Baroque Art

AP ART HISTORY chapter 24 and 25 Baroque Art ENDURING UNDERSTANDING •• •• •• •• •• •• •• Modern European art emerges from an interaction with cultures on a global scale. Prior studies highlighted a more narrow geographic or chronological approach. There is an interest in returning to classical ideals in the fifteenth century, with a greater emphasis on formal education and artistic training. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation caused a rift in Christian art of the Western Europe. ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE • • • • • • • Western Europe and the American colonies are at the center of Renaissance and Baroque studies. Europe and the Americas are brought into closer alignment with this new course of study. One is not considered more important than the other. Europeans brought good and culture to the Western hemisphere with their trade and conquest. Europeans began to collect and organize knowledge from their various expansions around the globe. European influence is on the rise at home and abroad. There is a greater exploration of the formal elements of painting, like perspective, composition, and color. Artistic training is enhanced by the birth of academies. The display of artwork often meant a glorification of the patron. In Northern Europe there was an emphasis on nonreligious subjects, like portraits, genre paintings, and still lifes. In Southern Europe there was an emphasis on religious subjects with much more active and dynamic compositions. ideas and concepts 1. Artist, particularly sculptors sought new ways to represent figures without appearing to create pagan idols. 2. Northern European art is powerfully influenced by the achievements of Italian Renaissance art. 3. Baroque art also flourishes in Protestant Holland which becomes a counter-voice to Catholic Art. 4. Baroque painting is divided into two schools of thought, the classicists, inspired by the works of Central Italian artists such as Raphael; and the naturalists, inspired by Venetian painters such as Titian. 5. Baroque artists experiment with different art forms, such as genre paintings, landscapes, and still lives, and bring them artistically to the same level as traditional subjects. 6. Baroque architecture is associated with the grand and majestic royal courts of Europe. 7. The shift pf power from the royal court to the aristocrats is paralleled in the shift in taste from Baroque to Rococo. 8. The French Royal Academy dictated artistic taste in 18th century Paris. 9. Rococo architecture seeks to unite the arts in a coherent artistic experience. 10. A quintessential Rococo painting is the fete galante, which portrays the aristocracy in their leisurely pursuits. 11. The Rococo also developed a strong school of satirical painting. vOCABULARY “whore of Babylon” baldacchino burin camera obscura Caravaggisti Carlo Maderno Cathedra Petri Charles I chateau di sotto in su Descartes Donaustil engraving etching femmes savants fete gallante fountainebleau genre galerie des glaces hotel impasto kermess Louis XIV Mabuse Maria De Medici Martin Luther Melancholy memento mori Philip IV Plateresque Polyptych Pomegranate tree Pope Alexander VII Prix de Rome quadro riportato rococo St. Bartholomew St. Theresa tenebroso vanitas FREEDOM HIGH SCHOOL journal AP ART HISTORY Baroque Art Calling of St. Matthew (3.1, 3.2, 3.3) Woman Holding a Balance (3.1, 2.2, 1.4) CONTEXT Artists of the Low Countries (Holland and Belgium) were the first to capitalize on the new medium of oil paint, which enables them to capture the minute nuances of the observable world. Northern Renaissance artists used everyday objects in their compositions to disguise religious symbols. While English and French artists continued to work in the International style, French architects excelled in building elaborate palaces and villas. Philip II of Spain became an important patron of the arts as he drew artists from all over Europe to his Hapsburg court. 17th century Baroque art was far more emotional and exuberant than Renaissance art. The style was followed in parts of western Europe by the lighthearted Rococo movement, although English and American artists preferred the less frivolous Baroque manner. In 1600, the artistic center of Europe was Rome, particular at the court of the popes. The completion of Saint Peter’s became a crusade for the Catholic Church, both as an evocation of faith and as a symbol of the church on earth. By 1650, however, the increased power and influences of the French kings, first at Paris and then at their capital in Versailles, shifted the art world to France. While Rome still kept it’s allure as the keeper of the masterpieces for both the ancient world and the renaissance, France became the center of modern art and innovation, a position it kept unchallenged until the beginning of World War II. The most important political watershed of the17th century was the Thirty Years War, which ended in 1648. Ostensibly started over religion, and featuring a Catholic resurgence called the Counter-reformation, the Thirty Years war also had active political, economic and social components as well. The war succeeded in devastating central Europe so effectively that economic activity and artistic production ground to a halt in this region for the balance of the 17th century. The Counter-reformation movement reaffirmed all the things the Protestant Reformation was against. Protestants were largely iconoclasts, breaking painted and sculpted images in churches; Catholics endorsed the place of images and were reinspired to create new ones. Protestants derided saints; Catholics reaffirmed the communion of saints and glorified their images. Protestants played down miracles; Catholics made them visible and palpable as in the Ecstacy of St. Teresa. WORKS OF ART • • • • • • • • • • Caravaggio, Calling of St. Matthew 1597-1601 Peter Paul Rubens, Henry IV receives the Portrait of Marie de’ Medici 1625 Rembrandt, Portrait With Saskia 1636 Boromini, Facade of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane 1638-1646 Gianlorenzo Bernini, Ecstasy of St. Theresa 1647-1652 Velasquez, Las Meninas 1656 Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance 1664 Jules Hardouin-Mansart and Charles Le Brun, The Hall of Mirrors 1669 Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Royal Chapel of the Palace of Versailles 1669 Rachel Ruysch, Fruit and Insects 1711 ASSIGNMENTS ‡‡ ‡‡ ‡‡ ‡‡ ‡‡ Read Gardners pages 701-761 Complete homework packet Write journal Fill in flashcards E.C.- Write a piece of Vermeer fan fiction