Introduction
The human mind is a very versatile issue; it finds the outlet for the energy, flow of thoughts, and ideas, which can be expressed in a great number of various ways. Thus there are many styles and movements in the art to express different opinions, develop various techniques, and depict certain images and landscapes.
Period
Thereby I would like to tell you about the movement of baroque, which from my point of view is one of the most magnificent, pompous, sublime, gorgeous, bizarre and pretentious. “Baroque was born in Italy, and later adopted in France, Germany, Netherlands, and Spain. The word “baroque” was first applied to the art of the period from the late 1500s to the late 1700s, by critics in the late nineteen century. Baroque covers a wide range of styles and artists” (“Baroque: Main Representatives” 1).
Region
The style of Baroque was spread all over the European continent in different expressions of art from 1590 and until the beginning of the eighteenth century. The expressions of art representing this very movement had little differences within European national art, though there were some features in common. Baroque artists used a great number of different techniques to involve the observer in the picture, into the sphere of grotesque compositions and rich ornaments.
While observing the picture which represents the Baroque style a person appears in the other world full of graceful angels, antique gods, and godlike creatures. The images are depicted in some movements; every gesture seems to possess a specific meaning; the angels persistently invite the observer to have a closer look and to understand the magnificent world of kings and queens.
Painting
According to the dictionary article, the Baroque means something “of, relating to, or having the characteristics of a style of artistic expression prevalent especially in the 17th century that is marked generally by the use of complex forms, bold ornamentation, and the juxtaposition of contrasting elements often conveying a sense of drama, movement, and tension; characterized by grotesqueness, extravagance, complexity, or flamboyance” (“Baroque” 1). Thus the basic peculiarity of the whole movement was important for its effect of spontaneous experience, gestures, and dynamism of the depicted picturesque scenery.
“The baroque, as an epoch of interesting contrasts and perhaps many times one of bad taste (individualism and traditionalism, inquisitive authority and unsteadying freedom, mysticism and sensualism, theology and superstition, war and commerce, geometry and capriciousness), was not the result of multi secular influences on a country whose character they shaped, nor did it result from influences that irradiated from one country that was supposedly endowed with such characteristics upon others related to in” (Maravall 12-13).
I believe such a description gives the fullest definition of the baroque as a style and represents it both as epoch and as style. Thus the epoch from the late sixteenth century till the early eighteenth century was represented by the baroque style. One of the main characteristics of the baroque style was the action performed by the person depicted in the picture, and the depiction accuracy of all movements and gestures, rather than symmetry. To achieve the effect of movement and of the lively picture the artist made the picture asymmetric and imbalanced.
Important artists within the movement
Many outstanding artists are representing the style and epoch of the baroque. Every country has its masters: Italy is represented by such great artists as Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio whose subjects are depicted in an accurate realistic manner involving contrasts of darkness and light to achieve more tension; the Flemish art of the baroque style is represented by the works of a marvelous painter Peter Paul Rubens whose pictures are defined by the choice of colors as the whole style depicted images in true to nature colors; the region of the Netherlands is represented by the great painters Rembrandt Van Rijn who was claimed to prefer ugliness because of his realistic depiction of people and Jan Vermeer whose “Girl with a Pearl Earring” is one of the best examples of the European art of the baroque epoch; and France is represented by the artist Nicolas Poussin, whose natural landscapes seem to be organized in the way to reach the harmonious look, which, I think, is not very typical of the baroque style (Horstman 114-115).
Thus there are a great number of important artists within the movement of the baroque. The style has its representatives in all the leading countries of that period, which lasted from the late sixteenth century and ended in the early eighteenth century. The movement had leading artists in Italy (Michelangelo Merisi-Caravaggio, Guido Reni, Annibale Carracci); France (Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin, Jean Clonet); Spain (Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez, Juzepe de Ribera); Germany (Georg Flegel); the Netherlands including Flemish artists(Peter Paul Rubens, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Vermeer); England (Jeremiah Meyer, Samuel Cooper). “The art of the baroque is the product of an age in which a new and optimistic equilibrium of religious and secular forces is achieved” (Nash 55). The distinctive features of the pictures painted according to the baroque style were extravagance, intricacy, the role of movement and gesture, the contrast of light and darkness.
Works Cited
“Baroque: Main Representatives”. HuntFor.com. 2007. Web.
“Baroque.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Web.
Horstman, Allen, and William H. Burnside. The Essentials of European History: 1648 to 1789, Bourbon, Baroque, and Enlightenment / William H. Burnside. New Jersey: Research & Education Assoc., 1990.
Maravall, Jose Antonio. Culture of the Baroque: Analysis of a Historical Structure. United Kingdom: Manchester University Press ND, 1986.
Nash, A. Steven, and California Palace of the Legion of Honor, and Lynn Federle Orr, and Marion C. Stewart. Masterworks of European painting in the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. New York: Hudson Hills, 1999.