Baroque (Part One).

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

English: Rosario Chapel in Santo Domingo Church, Puebla, Mexico.

Español: Capilla del Rosario en la Iglesia de Santo Domingo, Puebla, México.

Photo: 9 September 2006.

Source: Own work.

This File: 17 December 2011.

User: Rotatebot.

Author: Maurice Marcellin.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Baroque architecture is the building style of the Baroque era, begun in Late-16th-Century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and the absolutist state. It was characterised by new explorations of form, light and shadow and dramatic intensity.

Whereas the Renaissance drew on the wealth and power of the Italian Courts, and was a blend of secular and religious forces, the Baroque was, initially at least, directly linked to the Counter-Reformation, a movement within the Catholic Church to reform itself, in response to the Protestant Reformation.

English: The Rococo Basilica at Ottobeuren (Bavaria, Germany): 

Architectural spaces flow together and swarm with life.

Deutsch: Blick in das Hauptschiff von der Eingangshalle aus mit Sicherungsnetz 

in der Vierung von der großen Restauration, Basilika Ottobeuren

[Rococo, less commonly roccoco, also referred to as "Late Baroque", 

is an 18th-Century artistic movement and style.]

Photo: 3 March 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: Johannes Böckh & Thomas Mirtsch.

Permission: Own work, copyleft: Multi-license with GFDL 

and Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.5 and older versions (2.0 and 1.0).

(Wikimedia Commons)

Baroque architecture and its embellishments were, on the one hand, more accessible to the emotions, and,  on the other hand, a visible statement of the wealth and power of the Church. The new style manifested itself in particular in the context of the new Religious Orders, like the Theatines and the Jesuits, who aimed to improve popular piety.

The architecture of the High Roman Baroque can be assigned to the Papal reigns of Pope Urban VIII, Pope Innocent X and Pope Alexander VII, spanning from 1623 to 1667. The three principal architects of this period were the sculptors, Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini, and the painter, Pietro da Cortona, and each evolved their own distinctively individual architectural expression.

English: Church of Saint Millan and Saint Cayetano, Madrid, Spain.

Español: Iglesia de San Millán y San Cayetano, Madrid.

Photo: 11 October 2007.

Source: Own work.

Author: Zarateman.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Dissemination of Baroque architecture, to the South of Italy, resulted in regional variations, such as Sicilian Baroque architecture or that of Naples and Lecce. To the North, the Theatine architect, Camillo-Guarino Guarini, Bernardo Vittone and Sicilian-born Filippo Juvarra contributed Baroque buildings to the city of Turin and the Piedmont region.

A synthesis of Bernini, Borromini and Cortona’s architecture can be seen in the Late-Baroque architecture of Northern Europe, which paved the way for the more decorative Rococo style.

By the middle of the 17th-Century, the Baroque style had found its secular expression in the form of grand palaces, first in France - with the Château de Maisons (1642), near Paris, by François Mansart - and then throughout Europe.

During the 17th-Century, Baroque architecture spread through Europe and Latin America, where it was particularly promoted by the Jesuits.

Michelangelo's Late-Roman buildings, particularly Saint Peter's Basilica, may be considered precursors to Baroque architecture. His pupil, Giacomo della Porta, continued this work in Rome, particularly in the façade of the Jesuit church, Il Gesù, which leads directly to the most important Church façade of the Early-Baroque, Santa Susanna (1603), by Carlo Maderno.

English: Church of Saint Anthony of Padua, Zaragoza, Spain.

Espanol: Vista del lado del Evangelio (septentrional) y la cabecera de la Iglesia 

(ex colegio jesuita) de San Antonio de Padua, Alagón, Zaragoza, Aragón, España

Photo: 29 July 2008.

Source: Own work.

Author: Zarateman.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Distinctive features of Baroque architecture can include:

In Churches, broader Naves and sometimes oval forms;

Fragmentary, or deliberately incomplete, architectural elements;

Dramatic use of light; either strong light-and-shade contrasts (chiaroscuro effects), as at the Church of Weltenburg Abbey, or uniform lighting, by means of several windows (e.g. church of Weingarten Abbey);

Opulent use of colour and ornaments (putti, or figures made of wood (often gilded), plaster or stucco, marble or faux finishing);

Large-scale ceiling frescoes;

An external façade, often characterised by a dramatic central projection;

The interior is a shell for painting, sculpture and stucco (especially in the Late-Baroque);

Illusory effects, like trompe l'oeil (an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions), and the blending of painting and architecture.

Pear-shaped Domes in the Bavarian, Czech, Polish and Ukrainian Baroque;

Marian and Holy Trinity Columns erected in Catholic countries, often in thanksgiving for ending a plague.

PART TWO FOLLOWS.