Baroque (Part Six).

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

English: Versailles's Chapel, as seen from the tribune royale.

An outstanding example of French Baroque.

A four-segment vertical panorama of the 

Royal Chapel of the Palace of Versailles, France. 

Français: Panorama de la Chapelle du château de Versailles, France.

Photo: 7 July 2006.

Source: Own work.

Attribution: Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Author: Diliff.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Château de Maisons demonstrates the ongoing transition from the Post-Mediaeval Chateaux of the 16th-Century to the Villa-like Country Houses of the 18th-Century. The structure is strictly symmetrical, with an order applied to each storey, mostly in pilaster form. The frontispiece, crowned with a separate aggrandised roof, is infused with remarkable plasticity and the ensemble reads like a three-dimensional whole. Mansart's structures are stripped of overblown decorative effects, so typical of contemporary Rome. Italian Baroque influence is muted and relegated to the field of decorative ornamentation.

The next step in the development of European residential architecture involved the integration of the gardens in the composition of the Palace, as is exemplified by Vaux-le-Vicomte, where the architect, Louis Le Vau, the designer Charles Le Brun, and the gardener, André Le Nôtre, complemented one another. From the main cornice to a low plinth, the miniature Palace is clothed in the so-called "colossal order", which makes the structure look more impressive. The creative collaboration of Le Vau and Le Nôtre marked the arrival of the "Magnificent Manner", which allowed to extend Baroque architecture outside the Palace walls and transform the surrounding landscape into an immaculate mosaic of expansive vistas.

English: Château de Maisons, near Paris, by François Mansart (1642).

Château de Maisons-Laffitte, in the department of Yvelines, France. 

The château is classified as an historic Monument.

Français: Château de Maisons-Laffitte dans le département des Yvelines en France. 

Le château est classé monument historique.

Photo: 27 March 2012.

Source: Own work.

Author: Moonik.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The same three artists scaled this concept to monumental proportions in the royal hunting lodge, and later main residence, at Versailles. On a far grander scale, the Palace is an exaggerated and somewhat repetitive version of Vaux-le-Vicomte. It was both the most grandiose, and the most imitated, residential building of the 17th-Century. Mannheim, Nordkirchen and Drottningholm were among many foreign residences for which Versailles provided a model.

Français: La cour d'honneur du château de Versailles, France.

English: Versailles Palace, Versailles, France.

Photo: February 2007.

Source: Own work.

Author: Eric Pouhier.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The final expansion of Versailles was superintended by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, whose key design is the Dome des Invalides, generally regarded as the most important French Church of the century. Hardouin-Mansart profited, from his uncle's instruction and plans, to instill the edifice with an Imperial grandeur, unprecedented in the countries North of Italy. The majestic hemispherical Dome balances the vigorous vertical thrust of the orders, which do not accurately convey the structure of the interior. The younger architect not only revived the harmony and balance, associated with the work of the elder Mansart, but also set the tone for Late-Baroque French architecture, with its grand ponderousness and increasing concessions to academicism.

The reign of Louis XV saw a reaction, against the official Louis XIV Style, in the shape of a more delicate and intimate manner, known as Rococo. The style was pioneered by Nicolas Pineau, who collaborated with Hardouin-Mansart on the interiors of the royal Château de Marly. Further elaborated by Pierre Le Pautre and Juste-Aurèle Meissonier, the "genre pittoresque" culminated in the interiors of the Petit Château at Chantilly (circa 1722) and Hôtel de Soubise, in Paris (circa 1732), where a fashionable emphasis on the curvilinear went beyond all reasonable measure, while sculpture, paintings, furniture, and porcelain tended to overshadow architectural divisions of the interior.

Deutsch: Die Verzückung der hl. Teresa von Avila, Bernini, 

in Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rom

English: Ecstasy of St Theresa, 1652, by Gianlorenzo Bernini. 

Cornaro chapel, Santa Maria Della Vittoria church in Rome.

Español: Éxtasis de Santa Teresa, 1652, de Gian Lorenzo Bernini. 

Capilla de Cornaro, Iglesia de Santa María de la Victoria en Roma.

Français: L'Extase de sainte Thérèse ou La Transfiguration de sainte Thérèse ou La Transverbération de sainte Thérèse, 1652, par Le Bernin (Gianlorenzo Bernini). 

Chapelle Cornaro de l'église Santa Maria Della Vittoria à Rome.

Italiano: Trasfigurazione di santa Teresa, 1652, di Gianlorenzo Bernini. 

Cappella Cornaro nella chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria a Roma.

Photo: 26 February 2006.

Source: Flickr.

Author: [1].

(Wikimedia Commons)

English: The Baroque Interior of the Church at Minden, Germany.

Deutsch: Dom Minden.

Photo: 1895.

Source: Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler des Kreises Minden.

Author: A. Ludorff.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Baroque architecture in the Southern Netherlands developed rather differently than in the Protestant North. After the Twelve Years' Truce, the Southern Netherlands remained in Catholic hands, ruled by the Spanish Habsburg Kings. Important architectural projects were set up in the spirit of the Counter-Reformation. In them, florid decorative detailing was more tightly knit to the structure, thus precluding concerns of superfluity. A remarkable convergence of Spanish, French, and Dutch Baroque aesthetics may be seen in the Abbey of Averbode (1667). Another characteristic example is the Church of Saint Michel, at Louvain, with its exuberant two-storey façade, clusters of half-columns, and the complex aggregation of French-inspired sculptural detailing.

Six decades later, a Flemish architect, Jaime Borty Milia, was the first to introduce Rococo to Spain (Cathedral of Murcia, West façade, 1733). The greatest practitioner of the Spanish Rococo style was a native master, Ventura Rodríguez, responsible for the dazzling interior of the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza (1750).

Some Flemish architects, such as Wenceslas Cobergher, were trained in Italy and their works were inspired by architects such as Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola and Giacomo della Porta. Cobergher's major project was the Basilica of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel, which he designed as the centre of a new town, in the form of a heptagon.

The Rococo façade of Murcia Cathedral, Spain.

Photo: December 2004.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Murcia_Cathedral.jpg.

Author: en:User:JCRA.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The influence of the painter, Pieter Paul Rubens, on architecture, was important. With his book, "I Palazzi di Genova", he introduced novel Italian models for the conception of profane buildings and decoration in the Southern Netherlands. The courtyard and portico of his own house in Antwerp (Rubenshuis) are good examples of his architectural activity. He also took part in the decoration of the Antwerp Jesuit Church (now Carolus Borromeuskerk), where he introduced a lavish Baroque decoration, integrating sculpture and painting in the architectural programme.

There is little Baroque about Dutch architecture of the 17th-Century. The architecture of the first republic in Northern Europe was meant to reflect democratic values by quoting extensively from classical antiquity. Like contemporary developments in England, Dutch Palladianism is marked by sobriety and restraint. Two leading architects, Jacob van Campen and Pieter Post, used such eclectic elements as giant-order pilasters, gable roofs, central pediments, and vigorous steeples in a coherent combination that anticipated Wren's Classicism.

Español: Capilla del Pilar de la Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar en Zaragoza. De izquierda a derecha: la imagen de Santiago y sus Convertidos, la representación de la venida de la Virgen al lugar y la Santa Columna donde está la Santísima Imagen de Nuestra Señora del Pilar.

English: Chapel of the Basilica del Pilar in Zaragoza, Spain. From left to right: The image of Santiago and his Converted; the representation of the coming of the Virgin; and the place where is 

the Holy Image of Our Lady of Pilar.

Photo: 21 June 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: Davas27.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The most ambitious constructions of the period included the Seats of Self-Government in Amsterdam (1646) and Maastricht (1658), designed by Campen and Post, respectively. On the other hand, the residences of the House of Orange are closer to a typical Burgher Mansion than to a Royal Palace. Two of these, Huis ten Bosch and Mauritshuis, are symmetrical blocks with large windows, stripped of ostentatious Baroque flourishes and mannerisms. The same austerely geometrical effect is achieved without great cost or pretentious effects at the Stadholder's summer residence of Het Loo.

The Dutch Republic was one of the Great Powers of 17th-Century Europe and its influence on European architecture was by no means negligible. Dutch architects were employed on important projects in Northern Germany, Scandinavia and Russia, disseminating their ideas in those countries. The Dutch colonial architecture, once flourishing in the Hudson River Valley, and associated primarily with red-brick gabled houses, may still be seen in Willemstad, Curaçao.

PART SEVEN FOLLOWS.