Baroque

Baroque period

The Baroque period was an age of continuous warfare and tension, of upheavals and tragic events that culminated in 1789 with the French Revolution. Traditional ideas were being questioned and overturned, and a sense of crisis was spreading. Men and women of surging ambition battled for position on a chessboard that now extended from Russia to the United States, while economic and social disparities were growing throughout Europe.
Perhaps the most surprising development of this turbulent time was Baroque art, the most fabulous and opulent style in the long history of Europe's figurative arts.

Baroque art

Baroque art took hold during the same years that the world's expanding economies were laying the basis for the age of capitalism and crowned heads built residences of incomparable grandiosity. It was an age of fascinating richness in all the fields of the arts. There was an intense circulation of ideas, and while new national schools took form - heralding Golden Ages in may countries, such as that of Rembrandt in the Netherlands or Velázquez in Spain - a certain style became common throughout Europe. Great masters, such as Caravaggio, Bernini, Poussin, and Rubens, became points of reference for the figurative arts all across the continent.

Painting and theater

Painting alternated between references to the chiaroscuro and realism of Caravaggio and La Tour and a more purely "baroque" use of fantasy and color; architecture oscillated between the opposite poles of courageous inventiveness and reliance on the rigors of classical antiquity, and the construction of the royal palace and garden of Versailles established a model that all the ruling houses of Europe sought to emulate.
In theater, the most spectacular aspects of the stage came to dominate the taste of the period, becoming the models for figurative and architectural expression. If the goal of Baroque art was to "amaze" the viewer, it was the world of the theater that provided its most successful special effects.

Historical and artistic story

This historical and artistic story is lushly illustrated with works by the greatest artists of the period - such as Bernini, Boucher, Caravaggio, Gainsborough, Hals, Hogarth, Poussin, Rembrandt, Rubens - along with works by minor artists who made important contributions. This volume includes a chronological table to guide the reader through one of the most dramatic periods of history, brief biographies of the artists, a bibliography; and an index. Together these resources make this exceptionally well researched volume an essential introduction to one of the most fascinating periods in art history.

Francesca Castria Marchetti

Francesca Castria Marchetti is an art historian and graduate of the University of Rome, where she studied art and literature. She has written an edited many books on Italian painting, modern painting, and baroque painting. Francesca Castria Marchetti is also the author and editor of American Painting (2002).

Rosa Giorgi

Rosa Giorgi is an art historian who specializes in iconography and iconology; in addition to writing, she teaches at the Catholic University and at the Brera Picture Gallery, in Milan. She is involved with many arts organizations including the Italian fine arts commission. The most recent publications of Rosa Giorgi include books on Caravaggio, Velazquez, and El Greco.

Stefano Zuffi

Stefano Zuffi, renowned art historian, has written and edited many books on cultural subjects, with a particular focus on Renaissance and Baroque art, his books have been translated in many languages. For the Masterpieces of Art series Stefano Zuffi prepared the volumes on Italian painting, Renaissance painting, Baroque painting, modern painting, the still-life, the portrait, art and eroticism, and the atlas of painting.

Baroque by Fransesca Castria Marchetti, Stefano Zuffi and Stefano Zuffi
ISBN: 0760773335