Of Popes, Peasants,

Monarchs, and Merchants: Baroque Art

17th and Early 18th Centuries in the West

Europe in the 17th Century, after the treaty of Westphalia in 1648 ended the 30-Year War. Europe’s power, trade, and financial markets are now world wide.

Latin America, a great source of wealth for Europe, especially Spain, was the main destination of the millions of people enslaved and taken out of Africa between 1500 and

1850. The U.S. received about 523,000 enslaved immigrants. Cuba alone got more. Spanish America absorbed around 1.5 million and Brazil at least 3.5 million. Their

descendants form about half of the population in the Caribbean and Brazil – the two historic centers of sugar production.

GIANLORENZO BERNINI (Italian, 1598-1680), David, 1623. Marble, approx. 5’ 7” high. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

Bernini was influenced by Hellenistic sculpture like this one, The Dying Gaul, c. 200 BC. (Roman copy),

GIANLORENZO BERNINI (Italian, 1598-1680), David, 1623. Marble, approx. 5’ 7” high. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

Diskobolos, 5th c. Roman copy of Greek original Michelangelo,

Bound Slave, c. 1513

MICHELANGELO, David, 1501–1504. Marble, 13’ 5” high.

DONATELLO, David, 1420s-1450s, bronze,

5’ 2” high. First freestanding nude since antiquity

BERNINI (Italian, 1598-1680), David, 1623. Marble, approx. 5’ 7” high. Galleria Borghese, Rome.

BERNINI, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, Italy, 1645–1652. Marble, height of group 11’ 6”.

Detail: face of Teresa

Cornaro family busts in niches on sides, praying devoutly and acting as witnesses to the holy drama.

Teresa is experiencing a transfiguring coma, the so-called “Sleep of God,” described by mystics, in which a glimpse of Heaven’s glory is received. Mystics like Teresa would pray for days, often unfed, to achieve such visions.

CARAVAGGIO (Michelangelo Merisi, Italian, 1573-1610), Conversion of Saint Paul, Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, Italy, ca. 1601. Oil on canvas, approx. 7’ 6” x 5’ 9”.

Use of perspective, low horizon line, and tenebrism brings the viewer into the experience.

Theatricality is a hallmark of the Baroque.

CARAVAGGIO, Calling of Saint Matthew, Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, Italy, ca. 1597–1601. Oil on canvas, 11’ 1” x 11’ 5”.

What role doeslight play in thispainting?

Detail from The Creationof Adam, Michelangelo,Sistine Chapel, c. 1511

ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI (Italian, 1593-1653), Judith Slaying Holofernes, ca. 1614–1620. Oil on canvas, 6’ 6 1/3” x 5’ 4”. Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

“Caravaggista” theatricality,

tenebrism and drama

Poor restoration hasRemoved the furrows fromthe women's foreheads that indicated intense concentration and effort.

Compare (left) Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes (1614-29) and Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes 1598-1599.

PIETRO DA CORTONA (Italian, 1596-1669), Triumph of the Barberini, ceiling fresco in the Gran Salone, Palazzo Barberini, Rome, Italy, 1633–1639.

DIEGO VELÁZQUEZ (Spain, 1599-1660), Water Carrier of Seville, ca. 1619 (The artist was around 20 years old.), Oil on canvas, 3’ 5 1/2” x 2’ 7 1/2”. Wellington Museum, London. Shows influence of Caravaggio.

Know term: genre

DIEGO VELÁZQUEZ, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), 1656. Oil on canvas, approx. 10’ 5” x 9’. Museo del Prado, Madrid.

DIEGO VELÁZQUEZ, Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), 1656. Oil on canvas, approx. 10’ 5” x 9’. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Is this tenebrism?

CARAVAGGIO, Calling of Saint Matthew, Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, Italy, ca. 1597–1601. Oil on canvas, 11’ 1” x 11’ 5”.

Compare the representation and role of light in Caravaggio and Velazquez.

Self-portrait of Diego Velázquez – a detail in Las Meninas. He is wearing the cross of the Order of Santiago that he was awarded in 1659. According to legend, the king himself painted the cross.

PETER PAUL RUBENS (Flemish, 1577-1640), Arrival of Marie de’ Medici at Marseilles, 1622–1625. Oil on canvas, approx. 5’ 1” x 3’ 9 1/2”. Louvre, Paris. One of 21 vast canvases for the queen’s new Luxembourg palace in Paris.

Ostentation and elaborate spectacle

REMBRANDT VAN RIJN (Dutch, 1606-1669), The Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq (Night Watch), 1642. Oil on canvas (cropped from original size), 11’ 11” x 14’ 4”. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

REMBRANDT VAN RIJN, Self-Portrait, ca. 1659–1660. Oil on canvas, approx. 3’ 8 3/4” x 3’ 1”. Kenwood House, London.

How is light used for psychological purposes?

Rembrandt, Self Portrait, 1629 (23 years old)

What formalmeans doesRembrandt useto focus our attention on theface?

Rembrandt, Self-Portrait, 1640, National Gallery, London

Is this really by Rembrandt? Read “Assessing Authenticity:The Rembrandt Research Project.”

REMBRANDT VAN RIJN, Christ with the Sick around Him, Receiving the Children (Hundred Guilder Print), ca. 1649. Etching, approx. 11” x 1’ 3 1/4”. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.

How is an etchingmade and when wasthe medium invented?

What possibilities didit open up for the artmarket?

JAN VERMEER (Dutch, 1632-1735), Girl With a Pearl Earring, circa 1665-1675, oil on canvas, 17.5 x 15 inches. Mauritshuis, The Hague, Called “the Dutch Mona Lisa.” Vermeer’s famous blue is ultramarine blue made from crushed lapis lazuli.

Vermeer’s paintingsare intimate in scale

JAN VERMEER, Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664; Oil on canvas, 40.3 x 35.6 cm; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Protestant piety and prosperity

JAN VERMEER, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, c. 1664-65; Oil on canvas, 18 X 16 in. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

JAN VERMEER, Allegory of the Art of Painting, 1670–1675. Oil on canvas, 4’ 4” x 3’ 8”. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Vermeer’s possible use of the camera obscura

First representation of aCamera obscura, 1544

JAN VERMEER, Allegory of the Art of Painting, 1670–1675.

HYACINTHE RIGAUD (French, 1659-1743) Louis XIV, 1701. Oil on canvas, approx. 9’ 2” x 6’ 3”. Louvre, Paris.

Art in the service ofAbsolutism: “The Sun King”

Aerial view of palace at Versailles, France, begun 1669, and a portion of the gardens and surrounding area.

Plan of the park, palace, and town of Versailles, France, (after a seventeenth-century engraving).

JULES HARDOUIN-MANSART and CHARLES LE BRUN, Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors), palace of Versailles, Versailles, France, ca. 1680.

Making nature into art – Gardens of Versailles

NICOLAS POUSSIN (French, 1594-1665) Et in Arcadia Ego (Even in Arcadia I am present), ca. 1655. Oil on canvas, approx. 2’ 10” x 4’. Louvre, Paris. Classicism aims at “evenness and moderation in all things.” (Poussin)

NICOLAS POUSSIN, Burial of Phocion, 1648. Oil on canvas, approx. 3’ 11” x 5’ 10”. Louvre, Paris. From Plutarch’s Life of Phocion (an Athenian general). A noble landscape for a noble theme – the “Grand manner”

LOUIS LE NAIN (French, ca. 1592-1635) , Family of Country People, ca. 1640. Oil on canvas, approx. 3’ 8” x 5’ 2”. Louvre, Paris. Genre scene painted during the 30 years war (1618-1648) between the Hapsburg dynasty, Bourbon dynasty of France, and the Holy Roman Empire. The armies lived off the land and caused much suffering among the people.

JACQUES CALLOT (Duchy of Lorraine, 1592-1635), Hanging Tree, from the Large Miseries of War series, 1633. Etching, 3 3/4” x 7 1/4”. Bibiliothèque Nationale, Paris.