Baroque Art

In fine art, the term Baroque (derived from the Portuguese 'barocco' meaning, 'irregular pearl or stone') describes a fairly complex idiom, originating in Rome, which flowered during the period c.1590-1720, and which embraced painting, and sculpture as well as architecture. After the idealism of the Renaissance (c.1400-1530), and the slightly 'forced' nature of Mannerism (c.1530-1600), Baroque art above all reflected the religious tensions of the age - notably the desire of the Catholic Church in Rome (as annunciated at the Council of Trent, 1545-63) to reassert itself in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. Thus it is almost synonymous with Catholic Counter-Reformation Art of the period.

Many Catholic Emperors and monarchs across Europe had an important stake in the Catholic Church's success, hence a large number of architectural designs, paintings and sculptures were commissioned by the Royal Courts of Spain, France, and elsewhere - in parallel to the overall campaign of Catholic Christian art, pursued by the Vatican - in order to glorify their own divine grandeur, and in the process strengthen their political position. By comparison, Baroque art in Protestant areas like Holland had far less religious content, and instead was designed essentially to appeal to the growing aspirations of the merchant and middle classes.



Styles/Types of Baroque Art

In order to fulfill its propagandist role, Catholic-inspired Baroque art tended to be large-scale works of public art, such as monumental wall-paintings and huge frescoes for the ceilings and vaults of palaces and churches. Baroque painting illustrated key elements of Catholic dogma, either directly in Biblical works or indirectly in mythological or allegorical compositions. Along with this monumental, high-minded approach, painters typically portrayed a strong sense of movement, using swirling spirals and upward diagonals, and strong sumptuous colour schemes, in order to dazzle and surprise. New techniques of tenebrism and chiaroscuro were developed to enhance atmosphere. Brushwork is creamy and broad, often resulting in thick impasto. However, the theatricality and melodrama of Baroque painting was not well received by later critics, like the influential John Ruskin (1819-1900), who considered it insincere. Baroque sculpture, typically larger-than-life size, is marked by a similar sense of dynamic movement, along with an active use of space.

Baroque architecture was designed to create spectacle and illusion. Thus the straight lines of the Renaissance were replaced with flowing curves, while domes/roofs were enlarged, and interiors carefully constructed to produce spectacular effects of light and shade. It was an emotional style, which, wherever possible, exploited the theatrical potential of the urban landscape - as illustrated by St Peter's Square (1656-67) in Rome, leading up to St Peter's Basilica. Its designer, Bernini, one of the greatest Baroque architects, ringed the square with colonnades, to convey the impression to visitors that they are being embraced by the arms of the Catholic Church.

Minimalism

Minimalism emerged in New York in the early 1960s among artists who were self-consciously renouncing recent art they thought had become stale and academic. A wave of new influences and rediscovered styles led younger artists to question conventional boundaries between various media. The new art favored the cool over the "dramatic": their sculptures were frequently fabricated from industrial materials and emphasized anonymity over the expressive excess of Abstract Expressionism. Painters and sculptors avoided overt symbolism and emotional content, but instead called attention to the materiality of the works. By the end of the 1970s, Minimalism had triumphed in America and Europe through a combination of forces including museum curators, art dealers, and publications, plus new systems of private and government patronage. And members of a new movement, Post-Minimalism, were already challenging its authority and were thus a testament to how important Minimalism itself became.

Die (1962)
Artist: Tony Smith
Artwork description & Analysis: The artist's specifications for the sculpture were as follows: "a six-foot cube of quarter-inch hot-rolled steel with diagonal internal bracing." The dimensions were determined, according to Tony Smith, by the proportions of the human body. Smith explained that a larger scale would have endowed Die with the stature of a "monument," while a smaller one would have reduced it to a mere "object." Weighing approximately 500 pounds and resting on the museum floor, the sculpture invites us to walk around it and experience it sequentially, one or two sides at a time. Like other examples of Minimalism, its unreadable surface and frank lack of visual appeal come across as almost hostile in its undermining of traditional understandings of art as something aesthetically or emotionally appealing, showing the artist's rejection of Abstraction Expressionism's hands-on approach to art making.

The sculpture's deceptively simple title invites multiple associations: it alludes to die casting, to one of a pair of dice, and, ultimately, to death. As Smith remarked, "Six feet has a suggestion of being cooked. Six foot box. Six foot under." Rationality, evoked by Die's purely geometric configuration, is countered by the sculpture's brooding presence. Meaning becomes relative rather than absolute, something generated through the interplay of word and object. Weaving together strains of architecture, industrial manufacture, and the found object, Smith radically transformed the way sculpture could look, how it could be made, and, ultimately, how it could be understood.
Steel - National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Bauhaus

The Bauhaus was the most influential modernist art school of the 20th century, one whose approach to teaching, and understanding art's relationship to society and technology, had a major impact both in Europe and the United States long after it closed. It was shaped by the 19th and early 20th centuries trends such as Arts and Crafts movement, which had sought to level the distinction between fine and applied arts, and to reunite creativity and manufacturing. This is reflected in the romantic medievalism of the school's early years, in which it pictured itself as a kind of medieval crafts guild. But in the mid 1920s the medievalism gave way to a stress on uniting art and industrial design, and it was this which ultimately proved to be its most original and important achievement. The school is also renowned for its faculty, which included artists Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers, László Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee and Johannes Itten, architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and designer Marcel Breuer.

Model No. MT 49 (1927)

Artist: Marianne Brandt

Artwork description & Analysis: An understanding of fundamental geometric forms lies behind this design, resulting in a tea-pot which is less a feat of fine craftsmanship than a demonstration of how basic forms can be combined to produce beautiful objects for everyday use. The simple elegance of Brandt's tea infuser exemplifies the functionality of Bauhaus design. As the sole woman in the metal workshop, Brandt mastered the art of design through the experimental Bauhaus philosophy and approach. The semi-circle handle and silver cylindrical spout are inventive in design and can be reproduced with ease.

Silver plated brass and ebony - The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Renaissance art

Renaissance art, painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and literature produced during the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries in Europe under the combined influences of an increased awareness of nature, a revival of classical learning, and a more individualistic view of man. Scholars no longer believe that the Renaissance marked an abrupt break with medieval values, as is suggested by the French word renaissance, literally “rebirth.” Rather, historical sources suggest that interest in nature, humanistic learning, and individualism were already present in the late medieval period and became dominant in 15th- and 16th-century Italy concurrently with social and economic changes such as the secularization of daily life, the rise of a rational money-credit economy, and greatly increased social mobility.

In Italy the Renaissance proper was preceded by an important “proto-renaissance” in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, which drew inspiration from Franciscan radicalism. St. Francis had rejected the formal Scholasticism of the prevailing Christian theology and gone out among the poor praising the beauties and spiritual value of nature. His example inspired Italian artists and poets to take pleasure in the world around them. The most famous artist of the proto-renaissance period, Giotto di Bondone (1266/67 or 1276–1337), reveals a new pictorial style that depends on clear, simple structure and great psychological penetration rather than on the flat, linear decorativeness and hierarchical compositions of his predecessors and contemporaries, such as the Florentine painter Cimabue and the Siennese painters Duccio and Simone Martini. The great poet Dante lived at about the same time as Giotto, and his poetry shows a similar concern with inward experience and the subtle shades and variations of human nature. Although his Divine Comedy belongs to the Middle Ages in its plan and ideas, its subjective spirit and power of expression look forward to the Renaissance. Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio also belong to this proto-renaissance period, both through their extensive studies of Latin literature and through their writings in the vernacular. Unfortunately, the terrible plague of 1348 and subsequent civil wars submerged both the revival of humanistic studies and the growing interest in individualism and naturalism revealed in the works of Giotto and Dante. The spirit of the Renaissance did not surface again until the beginning of the 15th century.

Lamentation, fresco by Giotto, c. 1305–06; in the Arena Chapel, Padua, Italy.

SCALA/Art Resource, New York

Ghiberti, Lorenzo: Gates of Paradise

Gates of Paradise, gilded bronze doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti, 1425–52; on the east side of the Baptistery of San Giovanni in Florence.

SuperStock

Medieval Art

There are many types of medieval arts. In fact, medieval art has continually advanced throughout medieval times. Some of these advances were brought about by the emergence of the Pre-Renaissance period whose early subjects were restricted to religious artworks called Pietistic paintings that also came in different forms such as illuminated manuscripts, mosaics and fresco paintings and were to be found in churches.

In an attempt to specify the types of medieval arts, historians tried to classify them according to major periods of the middle ages as well as style. The generally accepted classifications were early Christian art, Migration Period art, Byzantine art, Insular art, Pre-Romanesque, Romanesque and Gothic art. Other classifications were based on nations and cultures that had their own distinctive style. These types of medieval arts included the Anglo-Saxon art and Norse art.

Medieval Art :-

Types of Medieval Art
Byzantine Art
Romanesque Art
Gothic Art
Illuminated Manuscripts
Early Christian Art
Meaning of Colors in Christian Art


Famous Artists :-

Donatello
Giotto
Leon Battista Alberti
Cimabue Filippo Brunelleschi
Fra Angelico
Lorenzo Ghiberti
Hildegard of Bingen
Art and Famous Artists of the Middle Ages

example of stained glass in church: