Baroque
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:''[[Baroque art]] redirects here. Please disambiguate such links to [[Baroque painting]], [[Baroque sculpture]], etc.''
[[Image:Rubens Adoration.jpg|thumb|right|upright|''Adoration,'' by [[Peter Paul Rubens]]. Dynamic figures spiral down around a void: draperies blow: a whirl of movement lit in a shaft of light, rendered in a free bravura handling of paint.]]
[[Image:Sant'Andrea.jpg|thumb|right|upright|The Church of [[Sant'Andrea al Quirinale]], designed by [[Gian Lorenzo Bernini]], is a very good example of Baroque architecture with its domed roof and curved contours, and is also a fine example of Baroque painting with the shown altar, which portrays a very dramatized painting of Saint Andrew being crucified.]]
In the [[the arts|arts]], the '''Baroque''' (pronounced /bə'rɒk/) was a Western cultural epoch, commencing roughly at the turn of the [[17th century]] in [[Rome]], [[Italy]]. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in [[Baroque sculpture|sculpture]], [[Baroque painting|painting]], [[literature]], [[Baroque dance|dance]], and [[Baroque music|music]].{{Failed verification|date=June 2008}}<!--Reference to Claude Palisca's article, "Baroque", in Grove Online, removed: Palisca nowhere mentions "grandeur" or "drama", nor does he discuss sculpture, painting, literature, or dance.-->
The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged by the [[Roman Catholic Church]] which had decided at the time of the [[Council of Trent]] that the arts should communicate religious themes in direct and emotional involvement<ref>Helen Gardner, Fred S. Kleiner, and Christin J. Mamiya, "Gardner's Art Through the Ages" (Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005){{Fact|date=June 2008}}<!--Page number needed. This book has 1150 pages, plus 29 pages of front matter.--></ref>. The [[nobility|aristocracy]] also saw the dramatic style of Baroque architecture and art as a means of impressing visitors and expressing triumphant power and control. Baroque palaces are built around an entrance of courts, grand staircases and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence. In similar profusions of detail, art, music, architecture, and literature inspired each other in the Baroque [[cultural movement]]{{Fact|date=August 2007}} as artists explored what they could create from repeated and varied patterns. Some traits and aspects of Baroque paintings that differentiate this style from others are the abundant amount of details, often bright polychromy, less realistic faces of subjects, and an overall sense of awe, which was one of the goals in Baroque art.{{Fact|date=June 2008}}
According to the [[Oxford English Dictionary]], the word ''baroque'' is derived from the Portuguese word "barroco", Spanish "barrueco", or French "baroque", all of which refer to a "rough or imperfect pearl", though whether it entered those languages via Latin, Arabic, or some other source is uncertain.<ref>OED Online. Accessed 6 June 2008</ref> In informal usage, the word ''baroque'' can simply mean that something is "elaborate", with many details, without reference to the Baroque styles of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
==Evolution of the Baroque==
Beginning around the year 1600, the demands for new art resulted in what is now known as the Baroque. The canon promulgated at the [[Council of Trent]] (1545–63) by which the [[Roman Catholic Church]] addressed the representational arts by demanding that paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather than to the well-informed, is customarily offered as an inspiration of the Baroque, which appeared, however, a generation later. This turn toward a populist conception of the function of ecclesiastical art is seen by many [[Art history|art historians]] as driving the innovations of [[Michelangelo Merisi|Caravaggio]] and the [[Carracci]] brothers, all of whom were working in Rome at that time.
[[Image:BarocciAeneas.jpg|thumb|''Aeneas flees burning Troy,'' [[Federico Barocci]], 1598: a moment caught in a dramatic action from a classical source, bursting from the picture plane in a sweeping diagonal perspective.]] The appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of [[16th century]] [[Mannerism|Mannerist]] art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an [[iconography]] that was direct, simple, obvious, and dramatic. Baroque art drew on certain broad and heroic tendencies in [[Annibale Carracci]] and his circle, and found inspiration in other artists such as [[Michelangelo Merisi|Caravaggio]], and [[Federico Barocci]] nowadays sometimes termed 'proto-Baroque'.
<!-- Unsourced image removed: [[Image:Adampromethe.jpg|thumb|right|''Prometheus'', by [[Nicolas-Sébastien Adam]], 1737 ([[Louvre Museum|Louvre]]): a hectic tour-de-force of violent contrasts of stress, multiple angles and viewpoints, and extreme emotion.]] -->
Germinal ideas of the Baroque can also be found in the work of [[Michelangelo Buonarroti|Michelangelo]] and [[Antonio da Correggio|Correggio]].
Some general parallels in music make the expression "Baroque music" useful. Contrasting phrase lengths, harmony and [[counterpoint]] ousted [[polyphony]], and orchestral color made a stronger appearance. (See [[Baroque music]].) Similar fascination with simple, strong, dramatic expression in poetry, where clear, broad syncopated rhythms replaced the enknotted elaborated metaphysical similes employed by [[Mannerism|Mannerists]] such as [[John Donne]] and imagery that was strongly influenced by visual developments in painting, can be sensed in [[John Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]],'' a Baroque epic.
Though Baroque was superseded in many centers by the [[Rococo]] style, beginning in [[Early Modern France|France]] in the late 1720s, especially for interiors, paintings and the decorative arts, Baroque architecture remained a viable style until the advent of [[Neoclassicism]] in the later 18th century. A prominent example, the Neapolitan [[Caserta Palace|palace of Caserta]], a Baroque palace (though in a chaste exterior) that was not even begun until 1752. Critics have given up talking about a "Baroque ''period''."
In paintings, Baroque gestures are broader than Mannerist gestures: less ambiguous, less arcane and mysterious, more like the stage gestures of [[opera]], a major Baroque artform. Baroque poses depend on ''[[contrapposto]]'' ("counterpoise"), the tension within the figures that moves the planes of shoulders and hips in counterdirections. It made the sculptures almost seem like they were about to move. See Bernini's ''David'' (''below, left'').
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[Image:Berndavi.JPG|thumb|left|[[Gian Lorenzo Bernini]]'s ''David'' (1623–24): Baroque freeze-frame stopped action, ''contrapposto'' and theatrical emotion {{deletable image-caption}}]] -->
The drier, chastened, less dramatic and coloristic, later stages of [[18th century]] Baroque architectural style are often seen as a separate '''Late Baroque''' manifestation. (See [[Claude Perrault]].) Academic characteristics in the neo-[[Palladian]] architectural style, epitomized by [[William Kent]], are a parallel development in Britain and the British colonies: within doors, Kent's furniture designs are vividly influenced by the Baroque furniture of Rome and Genoa, hieratic tectonic sculptural elements meant never to be moved from their positions completing the wall elevation. Baroque is a style of unity imposed upon rich and massy detail.
The Baroque was defined by [[Heinrich Wölfflin]] as the age where the oval replaced the circle as the center of composition, balance replaced organization around a central axis, and coloristic and "painterly" effects began to become more prominent.{{Fact|date=June 2008}}<!--Presumably, this was in Renaissance und Barock, but an edition (preferably an English transwlation) needs to be specified and a page-number given. On the other hand, if this is from Principles of Art History . . .--> Art historians, often [[Protestant]] ones, have traditionally emphasized that the Baroque style evolved during a time in which the [[Roman Catholic Church]] had to react against the many revolutionary cultural movements that produced a new science and new forms of [[religion]]—the [[Reformation]]. It has been said that the monumental Baroque is a style that could give the [[Papacy]], like [[political absolutism|secular absolute monarchies]], a formal, imposing way of expression that could restore its prestige, at the point of becoming somehow symbolic of the [[Catholic Reformation]]. Whether this is the case or not, it was successfully developed in [[Rome]], where Baroque architecture widely renewed the central areas with perhaps the most important urbanistic revision during this period of time.
==Baroque painting ==
[[Image:JosefaObidos4.jpg|thumb|right|''Still-life'', by Portuguese painter [[Josefa de Óbidos]], c.[[1679]], [[Santarém, Portugal]], Municipal Library]]
{{main|Baroque painting}}
A defining statement of what ''Baroque'' signifies in painting is provided by the series of paintings executed by [[Peter Paul Rubens]] for [[Marie de Medici]] at the [[Luxembourg Palace]] in Paris (now at the [[Louvre]]) [http://www.students.sbc.edu/vandergriff04/mariedemedici.html], in which a Catholic painter satisfied a Catholic patron: Baroque-era conceptions of monarchy, iconography, handling of paint, and compositions as well as the depiction of space and movement.
There were highly diverse strands of Italian baroque painting, from [[Caravaggio]] to [[Pietro da Cortona|Cortona]]; both approaching emotive dynamism with different styles. Another frequently cited work of Baroque art is [[Bernini]]'s ''[[Saint Theresa in Ecstasy]]'' for the Cornaro chapel in Saint Maria della Vittoria, which brings together architecture, sculpture, and theater into one grand conceit [http://www.boglewood.com/cornaro/xteresa.html].
The later Baroque style gradually gave way to a more decorative [[Rococo]], which, through contrast, further defines Baroque.
The intensity and immediacy of baroque art and its individualism and detail—observed in such things as the convincing rendering of cloth and skin textures—make it one of the most compelling periods of Western art.
==Baroque sculpture ==
{{Main|Baroque sculpture}}
In Baroque sculpture, groups of figures assumed new importance, and there was a dynamic movement and energy of human forms— they spiralled around an empty central vortex, or reached outwards into the surrounding space. For the first time, Baroque sculpture often had multiple ideal viewing angles. The characteristic Baroque sculpture added extra-sculptural elements, for example, concealed lighting, or water [[fountains]]. [[Aleijadinho]] in Brazil was also one of the great names of baroque sculpture, and his master work is the set of statues of the ''Santuário de Bom Jesus de Matosinhos'' in [[Congonhas]]. The soapstone sculptures of old testament prophets around the terrace are considered amongst his finest work.
The architecture, sculpture and fountains of [[Gian Lorenzo Bernini|Bernini]] (1598–1680) give highly charged characteristics of Baroque style. Bernini was undoubtedly the most important sculptor of the Baroque period. He approached [[Michelangelo Buonarroti|Michelangelo]] in his omnicompetence: Bernini sculpted, worked as an architect, painted, wrote plays, and staged spectacles. In the late 20th century Bernini was most valued for his sculpture, both for his virtuosity in carving marble and his ability to create figures that combine the physical and the spiritual. He was also a fine sculptor of bust portraits in high demand among the powerful.
===Bernini's Cornaro chapel: the complete work of art===
A good example of Bernini's work that helps us understand the Baroque is his ''[[Ecstasy of St Theresa|St. Theresa in Ecstasy]]'' (1645–52), created for the Cornaro Chapel of the church of [[Santa Maria della Vittoria]], [[Rome]]. Bernini designed the entire chapel, a subsidiary space along the side of the church, for the Cornaro family.
[[Image:Estasi di Santa Teresa.jpg|thumb|left|160px|[[Bernini]]'s ''[[Ecstasy of St Theresa|Ecstasy of St. Teresa]]''.]]
Saint Theresa, the focal point of the chapel, is a soft white marble statue surrounded by a polychromatic marble architectural framing. This structure works to conceal a window which lights the statue from above. In shallow relief, sculpted figure-groups of the Cornaro family inhabit in opera boxes along the two side walls of the chapel. The setting places the viewer as a spectator in front of the statue with the Cornaro family leaning out of their box seats and craning forward to see the mystical ecstasy of the saint. St. [[Theresa]] is highly idealized and in an imaginary setting. St. [[Theresa of Avila]], a popular saint of the [[Catholic Reformation]], wrote of her mystical experiences aimed at the nuns of her [[Carmelite Order]]; these writings had become popular reading among lay people interested in pursuing spirituality. In her writings, she described the love of God as piercing her heart like a burning arrow. Bernini literalizes this image by placing St. Theresa on a cloud while a Cupid figure holds a golden arrow (the arrow is made of metal) and smiles down at her. The angelic figure is not preparing to plunge the arrow into her heart— rather, he has withdrawn it. St. Theresa's face reflects not the anticipation of ecstasy, but her current fulfillment.
This is widely considered the genius of Baroque although this mix of religious and erotic imagery was extremely offensive in the context of neoclassical restraint. However, Bernini was a devout Catholic and was not attempting to satirize the experience of a [[celibacy|chaste]] nun. Rather, he aimed to portray religious experience as an intensely physical one. Theresa described her bodily reaction to spiritual enlightenment in a language of ecstasy used by many mystics, and Bernini's depiction is earnest.
The Cornaro family promotes itself discreetly in this chapel; they are represented visually, but are placed on the sides of the chapel, witnessing the event from balconies. As in an [[opera house]], the Cornaro have a privileged position in respect to the viewer, in their private reserve, closer to the saint; the viewer, however, has a better view from the front. They attach their name to the chapel, but St. Theresa is the focus. It is a private chapel in the sense that no one could say mass on the altar beneath the statue (in 17th century and probably through the 19th) without permission from the family, but the only thing that divides the viewer from the image is the altar rail. The spectacle functions both as a demonstration of mysticism and as a piece of family pride.
==Baroque architecture==
[[Image:Castle trier.jpg|250px|thumb|Castle of Trier (Germany)]]
[[Image:Residenzschloss Ludwigsburg.jpg|thumb|right|Ludwigsburg Palace near Stuttgart, Germany's largest Baroque Palace]]
[[Image:Stift melk 001 2004.jpg|thumb|right|[[Melk Abbey]], in [[Austria]] near the Wachau valley (architect [[Jakob Prandtauer]])]]
{{main|Baroque architecture}}
In Baroque architecture, new emphasis was placed on bold massing, [[colonnade]]s, [[dome]]s, light-and-shade (''[[chiaroscuro]]''), 'painterly' color effects, and the bold play of volume and void. In interiors, Baroque movement around and through a void informed monumental staircases that had no parallel in previous architecture. The other Baroque innovation in worldly interiors was the state apartment, a processional sequence of increasingly rich interiors that culminated in a presence chamber or throne room or a state bedroom. The sequence of monumental stairs followed by a state apartment was copied in smaller scale everywhere in aristocratic dwellings of any pretensions.
Baroque architecture was taken up with enthusiasm in central [[Germany]] (see e.g. [[Ludwigsburg Palace]] and [[Zwinger]] Dresden), [[Austria]] and [[Russia]] (see e.g. [[Peterhof]]). In [[England]] the culmination of Baroque architecture was embodied in work by Sir [[Christopher Wren]], Sir [[John Vanbrugh]] and [[Nicholas Hawksmoor]], from ca. 1660 to ca. 1725. Many examples of Baroque architecture and town planning are found in other European towns, and in Latin America. Town planning of this period featured radiating avenues intersecting in squares, which took cues from [[History of gardening|Baroque garden plans]].In Sicily, Baroque developed new shapes and themes as in Noto, [[Ragusa]] and [[Acireale]] "Basilica di San Sebastiano"
==Baroque theater==
In theater, the elaborate conceits, multiplicity of plot turns, and variety of situations characteristic of [[Mannerism]] ([[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare's tragedies]], for instance) were superseded by [[opera]], which drew together all the arts into a unified whole.
Theater evolved in the Baroque era and became a [[multimedia]] experience, starting with the actual architectural space. In fact, much of the technology used in current Broadway or commercial plays was invented and developed during this era. The stage could change from a romantic garden to the interior of a palace in a matter of seconds. The entire space became a framed selected area that only allows the users to see a specific action, hiding all the machinery and technology - mostly ropes and pulleys.
This technology affected the content of the narrated or performed pieces, practicing at its best the [[Deus ex Machina]] solution. Gods were finally able to come down - literally - from the heavens and rescue the hero in the most extreme and dangerous, even absurd situations.
The term Theatrum Mundi - the world is a stage - was also created. The social and political realm in the real world is manipulated in exactly the same way the actor and the machines are presenting/limiting what is being presented on stage, hiding selectively all the machinery that makes the actions happen. There is a wonderful German documentary called Theatrum Mundi that clearly portrays the political extents of the Baroque and its main representative, [[Louis XIV]].
The films [[Vatel (film)|Vatel]], [[Farinelli (film)|Farinelli]], and the staging of [[Monteverdi]]'s Orpheus at the [[Gran Teatre del Liceu]] in Barcelona, give a good idea of the style of productions of the Baroque period. The American musician [[William Christie (musician)|William Christie]] and [[Les Arts Florissants (ensemble)|Les Arts Florissants]] have performed extensive research on all the French Baroque Opera, performing pieces from [[Marc-Antoine Charpentier|Charpentier]] and [[Jean-Baptiste Lully|Lully]], among others that are extremely faithful to the original 17th century creations.
==Baroque literature and philosophy==
{{see|17th century in literature|17th century philosophy|Early Modern literature}}
Baroque actually expressed new values, which often are summarized in the use of [[metaphor]] and [[allegory]], widely found in Baroque literature, and in the research for the "maraviglia" (wonder, astonishment — as in [[Marinism]]), the use of artifices. If Mannerism was a first breach with Renaissance, Baroque was an opposed language.{{Fact|date=May 2007}} The ''psychological pain of Man'' -- a theme disbanded after the [[Nicolaus Copernicus|Copernican]] and the [[Martin Luther|Lutheran]] revolutions in search of solid anchors, a proof of an "ultimate human power" -- was to be found in both the art and architecture of the Baroque period. A relevant part of works was made on religious themes, since the Roman Catholic Church was the main "customer."{{Fact|date=May 2007}}
Virtuosity was researched by artists (and the [[virtuoso]] became a common figure in any art) together with [[realism (arts)|realism]] and care for details (some talk of a typical "intricacy").
The privilege given to external forms had to compensate and balance the lack of content that has been observed in many Baroque works: [[Giovan Battista Marino|Marino]]'s "[[Maraviglia]]", for example, is practically made of the pure, mere form. Fantasy and imagination should be evoked in the spectator, in the reader, in the listener. All was focused around the individual Man, as a straight relationship between the artist, or directly the art and its user, its client. Art is then less distant from user, more directly approaching him, solving the cultural gap that used to keep art and user reciprocally far, by Maraviglia. But the increased attention to the individual, also created in these schemes some important genres like the ''Romanzo'' ([[novel]]) and allowed popular or local forms of art, especially dialectal literature, to be put into evidence. In [[Italy]] this movement toward the single individual (that some define a "cultural descent", while others indicate it as a possible cause for the classical opposition to Baroque) caused [[Latin]] to be definitely replaced by Italian.
In [[Spain]], the baroque writers are framed in the [[Spanish Golden Age|''Siglo de Oro'']]. Naturalism and sharply critical points of view on Spanish society are common among such ''conceptista'' writers as [[Francisco de Quevedo|Quevedo]], while ''culterano'' authors emphasize the importance of form with complicated images and the use of hyperbaton. In [[Catalonia]] the baroque took hold as well in [[Catalan language]], with representatives including poets and dramaturgs such as [[Francesc Fontanella]] and [[Francesc Vicenç Garcia]] as well as the unique [[emblem|emblem book]] ''[[Atheneo de Grandesa]]'' by [[Josep Romaguera]]. In Colonial Spanish America some of the best-known baroque writers were [[Sor Juana]] and [[Bernardo de Balbuena]], in [[Mexico]], and [[Juan de Espinosa Medrano]] and Juan del Valle Caviedes, in [[Peru]].
In the [[Portuguese Empire]] the most famous baroque writer of the time was [[António Vieira|Father António Vieira]], a [[Jesuit]] who lived in [[Brazil]] during the [[18th century]]. Secondary writers are [[Gregório de Matos]] and [[Francisco Rodrigues Lobo]].
In [[English literature]], the [[metaphysical poets]] represent a closely related movement; their poetry likewise sought unusual metaphors, which they then examined in often extensive detail. Their verse also manifests a taste for paradox, and deliberately inventive and unusual turns of phrase.
For German Baroque literature, see [[German literature of the Baroque period]].
==Baroque music==
{{main|Baroque music}}
[[Image:Haendel.jpg|thumb|upright|[[George Frideric Handel]], 1733]]
The term ''Baroque'' is also used to designate the style of music composed during a period that overlaps with that of Baroque art, but usually encompasses a slightly later period. [[Antonio Vivaldi]], [[Johann Sebastian Bach|J.S. Bach]] and [[George Frideric Handel|G.F. Handel]] are often considered its culminating figures.
It is a still-debated question as to what extent Baroque music shares aesthetic principles with the visual and literary arts of the Baroque period. A fairly clear, shared element is a love of ornamentation, and it is perhaps significant that the role of ornament was greatly diminished in both music and architecture as the Baroque gave way to the Classical period.
It should be noted that the application of the term "Baroque" to music is a relatively recent development. The first use of the word "Baroque" in music was only in 1919, by [[Curt Sachs]], and it was not until 1940 that it was first used in English (in an article published by [[Manfred Bukofzer]]). Even as late as 1960 there was still considerable dispute in academic circles over whether music as diverse as that by [[Jacopo Peri]], [[François Couperin]] and [[J.S. Bach]] could be meaningfully bundled together under a single stylistic term.
Many musical forms were born in that era, like the [[concerto]] and [[sinfonia]]. Forms such as the [[sonata]], [[cantata]] and [[oratorio]] flourished. Also, [[opera]] was born out of the experimentation of the [[Florentine Camerata]], the creators of [[monody]], who attempted to recreate the theatrical arts of the Ancient Greeks. Indeed, it is exactly that development which is often used to denote the beginning of the musical Baroque, around 1600. An important technique used in baroque music was the use of [[ground bass]], a repeated bass line. ''Dido's Lament'' by Henry Purcell is a famous example of this technique.
===Baroque composers and examples===
*[[Claudio Monteverdi]] ([[1567]]–[[1643]]) ''[[Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 (Monteverdi)|Vespers]]'' ([[1610]])
*[[Heinrich Schütz]] ([[1585]]–[[1672]]), ''[[Symphoniae Sacrae]]'' ([[1629]], [[1647]], [[1650]])
*[[Jean-Baptiste Lully]] ([[1632]]–[[1687]]) ''[[Armide (Lully)|Armide]]'' ([[1686]])
*[[Johann Pachelbel]] ([[1653]]–[[1706]]), ''[[Pachelbel's Canon|Canon in D]]'' ([[1680]])
*[[Arcangelo Corelli]] ([[1653]]–[[1713]]), ''[[Twelve concerti grossi, op.6 (Corelli)|12 concerti grossi]]''
*[[Henry Purcell]] ([[1659]]–[[1695]]) ''[[Dido and Aeneas]]'' ([[1687]])
*[[Tomaso Albinoni]] ([[1671]]–[[1751]]), ''[[Sonata a sei con tromba]]''
*[[Antonio Vivaldi]] ([[1678]]–[[1741]]), ''[[The four seasons]]''
*[[Johann David Heinichen]] ([[1683]]–[[1729]])
*[[Jean-Philippe Rameau]] ([[1683]]–[[1764]]) ''[[Dardanus (opera)|Dardanus]]'' ([[1739]])
*[[George Frideric Handel]] ([[1685]]–[[1759]]), ''[[Water Music (Handel)|Water Music Suite]]'' ([[1717]])
*[[Domenico Scarlatti]] ([[1685]]–[[1757]]), [[List of solo keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti|Sonatas for Cembalo or Harpsichord]]
*[[Johann Sebastian Bach]] ([[1685]]–[[1750]]), ''[[Brandenburg concertos]]'' ([[1721]])
*[[Georg Philipp Telemann]] ([[1681]]–[[1767]]), ''[[Der Tag des Gerichts]]'' ([[1762]])
*[[Giovanni Battista Pergolesi]] ([[1710]]–[[1734]]), ''[[Stabat Mater]]'' ([[1736]])
==Etymology==
The word "Baroque", like most [[Periodization|periodic]] or stylistic designations, was invented by later [[critic]]s rather than practitioners of the arts in the 17th and early 18th centuries. It is a [[French language|French]] transliteration of the [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] phrase "pérola barroca", which means "irregular [[pearl]]"—an ancient similar word, "Barlocco" or "Brillocco", is used in the [[Rome|Roman]] [[dialect]] for the same meaning{{Fact|date=July 2007}}—and natural pearls that deviate from the usual, regular forms so they do not have an [[axis of rotation]] are known as "baroque pearls". Others derive it from the mnemonic term "Baroco" denoting, in logical ''Scholastica'', a supposedly laboured form of [[syllogism]].<ref>{{Citation | last=Panofsky | first=Erwin | contribution=What is Baroque? | title=Three Essays on Style| publisher=The MIT Press | year=1995 | pages=19}}</ref>
The term "Baroque" was initially used with a derogatory meaning, to underline the excesses of its emphasis. In particular, the term was used to describe its eccentric redundancy and noisy abundance of details, which sharply contrasted the clear and sober rationality of the Renaissance. It was first rehabilitated by the [[Switzerland|Swiss-born]] [[Art History|art historian]], [[Heinrich Wölfflin]] (1864–1945) in his ''Renaissance und Barock'' (1888); Wölfflin identified the Baroque as "movement imported into mass," an art antithetic to [[Renaissance]] art. He did not make the distinctions between [[Mannerism]] and Baroque that modern writers do, and he ignored the later phase, the academic Baroque that lasted into the 18th century. Writers in French and English did not begin to treat Baroque as a respectable study until Wölfflin's influence had made German scholarship pre-eminent.
==Modern usage==
<div id="pejor">In modern usage, the term "Baroque" may still be used, usually pejoratively, to describe works of art, craft, or design that are thought to have excessive ornamentation or complexity of line, or, as a [[synonym]] for "[[Derogatory use of 'Byzantine'|Byzantine]]", to describe literature, computer programs, contracts, or laws that are thought to be excessively complex, indirect, or obscure in language, to the extent of concealing or confusing their meaning. A "Baroque fear" is deeply felt, but utterly beyond daily reality.</div>
==See also==
*[[Baroque architecture]]
*[[Baroque painting]]
*[[Baroque chess]]
*[[Baroque music]]
*[[Gilded woodcarving]]
*[[Neo-baroque]]
*[[Dutch Baroque]]
*[[English Baroque]]
*[[French Baroque]]
*[[Naryshkin Baroque]]
*[[Petrine Baroque]]
*[[Polish Baroque]]
*[[Baroque in Portugal]]
*[[Sicilian Baroque]]
*[[Spanish Baroque]]
*[[Ukrainian Baroque]]
==References==
<references/>
==External links ==
{{commonscat|Baroque art}}
*[http://www.baroquelife.org The baroque and rococo culture]
*[http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/DicHist/dict.html "Dictionary of the History of Ideas":] Baroque in literature
*[http://www.hernandofla.com/liteliz.htm The greatest works of Baroque literature]
*[http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/baroque/ Webmuseum Paris]
*[http://www.sentieridelbarocco.it/ barocke in Val di Noto - Sizilien]
*[http://www.all-art.org/history252_contents_Baroque_Rococo.html Baroque in the "History of Art"]
*[http://www.haberarts.com/mytime.htm#baroque Essays on Baroque art] by [[John Haber]]
*[http://www.oriole-artists.com/Reviews_Baroque_Symbolism On Baroque Symbolism]
*[http://www.antiquestopic.com/the-baroque-style-1620-1700/ The Baroque style and Luis XIV influence]
* {{cite web |publisher= [[Victoria and Albert Museum]]
|url= http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/british_galleries/bg_styles/Style03b/index.html
|title= Baroque Style Guide
|work=British Galleries
|accessdate= 2007-07-16}}
==Bibliography==
* Gardner, Helen, Fred S. Kleiner, Christin J Mamiya. 2005. ''Gardner's Art through the Ages'', 12th edition. Belmont, CA : Thomson/Wadsworth, ; ISBN 9780155050907 (hardcover) ISBN 9780534640958 (v. 1, pbk.) 0534640915 ISBN 9780534640910 (v. 2, pbk.) ISBN 9780534640811 (CD-ROM) ISBN 9780534641009 (Resource Guide) ISBN 9780534641085 (set) 0534641075 ISBN 9780534641078 (v. 1, international student ed., pbk.) ISBN 9780534633318 (cd-rom)
==Further reading==
*[[Heinrich Wölfflin]], 1964. ''Renaissance and Baroque'' (Reprinted 1984; originally published in German, 1888) The classic study. ISBN 0-8014-9046-4 <!--This is from a 1967 Cornell University edition according to Amazon.-->
*[[Michael Kitson]], 1966. ''The Age of Baroque''
*[[John Rupert Martin]], 1977. ''Baroque'' A more detailed survey.
*[[Germain Bazin]], 1964. ''Baroque and Rococo'', (Originally published in French; reprinted as ''Baroque and Rococo Art'', 1974)
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[[he:בארוק]]
[[ka:ბაროკო]]
[[la:Barocus]]
[[lv:Baroks]]
[[lb:Barock]]
[[lt:Barokas]]
[[li:Barok]]
[[hu:Barokk]]
[[nl:Barok (stijlperiode)]]
[[nds-nl:Barok]]
[[ja:バロック]]
[[no:Barokken]]
[[nn:Barokken]]
[[nds:Barock]]
[[pl:Barok]]
[[pt:Barroco]]
[[ro:Baroc]]
[[ru:Барокко]]
[[scn:Baroccu]]
[[simple:Baroque]]
[[sk:Barok]]
[[sl:Barok]]
[[sr:Барок]]
[[sh:Barok]]
[[stq:Barock]]
[[fi:Barokki]]
[[sv:Barock]]
[[th:ศิลปะบาโรก]]
[[tr:Barok]]
[[uk:Бароко]]
[[zh:巴洛克艺术]]