of the symbolically transcendent authority so long manifest in the institutions and ritual forms of absolution projected across the continent by the Western Church in Rome in the collapse of its continental supremacy in administration and social control—a process which has sometimes been called the ‘dismemberment of Christendom,’ or more positively the birth of modernity and thus also of the hegemony of capitalism, as Max Weber and various other (including Hugh Trevor Roper’sCrisis of the Seventeenth Century and his more famous monograph on the European Witch Craze).
Theatre
Set design for Andromedé by Pierre Corneille, (1650)Design for a theater set created by Giacomo Torelli for the ballet Les Noces de Thétis, from Décorations et machines aprestées aux nopces de Tétis, Ballet Royal
During the Baroque period, the art and style of the theatre evolved rapidly, alongside the development of opera and of ballet. The design of newer and larger theatres, the invention the use of more elaborate machinery, the wider use of the proscenium arch, which framed the stage and hid the machinery from the audience, encouraged more scenic effects and spectacle.
The Baroque had a Catholic and conservative character in Spain, following an Italian literary model during the Renaissance. The Hispanic Baroque theatre aimed for a public content with an ideal reality that manifested fundamental three sentiments: Catholic religion, monarchist and national pride and honour originating from the chivalric, knightly world.
Lope de Vega introduced through his Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo (1609) the new comedy. He established a new dramatic formula that broke the three Aristotle unities of the Italian school of poetry (action, time, and place) and a fourth unity of Aristotle which is about style, mixing of tragic and comic elements showing different types of verses and stanzas upon what is represented. Although Lope has a great knowledge of the plastic arts, he did not use it during the major part of his career nor in theatre or scenography. The Lope's comedy granted a second role to the visual aspects of the theatrical representation.
Tirso de Molina, Lope de Vega, and Calderón were the most important play writers in Golden Era Spain. Their works, known for their subtle intelligence and profound comprehension of a person's humanity, could be considered a bridge between Lope's primitive comedy and the more elaborate comedy of Calderón. Tirso de Molina is best known for two works, The Convicted Suspicions and The Trickster of Seville, one of the first versions of the Don Juan myth.
Upon his arrival to Madrid, Cosimo Lotti brought to the Spanish court the most advanced theatrical techniques of Europe. His techniques and mechanic knowledge were applied in palace exhibitions called "Fiestas" and in lavish exhibitions of rivers or artificial fountains called "Naumaquias". He was in charge of styling the Gardens of Buen Retiro, of Zarzuela, and of Aranjuez and the construction of the theatrical building of Coliseo del Buen Retiro. Lope's formulas begin with a verse that it unbefitting of the palace theatre foundation and the birth of new concepts that begun the careers of some play writers like Calderón de la Barca. Marking the principal innovations of the New Lopesian Comedy, Calderón's style marked many differences, with a great deal of constructive care and attention to his internal structure. Calderón's work is in formal perfection and a very lyric and symbolic language. Liberty, vitality and openness of Lope gave a step to Calderón's intellectual reflection and formal precision. In his comedy it reflected his ideological and doctrine intentions in above the passion and the action, the work of Autos sacramentales achieved high ranks. The genre of Comedia is political, multi-artistic and in a sense hybrid. The poetic text interweaved with Medias and resources originating from architecture, music and painting freeing the deception that is in the Lopesian comedy was made up from the lack of scenery and engaging the dialogue of action.
The foremost Italian baroque tragedian was Federico Della Valle. His literary activity is summed up by the four plays that he wrote for the courtly theater: the tragicomedyAdelonda di Frigia (1595) and especially his three tragedies, Judith (1627), Esther (1627) and La reina di Scotia (1628). Della Valle had many imitators and followers who combined in their works Baroque taste and the didactic aims of the Jesuits (Francesco Sforza Pallavicino, Girolamo Graziani, etc.)
In the Tsardom of Russia, the development of the Russian version of Baroque took shape only in the second half of the 17th century, primarily due to the initiative of tsar Alexis of Russia, who wanted to open a court theatre in 1672. Its director and dramatist was Johann Gottfried Gregorii, a German-Russian Lutheran pastor, who wrote, in particular, a 10-hour play The Action of Artaxerxes. The dramaturgy of Symeon of Polotsk and Demetrius of Rostov became key contribution to the Russian Baroque.
Spanish colonial Americas
Following the evolution marked from Spain, at the end of the 16th century, the companies of comedians, essentially transhumant, began to professionalize. With professionalization came regulation and censorship: as in Europe, the theatre oscillated between tolerance and even government protection and rejection (with exceptions) or persecution by the Church. The theatre was useful to the authorities as an instrument to disseminate the desired behavior and models, respect for the social order and the monarchy, school of religious dogma.
The corrales were administered for the benefit of hospitals that shared the benefits of the representations. The itinerant companies (or "of the league"), who carried the theatre in improvised open-air stages by the regions that did not have fixed locals, required a viceregal license to work, whose price or pinción was destined to alms and works pious. For companies that worked stably in the capitals and major cities, one of their main sources of income was participation in the festivities of the Corpus Christi, which provided them with not only economic benefits, but also recognition and social prestige. The representations in the viceregal palace and the mansions of the aristocracy, where they represented both the comedies of their repertoire and special productions with great lighting effects, scenery, and stage, were also an important source of well-paid and prestigious work.
Born in the Viceroyalty of New Spain but later settled in Spain, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón is the most prominent figure in the Baroque theatre of New Spain. Despite his accommodation to Lope de Vega's new comedy, his "marked secularism", his discretion and restraint, and a keen capacity for "psychological penetration" as distinctive features of Alarcón against his Spanish contemporaries have been noted. Noteworthy among his works La verdad sospechosa, a comedy of characters that reflected his constant moralizing purpose. The dramatic production of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz places her as the second figure of the Spanish-American Baroque theatre. It is worth mentioning among her works the auto sacramentalLos empeños de una casa.
Garden of the Schwerin Castle, Schwerin, Germany, unknown architect, unknown date
The Baroque garden, also known as the jardin à la française or French formal garden, first appeared in Rome in the 16th century, and then most famously in France in the 17th century in the gardens of Vaux le Vicomte and the Palace of Versailles. Baroque gardens were built by Kings and princes in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Spain, Poland, Italy and Russia until the mid-18th century, when they began to be remade into by the more natural English landscape garden.
The purpose of the baroque garden was to illustrate the power of man over nature, and the glory of its builder, Baroque gardens were laid out in geometric patterns, like the rooms of a house. They were usually best seen from the outside and looking down, either from a château or terrace. The elements of a baroque garden included parterres of flower beds or low hedges trimmed into ornate Baroque designs, and straight lanes and alleys of gravel which divided and crisscrossed the garden. Terraces, ramps, staircases and cascades were placed where there were differences of elevation, and provided viewing points. Circular or rectangular ponds or basins of water were the settings for fountains and statues. Bosquets or carefully trimmed groves or lines of identical trees, gave the appearance of walls of greenery and were backdrops for statues. On the edges, the gardens usually had pavilions, orangeries and other structures where visitors could take shelter from the sun or rain.
Baroque gardens required enormous numbers of gardeners, continual trimming, and abundant water. In the later part of the Baroque period, the formal elements began to be replaced with more natural features, including winding paths, groves of varied trees left to grow untrimmed; rustic architecture and picturesque structures, such as Roman temples or Chinese pagodas, as well as "secret gardens" on the edges of the main garden, filled with greenery, where visitors could read or have quiet conversations. By the mid-18th century most of the Baroque gardens were partially or entirely transformed into variations of the English landscape garden.
16th through 19th century European cities witnessed a large change in urban design and planning principals that reshaped the landscapes and built environment. Rome, Paris, and other major cities were transformed to accommodate growing populations through improvements in housing, transportation, and public services. Throughout this time, the Baroque style was in full swing, and the influences of elaborate, dramatic, and artistic architectural styles extended into the urban fabric through what is known as Baroque urban planning. The experience of living and walking in the cities aims to complement the emotions of the Baroque style. This style of planning often embraced displaying the wealth and strength of the ruling powers, and the important buildings served as the visual and symbolic center of the cities.
The replanning of the city of Rome under the rule of Pope Sixtus V revived and expanded the city in the 16th century. Many grand piazzas and squares were added as public spaces to contribute to the dramatic effect of the Baroque style. The piazzas featured fountains and other decorative features to embody the emotions of the time. An important factor in Baroque style planning was to connect churches, government structures, and piazzas together in a refined network of axis'. This allowed the important landmarks of the Catholic Church to become the focal points of the city.Aerial view of Barcelona
More characteristics of Baroque urban planning are embodied in Barcelona. The Eixample district, designed by Ildefons Cerdà, showcases wide avenues in a grid system with a few diagonal boulevards. The intersections are unique with octagonal blocks, which provide the streets with great visibility and light. Many works in this district come from architect Antoni Gaudí, who displays a unique style. Centered in the Eixample district design is the Sagrada Família by Gaudí, which poses great significance to the city.
Posterity
Transition to rococo
Meudon Observatory, Château de Meudon, Meudon, France, an example of an early Rococo building from the last years of Louis XIV, unknown architect, 1706–1709
Chest of drawers; by Charles Cressent; Waddesdon Manor, Waddesdon, UK
Cartouche from the Second Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
The Rococo is the final stage of the Baroque, and in many ways took the Baroque's fundamental qualities of illusion and drama to their logical extremes. Beginning in France as a reaction against the heavy Baroque grandeur of Louis XIV's court at the Palace of Versailles, the rococo movement became associated particularly with the powerful Madame de Pompadour
(1721–1764), the mistress of the new king, Louis XV (1710–1774). Because of this, the style was also known as Pompadour. Although it's highly associated with the reign of Louis XV, it didn't appear in this period. Multiple works from the last years of Louis XIV's reign are examples of early Rococo. The name of the movement derives from the French decorative arts style, and was characterized by elegant flowing shapes. Architecture followed and then painting and sculpture. The French painter with whom the term Rococo is most often associated is Jean-Antoine Watteau, whose pastoral scenes, or fêtes galantes, dominate the early part of the 18th century.
There are multiple similarities between Rococo and Baroque. Both styles insist on monumental forms, and so use continuous spaces, double columns or pilasters, and luxurious materials (including gilded elements). There also noticeable differences. Rococo designed freed themselves from the adherence to symmetry that had dominated architecture and design since the Renaissance. Many small objects, like ink pots or porcelain figures, but also some ornaments, are often asymmetrical. This goes hand in hand with the fact that most ornamentation consisted of interpretation of foliage and sea shells, not as many Classical ornaments inherited from the Renaissance like in Baroque. Another key difference is the fact that since the Baroque is the main cultural manifestation of the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, it is most often associated with ecclesiastical architecture. In contrast, the Rococo is mainly associated with palaces and domestic architecture. In Paris, the popularity of the Rococo coincided with the emergence of the salon as a new type of social gathering, the venues for which were often decorated in this style. Rococo rooms were typically smaller than their Baroque counterparts, reflecting a movement towards domestic intimacy. Colours also match this change, from the earthy tones of Caravaggio's paintings, and the interiors of red marble and gilded mounts of the reign of Louis XIV, to the pastel and relaxed pale blue, Pompadour pink, and white of the Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour's France. Similarly to colours, there was also a transition from serious, dramatic and moralistic subjects in painting and sculpture, to lighthearted and joyful themes.
One last difference between Baroque and Rococo is the interest that 18th-century aristocrats had for East Asia. Orientalist trends in Western aesthetics were present before the Baroque period, but they tended to draw inspiration from Islamic rather than East Asian sources. This continued during the Baroque period, as exemplified by the Turkish-inspired style known as Turquerie. Orientalist fascination with the Islamic world (including Turquerie) would continue into and beyond the Rococo period; however, by that time, Chinese and other East Asian cultures would also come to influence Western aesthetics. Chinoiserie was a style in fine art, architecture and design, popular during the 18th century, that was heavily inspired by Chinese art, but also by Rococo at the same time. Because traveling to China or other Far Eastern countries was hard at that time and so remained mysterious to most Westerners, European imagination were fuelled by perceptions of Asia as a place of wealth and luxury, and consequently patrons from emperors to merchants vied with each other in adorning their living quarters with Asian goods and decorating them in Asian styles. Where Asian objects were hard to obtain, European craftsmen and painters stepped up to fill the demand, creating a blend of Rococo forms and Asian figures, motifs and techniques. Aside from European recreations of objects in East Asian style, Chinese lacquerware was reused in multiple ways. European aristocrats fully decorated a handful of rooms of palaces, with Chinese lacquer panels used as wall panels. Due to its aspect, black lacquer was popular for Western men's studies. Those panels used were usually glossy and black, made in the Henan province of China. They were made of multiple layers of lacquer, then incised with motifs in-filled with colour and gold. Chinese, but also Japanese lacquer panels were also used by some 18th-century European carpenters for making furniture. In order to be produced, Asian screens were dismantled and used to veneer European-made furniture.
Condemnation and academic rediscovery
The pioneer German art historian and archeologist Johann Joachim Winckelmann also condemned the baroque style, and praised the superior values of classical art and architecture. By the 19th century, Baroque was a target for ridicule and criticism. The neoclassical critic Francesco Milizia wrote: "Borrominini in architecture, Bernini in sculpture, Pietro da Cortona in painting...are a plague on good taste, which infected a large number of artists." In the 19th century, criticism went even further; the British critic John Ruskin declared that baroque sculpture was not only bad, but also morally corrupt.
The Swiss-born art historian Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945) started the rehabilitation of the word Baroque in his Renaissance und Barock (1888); Wölfflin identified the Baroque as "movement imported into mass", an art antithetic to Renaissance art. He did not make the distinctions between Mannerism and Baroque that modern writers do, and he ignored the later phase, the academic Baroque that lasted into the 18th century. Baroque art and architecture became fashionable in the interwar period, and has largely remained in critical favor. The term "Baroque" may still be used, often pejoratively, describing works of art, craft, or design that are thought to have excessive ornamentation or complexity of line. At the same time "baroque" has become an accepted terms for various trends in Roman art and Roman architecture in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, which display some of the same characteristics as the later Baroque.
The Grand Salon of the apartments of the minister of state, currently known as the Napoleon III Apartments, designed by Hector Lefuel and decorated with paintings by
Table; 2nd half of the 19th century; Boulle marquetry; unknown dimensions; in a temporary exhibition called "Dress Code Parfum de Secol XIX" at the Bucharest, Romania
Petit Palais, Paris, an example of Beaux Arts architecture, with Ionic columns very similar to those of the reign of Louis XIV, by Charles Giraud, 1900
Door of Rue Guynemer no. 2, Paris, with palmettes, shells, volutes, garlands, proportions and other elements seen on wrought iron, furniture, textiles and ceramics from the reign of Louis XIV
Highly criticized, the Baroque would later be a source of inspiration for artists, architects and designers during the 19th century through Romanticism, a movement that developed in the 18th century and that reached its peak in the 19th. It was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism, as well as glorification of the past and nature, preferring the medieval to the classical. A mix of literary, religious, and political factors prompted late-18th and 19th century British architects and designers to look back to the Middle Ages for inspiration. Romanticism is the reason the 19th century is best known as the century of revivals. In France, Romanticism was not the key factor that led to the revival of Gothic architecture and design. Vandalism of monuments and buildings associated with the Ancien Régime (Old Regime) happened during the French Revolution. Because of this an archaeologist, Alexandre Lenoir, was appointed curator of the Petits-Augustins depot, where sculptures, statues and tombs removed from churches, abbeys and convents had been transported. He organized the Museum of French Monuments (1795–1816), and was the first to bring back the taste for the art of the Middle Ages, which progressed slowly to flourish a quarter of a century later.
This taste and revival of medieval art led to the revival of other periods, including the Baroque and Rococo. Revivalism started with themes first from the Middle Ages, then, towards the end of the reign of Louis Philippe I (1830–1848), from the Renaissance. Baroque and Rococo inspiration was more popular during the reign of Napoleon III (1852–1870), and continued later, after the fall of the Second French Empire.
Compared to how in England architects and designers saw the Gothic as a national style, Rococo was seen as one of the most representative movements for France. The French felt much more connected to the styles of the Ancien Régime and Napoleon's Empire, than to the medieval or Renaissance past, although Gothic architecture appeared in France, not in England.
The revivalism of the 19th century led in time to eclecticism (mix of elements of different styles). Because architects often revived Classical styles, most Eclectic buildings and designs have a distinctive look. Besides pure revivals, the Baroque was also one of the main sources of inspiration for eclecticism. The coupled column and the giant order, two elements widely used in Baroque, are often present in this kind of 19th and early 20th century buildings. Eclecticism was not limited only to architecture. Many designs from the Second Empire style (1848–1870) have elements taken from different styles. Little furniture from the period escaped its three most prevalent historicist influences, which are sometimes kept distinct and sometimes combined: the Renaissance, Louis XV (Rococo), and Louis XVI styles. Revivals and inspiration also came sometimes from Baroque, like in the case of remakes and arabesques that imitate Boulle marquetry, and from other styles, like Gothic, Renaissance, or English Regency.
The Belle Époque was a period that begun around 1871–1880 and that ended with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. It was characterized by optimism, regional peace, economic prosperity, colonial expansion, and technological, scientific, and cultural innovations. Eclecticism reached its peak in this period, with Beaux Arts architecture. The style takes its name from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where it developed and where many of the main exponents of the style studied. Buildings in this style often feature Ionic columns with their volutes on the corner (like those found in French Baroque), a rusticated basement level, overall simplicity but with some really detailed parts, arched doors, and an arch above the entrance like that of the Petit Palais in Paris. The style aimed for a Baroque opulence through lavishly decorated monumental structures that evoked Louis XIV's Versailles. When it comes to the design of the Belle Époque, all furniture from the past was admired, including, perhaps, contrary to expectations, the Second Empire style (the style of the proceeding period), which remained popular until 1900. In the years around 1900, there was a gigantic recapitulation of styles of all countries in all preceding periods. Everything from Chinese to Spanish models, from Boulle to Gothic, found its way into furniture production, but some styles were more appreciated than others. The High Middle Ages and the early Renaissance were especially prized. Exoticism of every stripe and exuberant Rococo designs were also favoured.
Revivals and influence of the Baroque faded away and disappeared with Art Deco, a style created as a collective effort of multiple French designers to make a new modern style around 1910. It was obscure before WW1, but became very popular during the interwar period, being heavily associated with the 1920s and the 1930s. The movement was a blend of multiple characteristics taken from Modernist currents from the 1900s and the 1910s, like the Vienna Secession, Cubism, Fauvism, Primitivism, Suprematism, Constructivism, Futurism, De Stijl, and Expressionism. Besides Modernism, elements taken from styles popular during the Belle Époque, like Rococo Revival, Neoclassicism, or the neo-Louis XVI style, are also present in Art Deco. The proportions, volumes and structure of Beaux Arts architecture before WW1 is present in early Art Deco buildings of the 1910s and 1920s. Elements taken from Baroque are quite rare, architects and designers preferring the Louis XVI style.
At the end of the interwar period, with the rise in popularity of the International Style, characterized by the complete lack of any ornamentation led to the complete abandonment of influence and revivals of the Baroque. Multiple International Style architects and designers, but also Modernist artists criticized Baroque for its extravagance and what they saw as "excess". Ironically this was just at the same time as the critical appreciation of the original Baroque was reviving strongly.
Dolphin Hotel, Orlando, Florida, US, with urn tops that are reminiscent of urns that decorate corners, tops and roof railings of buildings and furniture from the reign of Louis XIV, by Michael Graves, 1989
Box, part of the Le Jardin de Versace collection, with complex rinceaux that are reminiscent of the Baroque ones from the 17th and very early 18th centuries, but also similar to the ones from the reign of Napoleon; designed by Versace and produced by Rosenthal; unknown date; porcelain; unknown dimensions or location
Baroque rinceaux with putti painted on the boiserie of a room from the Musée Carnavalet, Paris, unknown architect, sculptor and painter, Postmodernism, a movement that questioned Modernism (the status quo after WW2), and which promoted the inclusion of elements of historic styles in new designs, and appreciation for the pre-Modernist past. Specific references to Baroque are rare, since Postmodernism often included highly simplified elements that were 'quotations' of Classicism in general, like pediments or columns.
More references to Baroque are found in Versace ceramic ware and fashion, decorated with maximalist acanthusrinceaux, very similar to the ones found in Italian Baroque ornament plates and in Boulle work, but also similar to the ones found on Empire objects, especially textiles, from the reign of Napoleon I.
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