Please ensure references are the end on each of the three assignment 5 pages of written work

Assignment 1

Course readings

Notes compiled by Prof. Marc A. Cirigliano, Ph.D.

What Is Baroque?

The word Baroque was derived in 18th century as a pejorative term from the Portuguese word “barrocco,” a pearl of irregular shape. It was used initially by proponents of classicism who attacked Francesco Borromini’s architecture.

Contemporary scholar Joan Sutherland Harris avoids the term “Baroque,” since it was invented after the period in question. Instead, she calls it 17th century art & architecture.

One scholar and critic who saw the Baroque as inferior art and architecture:

J.J. Winckelmann (1717-68), History of Ancient Art , 1764, called this style “a scandalous malady” and also “bombast” that had “deserted nature and antiquity.” He was referring to Bernini, Borromini and, in literature, Marino.

In the late 19th and 20th centuries, the Baroque takes on a positive connotation: Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945) in his book Renaissance und Barock from identified the Baroque as "movement imported into mass." From his Principles of Art History:

1. From linear to painterly

2. From plane to recession

3. From closed form to open form

4. From multiplicity to unity

5. From absolute clarity to relative clarity of the subject

William Fleming (1909-2001) of Syracuse University champions the Baroque in his Arts & Ideas survey text. Fleming see it as a positive period in art, architecture & music:

· A time of change–vastly expanded and transformed world view

· Discovery & exploration of the world by Europe: New continents, new peoples

· Different customs, beliefs & foods

· Beginnings of science

· Contradicts Biblical interpretation of reality

· Development of astronomy, that limits religious interpretations of natural history

· Earth is not center of universe

· Earth orbits sun

John Pope-Hennessey (1913-1994), in his three-volume History of Italian Sculpture , considers Italian sculpture as a continuous development from the Renaissance through the Baroque. We might make the same argument for painting.

· 3-D space

· Realism, but not always idealism

· Dealing with problems of narrative action

· All of these are logical developments out of “Renaissance” art

Modern scholars agree on the qualities of Baroque or 17th Century Art & Architecture:

· Emphasis on size, magnificence and grandeur

· Motion and energy

· Reaching out into space (unified & unlimited)

· Mapping the globe

· Open painting compositions

· Quality of illusionism ( trompe l’oeil effect)

· Action frozen at the climactic moment, one that is still taking place, not completed

· New sense of realism

· Emphasis on contemporary & unidealized realism

· Sense of immediacy – it takes place in front of our eyes as we would experience it ourselves

· Not all qualities found in every work of art

Historical Factors

· Counter-reformation:

· Catholic response to Protestant break-away and Reformation

· Emphasis on the immediacy of the “personal” religious experience as a response to Protestant assertion that you can experience God by reading the Bible at home.

· Baroque art pulls the viewer in spatially & emotionally

· Rise of national states

· Rise of Holland as a global maritime & economic power

· Rise of private bourgeois patronage

· Consolidation of French Monarchy

· Creation of the French Academies

· Grand Royal projects in all the arts

· Decline of Italy as an economic, political and intellectual power

· France, England and Holland become major players in these three areas

· Counter-reformation stifles Italy’s intellectual pre-eminence

The French Academies

Notes compiled by Prof. Marc A. Cirigliano, Ph.D.

The Academies

L'Académie française (The French Academy), chief French learned body on matters of the French language

· Established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, chief minister to King Louis XIII

· Richelieu's model was the Accademia della Crusca, founded in Florence in 1582

· Oldest of the five académies of the Institut de France.

· Official authority on the language

· Publishes the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, seen as the official authority on words in France.

· Not binding, but advisory rulings

Académie de peinture et de sculpture (Academy of Painting and Sculpture, founded 1648)

· Created by very young Louis XIV with initiative of Charles Le Brun

· Modeled on Italian examples: Accademia di San Luca in Rome

· Paris already had Académie de Saint-Luc, city artist guild, like any other Guild of Saint Luke, who was considered the first Christian artist

The Major Innovations and Positives

· Regularized curriculum—To professionalize the artists working for French court

· Royal recognition given to art—Gives them an official stamp of approval

· Patronage (money and support) that artists of the St. Luke's guild did not have

Major Negatives

· Stifle creativity and innovation through an inflexible curriculum and rigid professors

· Strong potential for Royal censorship and no freedom of expression

In 1661, under Jean-Baptiste Colbert – arts become main part of the glorification of Louis XIV

From 1683, Academy had greatest influence under Charles Le Brun

The Academy promoted the Hierarchy of Genres, in descending order of importance

1. History painting, including narrative religious, mythological and allegorical subjects

2. Portrait painting, usually of significant people

3. Genre painting, scenes of everyday people living everyday life

4. Landscape (landscapists were the "common footmen in the Army of Art" according to the Dutch theorist Samuel van Hoogstraten) and the Cityscape

5. Animal painting

6. Still life

Three Major French Theoreticians of the Arts

1. Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy (1611 – 1668)—Art treatise, a Latin poem, De arte graphica :

The principal and most important part ofPainting, is to find out and thoroughly to understandwhat Nature has made most beautifull,and most proper to this Art; and that a choiceof it may be made according to the gust andmanner of the Ancients, without which all isnothing but a blind, and rash barbarity; whichrejects what is most beautifull, and seems with anaudacious insolence to despise an Art, of whichit is wholly ignorant; which has occasion'dthese words of the Ancients: That no man is so bold,so rash, and so overweening of his own works, as anill Painter, and a bad Poet, who are not conscious tothemselves of their own Ignorance.

2. André Félibien (1619 – 1695)—Historiographer, architect and theoretician of French classicism, wrote in 1667 the classic statement on the Hierarchy of Genres:

He who produces perfect landscapes is above another who only produces fruit, flowers or seafood. He who paints living animals is more estimable than those who only represent dead things without movement, and as man is the most perfect work of God on the earth, it is also certain that he who becomes an imitator of God in representing human figures, is much more excellent than all the others … a painter who only does portraits still does not have the highest perfection of his art, and cannot expect the honor due to the most skilled. For that he must pass from representing a single figure to several together; history and myth must be depicted; great events must be represented as by historians, or like the poets, subjects that will please, and climbing still higher, he must have the skill to cover under the veil of myth the virtues of great men in allegories, and the mysteries they reveal.

3. Roger de Piles (1635 – 1709)—Dialogue sur le coloris ("Dialogue on colors")

· Defense of Rubens

· Argument begun 1671 by Philippe de Champaigne

· Relative merits of drawing and color in the work of Titian

· Early debate on classic vs. modern in painting

· Mathematics of proportion and perspective in drawing, classic

· Colored brush stroke—the moderns

· "Modern" réfusés in seventeenth century Paris

· De Piles introduced the term "clair-obscur" (chiaroscuro)

Poussinistes vs. Rubenistes

Notes compiled by Prof. Marc A. Cirigliano, Ph.D.

Moderns vs. Ancients

This is part of a larger discussion— Battle of Ancients and Moderns, which will conclude at the end of the 17th century with victory of Moderns:

Ancients

· Classics

· Admiration & emulation of all that came before

· Sclerotic—rigid and unable to adapt due to success

· Success among the privileged in the arts

Moderns

· Innovation

· Change

· The new

Disegno/Colorire

Similar ideas in the battle between the Poussinistes (adherents to the painting of Nicholas Poussin) and Rubenistes (followers of Peter Paul Rubens) within the Academie.

This is a reprieve (or continuation) of the Disegno/Colorire debate in Cinquecento Italy.

Colorire—artistic idea manifested through the act of applying paint

· Preliminary sketches may exist, but work is developed and finalized through the act of painting on the medium, either canvas or panel

· Intuitive creative act

· Emphasis on surface appearance (light and color) of reality

Disegno—artistic idea manifested through a drawing

· Work is pre-planned prior to transferring to and painting on canvas

· Many potential variations may exist in sketches

· Analytical creative act

· Emphasis on structure of reality

Proponents of drawing or design—Poussinistes

Led by initially by Charles le Brun:

· Pousinistes assert:

· Drawing appealed to the intellect

· Drawing superior to color

· Color appeals to senses

· Classicism

· Theoretician Félibien affirms the importance of color in the same way that design is important

· Opposes not only Rubens, but the Venetians such as Giorgione, Veronese, Titian, and, more contemporarily, Rembrandt

· Poussin has classic virtues

· Good choice of subject matter

· Coldness

· Static compositions

Proponents of Color—Rubenistes

· Color better than drawing because it is more true to nature

· Drawing based on reason so it only appealed to few experts

· Color could be enjoyed by everyone

· It is the hallmark of the Baroque style

· Major theoretical support in 1668 from Dialogue sur le coloris by Robert de Piles

Colorists win:

· 1699 – Roger de Piles becomes an honorary member of the Academie

· 1717 -Watteau becomes a member

Other qualities along with “color”:

· Not just color, but a painterly technique

· Heavy, fatty and doughy application of paint

· Freer composition

Between Paolo Veronese and the Impressionists, we have such "colorists" as Rubens, Watteau and Delacroix, which questions the common assertion that French art is strongly classical.

See also:

Explain the fundamentals of Baroque painting, sculpture and architecture.

In your post, pick a work of art, sculpture and architecture in explaining your understanding of the basic ideas of Baroque art and architecture. Make sure to include historical factors, underlying ideas, any relevant iconography and an analysis of your selected works' form

· Your post should be one page page , 12 point, double spacing, new times Apa format

· You do not need to use sources beyond the SmartHistory and presentation for this week in developing your post.

Assignment 2

Course readings

Terms to Know and Use

Watch for these terms in the assigned readings. Be prepared to use them in your coursework:

· biombo

· mission

· Jesuit

· di sotto in sù

· quadrature

· chiaroscuro

· tenebrism

SmartHistory: Baroque Art in Italy, Flanders, and the Dutch Republic
Topic/Artist	Reading/Viewing
Baroque in Italy	· Caravaggio · , oil on canvas, c. 1599-1600 (Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome) · , c. 1601, oil on canvas, 230 x 175 cm (Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome) · , 1601, oil on canvas (Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome) · Artemisia Gentileschi, , 1620-21, oil on canvas (Uffizi Gallery, Florence) · Gian Lorenzo Bernini · , 1621-22, marble (Galleria Borghese, Rome) · , 1623, marble (Galleria Borghese, Rome) · , 1622-25, marble (Galleria Borghese, Rome) · , 1624-33, 100′ high, gilded bronze (Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican) · , 1647-52 (Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome) · , Vatican City, Rome, 1656-67 · Fra Andrea Pozzo, , Sant’Ignazio, Rome, 1691-94, fresco
Baroque in Flanders	· Peter Paul Rubens · , 1610, oil on wood (Antwerp Cathedral) · , c. 1622-1625, oil on canvas (Louvre) · , 1638-39, oil on canvas (Palazzo Pitti, Florence) · Anthony van Dyck, , c. 1618-20, oil on canvas, 152.3 x 232 cm (Dulwich Picture Gallery, London)
Baroque Art in the Dutch Republic	· Frans Hals · , c. 1623, oil on canvas (Gemäldegalerie, Berlin) · , c. 1664, oil on canvas (Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem) · Rembrandt van Rijn · , 1632, oil on canvas (Mauritshuis, Den Haag) · , 1642, oil on canvas (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) · , 1653, oil on canvas (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) · , 1659, oil on canvas (National Gallery of Art) · Pieter Jansz Saenredam, Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem, 1631, oil on panel (Philadelphia) · Judith Leyster, , c. 1633, oil on canvas (National Gallery of Art, Washington) · Willem Johannes Vermeer · , 1664, oil on canvas (National Gallery of Art, Washington) · , c. 1665, oil on canvas (Mauritshuis, The Hague) · , 1666-69, oil on canvas (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) · Jacob van Ruisdael, , c. 1670–75, oil on canvas (Mauritshuis, The Hague) · Rachel Ruysch · , 1711, oil on wood (Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence) · , c. 1726, oil on canvas (Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Oh
Global Influence	· , c. 1697-1701, oil on wood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl (Brooklyn Museum) · , late 16th – 17th century, Kyoto, Japan · , 1629, Acoma Pueblo (New Mexico) · , Sierra Leone (Sapi-Portugese), 15th-16th century, ivory (The Met)