Baroque (Part Two).

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unless otherwise stated.

Jesuit Church, Vienna, Austria. 

Fresco, with "trompe l'œil" Dome, painted on low vaulting.

Artist: Andrea Pozzo - 1703.

Photo: October 2006.

Source: Own work.

Author: Alberto Fernandez Fernandez.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Though the tendency has been to see Baroque architecture as a European phenomenon, it coincided with, and is integrally enmeshed with, the rise of European colonialism. Colonialism required the development of centralised and powerful governments, with Spain and France the first to move in this direction.

Colonialism brought in huge amounts of wealth, not only in the silver that was extracted from the mines in Bolivia, Mexico and elsewhere, but also in the resultant trade in commodities, such as sugar and tobacco. The need to control trade routes, monopolies, and slavery, which lay primarily in the hands of the French during the 17th-Century, created an almost endless cycle of wars between the colonial powers: The French Religious Wars; the Thirty Years' War (1618 and 1648); Franco–Spanish War (1653); the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678), and so on.

English: The High Altar, Saint Stephan's Church, Tulln, Austria.

Deutsch: Hochaltar in der Pfarrkirche St. Stephan, Tulln.

Photo: September 2003.

(11 November 2007 (original upload date)

Source: Transferred from de.wikipedia;

transferred to Commons by User:NeverDoING

using CommonsHelper.(Original text : FOTOREPORT.at)

Author: Hannes Sallmutter. Original uploader was Sallmutter at de.wikipedia.

Permission: Released under the GNU Free Documentation License.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The initial mismanagement of colonial wealth, by the Spaniards, bankrupted them in the 16th-Century (1557 and 1560), recovering only slowly in the following century. This explains why the Baroque style, though enthusiastically developed in Spain, was to a large extent, in Spain, an architecture of surfaces and façades, unlike in France and Austria where we see the construction of numerous huge Palaces and Monasteries. 

In contrast to Spain, the French, under Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683), the Minister of Finance, had begun to industrialise their economy, and thus, were able to become, initially at least, the benefactors of the flow of wealth. While this was good for the building industries and the arts, the new wealth created an inflation, the likes of which had never been experienced before. Rome was known just as much for its new sumptuous Churches as for its vagabonds.

English: Saint Stephan's Church, Tulln, Austria.

Deutsch: Stadtpfarrkirche hl. Stephanus, Tulln.

Photo: 25 June 2011.

Source: Own work.

Author: Andrisaal.

(Wikimedia Commons)

A number of ecclesiastical buildings, of the Baroque period in Rome, had plans based on the Italian paradigm of the Basilica with a crossed Dome and Nave, but the treatment of the architecture was very different to what had been carried out previously. One of the first Roman structures to break with the Mannerist conventions, exemplified in the Gesù, was the Church of Santa Susanna, designed by Carlo Maderno. The dynamic rhythm of Columns and Pilasters, central massing, and the protrusion and condensed central decoration, add complexity to the structure. There is an incipient playfulness with the rules of classic design, but it still maintains rigour.

English: Facade of Santi Luca e Martina, Rome, Italy.

Italiano: Santi Luca e Martina, chiesa di Roma, facciata.

Photo: 6 May 2009.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xiquinho/3505080660/.

Author: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xiquinho/.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The same concerns with plasticity, massing, dramatic effects and shadow and light is evident in the architectural work of Pietro da Cortona, illustrated by his design of Santi Luca e Martina (construction began in 1635) with what was probably the first curved Baroque Church facade in Rome. These concerns are even more evident in his reworking of Santa Maria della Pace (1656 - 1658). The facade, with its chiaroscuro half-Domed Portico and concave side wings, closely resembles a theatrical stage set and the Church facade projects forward so that it substantially fills the tiny trapezoidal Piazza. Other Roman ensembles, of the Baroque and Late-Baroque period, are likewise suffused with theatricality and, as urban theatres, provide points of focus within their locality in the surrounding cityscape.

English: Santi Luca e Martina is a Church in Rome.

Interior of the Church. Architect: Pietro da Cortona.

Italiano: Santi Luca e Martina è una chiesa di Roma.

Interno. Architetto: Pietro da Cortona.

Svenska: Santi Luca e Martina är en kyrkobyggnad i Rom.

Photo: 12 February 2006.

Picture by User:Torvindus.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Probably the most-well-known example of such an approach is Saint Peter's Square, which has been praised as a masterstroke of Baroque theatre. The Piazza, designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, is formed principally by two Colonnades of free standing Columns centred on an Egyptian obelisk. Bernini's own favourite design was his oval Church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, decorated with polychrome marbles and an ornate gold Dome. His secular architecture included the Palazzo Barberini, based on plans by Maderno,  and the Palazzo Chigi-Odescalchi (1664), both in Rome.

Bernini's rival, the architect Francesco Borromini, produced designs that deviated dramatically from the regular compositions of the ancient world and Renaissance. His building plans were based on complex geometric figures, his architectural forms were unusual and inventive and he employed multi-layered symbolism in his architectural designs. Borromini's architectural spaces seem to expand and contract when needed, showing some affinity with the late style of Michelangelo.

English: Church of Saint Charles at the Four Fountains, Rome.

Italiano: San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome.

Facade of Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, by Francesco Borromini.

This image was moved from Image:P3090312.JPG.

Move approved by: User:ChristianBier.

Summary: Chiesa di San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane,

Facciata di Francesco Borromini, Roma, 1638-67,

9 March 2007, by User:Council.

(Wikimedia Commons)

His iconic masterpiece is the diminutive Church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, distinguished by a complicated plan arrangement that is partly oval and partly a cross and so has complex convex-concave wall rhythms. A later work, the Church of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza, displays the same playful inventiveness and antipathy to the flat surface, epitomised by an unusual “corkscrew” lantern above the Dome.

Following the death of Bernini in 1680, Carlo Fontana emerged as the most influential architect working in Rome. His early style is exemplified by the slightly concave façade of San Marcello al Corso. Fontana's academic approach, though lacking the dazzling inventiveness of his Roman predecessors, exerted substantial influence on Baroque architecture both through his prolific writings and through a number of architects he trained, who would disseminate the Baroque idioms throughout 18th-Century Europe.

The 18th-Century saw the capital of Europe's architectural world transferred from Rome to Paris. The Italian Rococo, which flourished in Rome from the 1720s, onward, was profoundly influenced by the ideas of Borromini. The most talented architects active in Rome - Francesco de Sanctis (Spanish Steps, 1723) and Filippo Raguzzini (Piazza Sant'Ignazio, 1727) - had little influence outside their native country, as did numerous practitioners of the Sicilian Baroque, including Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, Andrea Palma, and Giuseppe Venanzio Marvuglia.

PART THREE FOLLOWS.