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The Baroque in Italy

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Page 1: Italian Baroque Post

The Baroque in Italy

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Baroque

• Meant as derogatory, exaggerated, excessive, perverse

• Advanced techniques of Renaissance married to the intense emotions of Mannerism

• Courts and palaces designed to impress visitors• Theatrical – emphasis on emotion over rationality

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Catholic Protestant

• Spain• Portugal• France• Italy• Provinces (Belgium)• Austria• Poland• Rhineland• Holy Roman Empire

• England• Scotland• Scandinavia• Swiss Confederation• Holland• North Germany

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Catholic Protestant• Caravaggio - Italian• Bernini – Italian• Poussin – French• Versailles and Louis XIV –

French• Rubens – Flemish• Velazquez – Spain

• The Counter Reformation & Absolutism

• Rembrandt – Dutch• Vermeer – Dutch

• Capitalist markets for Art

• The Age of Science

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Caravaggio (1573 – 1610)• Rebelled against convention• Started in Rome, but fled after murder and worked in many cities• Used drowned corpse as a model for Death of a Virgin – refused by patron

but purchased by Duke of mantua on advice of Rubens• Used prostitutes, drunks and street people for models• New Powerful Naturalism

• Died at 37 (unknown cause but lots of speculation)• Intense Light/Dark contrasts• Dramatic chiarioscuro revolutionizes European art as well as the use of

common people• Varicose veins, dirty fingernails, and other attributes of “truth” in painting• Often worked straight onto canvas without preliminary drawings• High Psychological content

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In 1565 the French Monsignor Matteo Contarelli acquired a chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome, but when he died twenty years later it had not yet been decorated. The executor of his will, Virgilio Crescenzi, and later his son, Giacomo, undertook the task. The decorative scheme called for a statue of St Matthew and the Angel, commissioned first to Gerolamo Muziano, and then to the Flemish sculptor Cobaert, for the high altar; and for a fresco cycle for the walls and ceiling by Cavalier d'Arpino. The latter decorated the vault in 1591-93, but the walls were left bare. On 13 June 1599 a contract was stipulated before a notary by which Caravaggio undertook to execute two paintings for the lateral walls (The Calling of Saint Matthew and The Martyrdom of St Matthew), for which he was paid the following year (1600), after the paintings had been set in place. Later, on 7 February 1602, after Cobaert's statue had been judged unsatisfactory, an altarpiece was entrusted to Caravaggio in a separate contract that called for delivery of the work by 32 May, the Feast of the Pentecost. This painting was rejected, the artist made another one (which was accepted) in a surprisingly brief time, receiving payment for this second work on 22 September.

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Caravaggio, Calling of Saint Matthew

• Tenebroso• Light comes

from two sources on the right; top source illuminates Saint Matthew

• Ordinary figures• Some dressed

as 17th Century dandies, fashionably coiffed

• Influence of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam in the hand of Christ: God’s hand but Adam’s reversed position

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Caravaggio, Conversion of Saint Paul

• Unknown source of light• Common figures• Little to suggest a spiritual event• Dark tenebroso effect; limited

color palette• Figures are very closely spaced• Awkwardness in the man

holding the horse with his very long arms and legs that don’t line up with his head

• Awkwardness of the foreshortened horse

• Little depth; very shallow stage, figures pushed forward

• Positioning of horse guides viewer “into” painting seen to the right

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Judith and Holofernes (Judith 13,1-10)

"Judith was left alone in the tent, with Holofernes stretched out on the bed, for he was overcome with wine (Judith 13,2)... She went up to the post at the end of the bed, above Holofernes' head, and took down his sword that hung there. She came close to the bed and took hold of the hair of his head, and said: "Give me strength this day, O Lord God of Israel!". And she struck his neck twice with all her might, and severed his head from his body (Judith 13,6-8)... After a moment she went out and gave Holofernes' head to her maid (Judith 13, 9)".

The Old Testament narrates the episode of Judith who saved her city of Bethulia from the siege of Holofernes, general of the Assyrian king Nabucodonosor, by killing him after a banquet at which he had been made drink, beheading him and bringing his head to his fellow citizens (Judith ch. 10-13).

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Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes

• Painted six versions of the story

• Gentileschi raped when young: is there a relationship of this event to the painting?

• Artist identified with Judith, Gentileschi’s self-portrait as the heroine

• Not idealized but realistic figures

• Gory moment of decapitation, blood squirting out: shock value

• Holofernes defenseless• Tenebroso• Dramatic light effect from the

left

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Baroque Ceiling Painters

• Influenced by Mantegna, Corregio and Michelangelo

• Use of flying figures common• High achievement in perspective,

foreshortening and issues of overlapping space, color and value in compositions.

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Annibale Carracci, Loves of the Gods (Palazzo Farnese)

•Gallery intended to exhibit antique sculpture

•Di sotto in sù and quadro riportato painting intermingled

•Figures flow harmoniously•Each figure is studied from life•Figures overlap frames of paintings•Painted herms bordering main scenes, inspired by Sistine Chapel ignudi•Hermes seem sculptural, seen from below•Golden frames seem three-dimensional but figures overlap them •Venetian color•Robust, healthy, muscular figures, defined contours: idealized

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Polyphemus attacking Galatea

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Di Sotto In Su: Italian phrase that refers to the idea of looking up from below. A type of illusionism in painting, achieved by means of sharp foreshortening, in which the figures and architecture seem to be high above and receding from the spectator.

Mantegna, 15th century Pietro da Cortona, 17th Century

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quadro riportato (Italian: ‘carried—or transferred—picture’). Term applied to a ceiling picture that is intended to look as if it is a framed easel picture placed overhead; there is no illusionistic foreshortening, figures appearing as if they were to be viewed at normal eye level.

Guido Reni, Aurora (1613)

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Guido Reni, Aurora (1613)•Quadro riportato•Glowing dramatic colors•Aurora leads Apollo’s chariot, Hours guide the chariot•Soft modeling•Idealized, sweetly lyrical females•Wavy compositional lines

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Pozzo, Glorification of Saint Ignatius

•Walls of church are foreshortened into painted architecture•Di sotto in sù•Ceiling of church painted as if it were removed and figures are hovering above us•Four continents of the known world are represented between the windows: Europe, America, Africa and Asia•St. Ignatius floats above, his deeds and good works span to the four continents•Rays spring from his head to the four continents

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Bernini, David• David is energetically swinging the

slingshot• Chose not to wear his armor to

fight Goliath, it is at his feet and acts as a physical support for the statue

• Harp at his feet suggests David as a poet and singer

• Said to have Bernini’s likeness: intensity of expression

• Must be seen in the round, though may have been originally set against a wall

• Recalls Hellenistic Greek art• Baroque art: figures caught in the

middle of action

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Bernini (1598 – 1680)• One of the most influential Baroque artists• Architect and sculptor• Devotion to physical and psychological reality• Exquisite sense of textures

• Patron Cardinal Barberini becomes Pope Urban VII and grants many commisions (especially for St. Peter’s)

• Mixture of many media in certain pieces• When called to France by Louis XIV – sculpture not used –

portrait changed rto roman figure and placed in remote part of garden

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Bernini, Pluto and Persephone, 1622

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Rape of the Sabine Women (1574-82), by Giambologna

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Cornaro Chapel

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EXCERPT FROM THE LIFE OF ST. THERESA

...Beside me, on the left hand, appeared an angel in bodily form, such as I am not in the habit of seeing except rarely. Though I often have visions of angels, I do not see them...But it was the Lord's will that I should see this angel in the following way. He was not tall but short, and very beautiful; and his face was so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest ranks of angels, who seem to be all on fire. They must be of the kind called cherubim, but they do not tell me their names. I know very well that there is a great difference between some angels and others, and between these others still, but I could not possibly explain it. In his hands I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point on fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he plunged it out, I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, or is anyone's soul then content with anything but God. This is not physical, but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it- even a considerable share. So gentle is this wooing which takes place between God and the soul that if anyone thinks I am lying, I pray God to grant him some experience of it

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Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Theresa• Stage-like setting• Carved a vision by Saint Theresa

of Avila• Members of the patron family, the

Cornaro, look on from theatre boxes, in conversation or are reading about the event itself

• Baroque as theatrical• Natural light from a hidden

window shines on rays and figures• Combination of painting,

sculpture and architecture• Directed view• Angel as sexless, Teresa in physical

ecstasy, drained of all emotion• Carved marble differently

depending on the texture of the surface: clouds are rough, wings are downy, drapery is smooth, and skin has a high shine

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Four Rivers, Fountain, Rome (Ganges, Nile, Danube, Rio della Plata)

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Nile (covered head for unknown source)

Danube

Ganges

Rio della Plata

Americas (note coins on the ledge representing the riches)

1648-50 (Pope Innocent X)

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Italian Baroque Sculpture

Bernini, Baldacchino• Over main altar of Saint Peter’s• 100 feet high, made of bronze• Twisting columns inspired by Early

Christian designs, corkscrew motif• Lively ornate concept• Symbol of the patron, the Barberini family,

in the sun and bees motif on entablature• Baroque concept of directed view: focuses

your eyes down the main aisle of Saint Peter’s and acts as a frame for the Cathedra Petri, which though later in date, was likely planned already

• Bronze taken from the Pantheon: paganism transformed into Christianity

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Bernini, Colonnade of Saint Peter’s, Rome• Plaza holds half million people, 284

columns, 4 rows, 140 statues• Church in a congested area of Rome,

Bernini wanted an open area to overwhelm visitors entering it through the four-deep colonnade with light and space

• Tuscan Doric columns with classical temple front

• Curving Baroque shape of colonnade• Forms the shape of two arms bringing

people into the Church• Also the shape of a skeleton keyhole,

symbolic of Saint Peter who holds the keys to the kingdom

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Italian Baroque Architecture

Borromini, St. Charles of the Four Fountains, Rome

• Very small site• Complex ground plan• Alternating convex and concave

patternsExterior:• Façade higher than the rest of the

building• Walls treated sculpturally• Emphasis on central portal with kiosk

and formerly frescoed medallion above

• Union of three major artsInterior:• Chapels merge into the main room• Oval coffered dome