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Baroque and Rococo
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Baroque and Rococo
Art Map |
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ARTISTIC REVIVALS
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There are numerous examples of great masters who were
undervalued in their day, and even those appreciated by their
contemporaries gained greater stature when re-assessed with
hindsight. In the second half of the 16th century, a time when
art was in a state of turmoil as Mannerism gave way to the
Baroque, three outstanding painters with very distinctive styles
ventured beyond the tastes of their age to experiment with new
techniques, shapes, colours, and lighting effects that would
only be fully appreciated much later. Today, they are held in
much higher esteem than they were during their lifetimes.
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TINTORETTO
Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto (1518-94), spent almost all
his life in his native city of Venice. He worked in Titian's
workshop for a short time, but had no particularly influential
teachers. He was inspired by Michelangelo's grand manner and by
Jacopo Pontormo's handling of light, and his work shows a
typically Venetian sense of space and colour. His rapid,
sweeping brushstrokes and the speed at which he worked can be
seen in the great cycle of sacred paintings in the Scuola Grande
di San Rocco (begun 1564), in those in the Doges' Palace, and in
his large paintings in the church of the Madonna dell'Orto and
the Scuola Grande di San Marco. Each of his versions of The Last
Supper is unique, while his dazzlingly accomplished battle
scenes, his remarkable portraits with their striking immediacy,
and the beautiful women in his Susanna and the Elders (c. 1556)
and Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (1545-48) illustrate
his amazing versatility. In order to increase the dramatic
impact of his paintings and to capture the complex poses of his
figures, Tintoretto prearranged his compositions using small wax
models on a stage and experimented with lamps to achieve
striking chiaroscuro contrasts.
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Tintoretto
The Last Supper
(detail)
1578-81
Scuola di San Rocco, Venice
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VERONESE
Paolo Caliari, known as Veronese (1528-88), was a native of
Verona but moved to Venice at the age of 28. Having seen works
by Giulio Romano in Mantua and studied paintings by Parmigianino,
he had already developed his own distinctive brand of
classicism; balanced and harmonious in composition, but with a
lively, often festive, content and an ability to combine
anecdotal incidents with a calm sense of dignity. His wall and
ceiling frescos in the Palladian Villa Barbero at Maser, near
Treviso, show views of the surrounding countryside and
architecture populated by youthful aristocratic and divine
figures. The licence he took with sacred subjects such as a
scene commissioned for the refectory of the convent of Santi
Giovanni e Paolo — Feast in the House of Levi (1573) — attracted
censure from the Inquisition. He was asked to account for the
presence of ''buffoons, drunkards, dwarfs...and similar
vulgarities". This and his other large religious feast scenes
painted during the 1560s, his Allegories of Love (c.1575)
painted for Emperor Rudolph II. and his many historical and
mythological paintings provide a fascinating panorama of one of
the most dazzling social milieux of the age. In contrast to
Tintoretto's religious intensity. Veronese excelled at depicting
the theatrical splendour of Venice in its Golden Age.
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Veronese
The Allegory of Love
1570
National Gallery, London
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EL GRECO
Domenicos Theotokopoulos, or El Greco (1541—1614), was born on
the island of Crete, which was then a Venetian territory and
home to a flourishing school of icon painters. He later moved to
Venice and is thought to have been a pupil of Titian, although
his work shows more of Tintoretto's influence; on a visit to
Rome, he saw both Michelangelo's frescos and Raphael's
paintings. He then moved to Spain in about 1575 and lived in
Toledo until his death. Like Tintoretto, he tried out his ideas
with model figures and a miniature stage before starting to
paint. His dramas were those of a mystic religiosity tinged with
suffering, which prefigure the Baroque, although his elongated
shapes were more Byzantine than Mannerist. His tense scenes shot
through with shafts of light are reminiscent of another solitary
artist, Lelio Orsi (1511-87), while the energetic handling of
his sitters anticipates Velazquez' portraits. Such masterpieces
as The Burial of Count Orgaz (1586), The Resurrection (1605-10),
Adoration of the Shepherds (1612-14), and Pentecost (1600-10)
illustrate his rejection of both classic and naturalistic
styles. His chilling Portrait of a Cardinal was to inspire
Francis Bacon and other modern artists.
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El Greco
The Burial of the Count of Orgaz
1586-88
Santo Tome, Toledo
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PRAGUE DURING THE REIGN OF RUDOLPH II
Rudolph II of Hapsburg (King of Bohemia 1575-1611. and emperor
1576—1612) gathered together a prodigious collection of paintings,
sculptures, and objets d'art in Prague Castle and surrounded himself
with artists from all over Europe. Goldsmiths, gemstone cutters such
as Ottavio Miseroni, and painters, including Hans von Aachen
(1552—1615), Bartholomaeus Spranger from Antwerp, Joseph Heintz of
Basel, and Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527-93) from Milan, nibbed
shoulders with sculptors such as Adriaen de Vries from Holland, a
pupil of Giambologna. The result was a tremendous flowering of
culture at the court and the production of some of the most
outstanding examples of international Mannerism.
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Giuseppe Arcimboldo
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Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Rudolf II as Vertumnus
c.1591
Skokloster
Castle, Sweden
This strange Mannerist painter outrageously combines
and subverts conventions
of both imperial portraiture and still
life.
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Hans von Aachen
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Hans von Aachen
Allegory of Peace,
Happiness and the Arts
1602
State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
A court painter from 1592
onwards, this artist also found favour with Rudolf II's successor,
the Emperor Matthias.
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Bartholomaeus Spranger
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Venus and Vulcan
c. 1610
Oil on canvas, 140 x 95 cm
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Spranger worked first in Rome and
then from 1575 in Vienna, at the court of Maximilian II.
In 1580, he
went to Prague, where he became court painter to Rudolph It in 1581.
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