Baroque Art Essay, Research Paper

12/10/99

World CulturesBaroque Art Essay

During the Baroque period, new ideas and views of society and of religion spurred up. To express these new ideas many artists used the ideas of past artists to further expand their own motives. ” If I have seen further (than you and Descartes), it is by standing upon the shoulders of Giants.” Sir Isaac Newton, 1676

The artists of the baroque period were using past ideals as a ladder to the prevalent and the gallant. Four pieces of art that exceplified the usage of the great minds of the past were; The Rape of the Sabine Women by Nicholas Poussin, The east fa?ade of the Louvre Palace, The View of Delft by Jan Vermeer and The Palace of Versailles.

The magnificent artwork of Nicholas Poussin shows the mixture of Roman architecture and ideas. He copied the body sculptures and the basilicas of ancient Rome and added them to his medium of oil. Poussin traveled to Roman museums for inspiration and models. In The Rape of the Sabine Women, he shows how he balanced his art by carefully arranging opposites. Since he used statues for models, the people in his painting look to be chiseled and very statuesque. Poussin also uses a background of a Roman city to further enhance his love for the classical world. He sought for permanent in the momentary and the universal in the individual.

Many artists of the time turned to classical Greece and Rome for their ideas. Another prime example is the East Fa?ade of the Louvre Palace in Paris, France. KING LOUIS XIV originally commissioned this piece of work to Gianlorenzo Bernini in 1665. The king’s finance minister felt ” it left the king housed no better than before.” so his plan was rejected and a French architect named Claude Perrault was appointed to finish the job. This palace had to grand enough for the “sun-king”, so Perrault used classical influences to achieve the proper grandness fit for a king. He used a long Corinthian colonnade, friezes, and pilasters. This acted as a restraining influence to the baroque ideas of the time.

Greek and Roman art influenced many Europeans, especially the monarchs of the time. No monarch showed that better than King Louis XIV of France. His rule of France’s nobles required a large palace to be built to accommodate and preoccupy the people that could have threatened his absolute power. During his rule he added the Hall of Mirrors, four large wings, stables, and a chapel to the Versailles Palace. The palace contains hundreds of Corinthian columns and pilasters. The columns are ornately decorated with gold leaf and colorful paints. This palace is an incorporation of grandiose baroque ideas and elegant classical ideas. The building is symmetrical, logical and is an application of absolute space composition.

As many architects went to classical ideals, many painters revived Renaissance ideals. In the View of Delft, Jan Vermeer shows the ideas of landscape and perspective that were discovered during the Renaissance. This painting is unique because it has no single vanishing point and its pictorial space is in a horizontal sweep. The light in this painting is coming from a cloudy sky that is dispersing it unevenly throughout the town landscape. Using this light method, the city’s buildings are colored by different shades of the sunlight. Vermeer added his own inventive subjects as well as past ideas to his paintings.

The Baroque period illustrated the respect and the love for classical art forms as well as other past forms. It was a melting pot of classical and baroque ideas that further expanded the arts and ideas of the world. Using past ideas along with current original ideas can make a new art form. The Baroque period was the epitome of this ideal and showed it very well with its excellent architecture, paintings, and sculptures.