Baroque is the artistic and architectural style that was born in Rome at the beginning of the 17th century and spread throughout Catholic Europe: a visual language built around drama, movement and the contrast between light and shadow, designed to impress before convincing with reason.
Why Baroque was born
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Catholic Church had survived the Protestant Reformation, but with deep scars: half of Europe had migrated to Protestantism, and the pope's authority was in question. The answer came on two fronts. A doctrinal one, the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which redefined dogmas and disciplined the clergy. Another aesthetic: building Rome in such an overwhelmingly beautiful way that anyone who saw it would understand, with their eyes, and not with their reason, that it was the center of the world. Baroque is that second answer.
The language of power that needs to impress
Baroque can be described as the visual language of a power that can no longer simply order, and therefore needs to impress. Where the Renaissance sought order, proportion and balance, the Baroque seeks movement, tension and emotional involvement of the viewer. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, working for seven consecutive popes over almost sixty years, was mainly responsible for writing this language in marble, square and colonnade, with St. Peter's Square as his synthesis.
How to recognize Baroque
A baroque work calculates the effect on whoever observes it: the light that enters at a certain angle, the path that takes the gaze, the moment in which the viewer is left speechless. It is an art of complete experience, not distant contemplation, and so it continues to influence, to this day, any space designed to provoke emotion before argument.
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What is Baroque?
It is the artistic and architectural style born in Rome in the 17th century, marked by drama, movement, contrast of light and shadow and projects that involve the viewer emotionally, not just visually. Bernini is its main sculptor and architect.
What is the origin of Baroque?
It was born as a response by the Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation. After the Council of Trent (1545-1563), which redefined the doctrine, the Church also opted for an aesthetic response, building Rome in such an overwhelmingly beautiful way that any visitor could understand, with their eyes, the power that resided there.
What is the difference between Renaissance and Baroque?
The Renaissance seeks order, proportion and balance; Baroque seeks movement, drama and emotional involvement. Where the Renaissance invites serene contemplation, the Baroque invites intense experience.
Continue on the Bernini cluster: Who was Bernini? · Apollo and Daphne, by Bernini, and Ovid · Galleria Borghese and Bernini
Source class (YouTube): Quem foi Bernini? (NousCast)