Baroque (Part Four).

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

Interior of the Church of The Virgin, Birnau, Germany.

Photo: 2005.

Source: Photographed by AndreasPraefcke.

Author: AndreasPraefcke.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Two of the most eye-catching creations of Spanish Baroque are the energetic façades of the University of Valladolid (Diego Tomé, 1719) and Hospicio de San Fernando in Madrid (Pedro de Ribera, 1722), whose curvilinear extravagance seems to herald Antonio Gaudí and Art Nouveau. In this case, as in many others, the design involves a play of tectonic and decorative elements with little relation to structure and function. The focus of the florid ornamentation is an elaborately sculptured surround to a main doorway. If we remove the intricate maze of broken pediments, undulating cornices, stucco shells, inverted tapers, and garlands from the rather plain wall it is set against, the building's form would not be affected in the slightest.

Baroque Music of Bologna, Italy.

Available on YouTube at

http://youtu.be/1a0yDlIvQSw.

The combination of the Native American and Moorish decorative influences, with an extremely expressive interpretation of the Churrigueresque idiom, may account for the full-bodied and varied character of the Baroque in the American colonies of Spain. Even more than its Spanish counterpart, American Baroque developed as a style of stucco decoration. Twin-towered façades of many American Cathedrals of the 17th-Century had mediaeval roots and the full-fledged Baroque did not appear until 1664, when a Jesuit shrine,  on Plaza des Armas, in Cusco, was built. Even then, the new style hardly affected the structure of Churches.

Mexico City Cathedral, as seen from Madero Street.

Photo: December 2006.

Source: Own work.

Author: Juan Fernando Ibarra.

(Wikimedia Commons)

English: Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of Mary.

Mexico City Cathedral, with the Metropolitan Tabernacle to the right.

Español: Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción de María.

Catedral Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México, 

el templo principal de la Arquidiócesis Primada de México.

Architect: Lorenzo Rodriguez.

Photo: 2005.

Source: Carlos Martínez Blando.

Author: Carlos Martínez Blando.

(Wikimedia Commons)

To the North, the richest Province of 18th-Century New Spain - Mexico - produced some fantastically extravagant and visually frenetic architecture known as Mexican Churrigueresque. This ultra-Baroque approach culminates in the works of Lorenzo Rodriguez, whose masterpiece is the Sagrario Metropolitano in Mexico City. Other fine examples of the style may be found in remote silver-mining towns. For instance, the Sanctuary at Ocotlán (begun in 1745) is a top-notch Baroque Cathedral, surfaced in bright red tiles, which contrast delightfully with a plethora of compressed ornament lavishly applied to the main entrance and the slender flanking towers.

English: The Basilica of Ocotlán, Mexico.

Español: Panoramica de la Basílica de Ocotlán, Mexico.

Source: Own work.

Author: This file is lacking author information.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The true capital of Mexican Baroque is Puebla, where a ready supply of hand-painted ceramics (talavera),  and vernacular grey stone, led to its evolving further into a personalised and highly-localised art form with a pronounced Indian flavour. There are about sixty Churches whose façades and Domes display glazed tiles of many colours, often arranged in Arabic designs. The interiors are densely saturated with elaborate gold leaf ornamentation. In the 18th-Century, local artisans developed a distinctive brand of white stucco decoration, named "alfenique" after a Pueblan candy made from egg whites and sugar.

English: Cathedral of Puebla, Mexico.

Español: Catedral de Puebla, Mexico.

Photo: 20 December 2007.

Source: Own work.

Author: Israel Espinosa López: Zeisseon.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Peruvian Baroque was particularly lavish, as evidenced by the Monastery of San Francisco at Lima (1673). While the rural Baroque of the Jesuit Block and Estancias of Córdoba in Córdoba, Argentina, followed the model of Il Gesu, provincial "mestizo" (cross-bred) styles emerged in Arequipa, Potosí, and La Paz. In the 18th-Century, architects of the region turned for inspiration to the Mudéjar art of mediaeval Spain. The Late-Baroque type of Peruvian façade first appears in the Church of Our Lady of La Merced, in Lima. Similarly, the Church of La Compañia, in Quito, suggests a carved Altarpiece with its richly sculpted façade and a surfeit of spiral salomónica.

Notwithstanding a prodigality of sensually-rich surface decoration associated with Baroque architecture of the Iberian Peninsula, the Royal Courts of Madrid and Lisbon generally favoured a more sober architectural vocabulary distilled from 17th-Century Italy. The Royal Palaces of Madrid, La Granja, Aranjuez, Mafra, and Queluz, were designed by architects under strong influence of Bernini and Juvarra. In the realm of Church architecture, Guarini's design for Santa Maria della Divina Providenza, in Lisbon, was a pacesetter for structural audacity in the region (even though it was never built).

The Royal Palace at Mafra, Portugal.

Photo: 5 May 2013.

Source: Own work.

Author: Alvesgaspar.

(Wikimedia Commons)

In Portugal, the first fully-Baroque Church was the Church of Santa Engrácia, in Lisbon, designed by Royal architect, João Antunes, which has a Greek Cross floorplan and curved facades. Antunes also designed Churches in which the inner space is rectangular, but with curved corners (like the Menino de Deus Church in Lisbon), a scheme that is found in several 18th-Century Churches in Portugal and Brazil. The Court of King John V, on the other hand, favoured Roman Baroque models, as attested by the work of Royal architect, Ludovice, a German, who designed the Royal Palace of Mafra, built after 1715.

The Clérigos Church (Portuguese: Igreja dos Clérigos: 

"Church of the Clergymen") 

is a Baroque Church in Porto, Portugal.

Photo: 16 October 2010.

Source: Own work.

Author: Lacobrigo.

(Wikimedia Commons)

By the Mid-18th-Century, Northern Portuguese architects had absorbed the concepts of Italian Baroque to revel in the plasticity of local granite, in such projects as the surging 75-metre-high Torre dos Clérigos in Porto. The foremost centre of the national Baroque tradition was Braga, whose buildings encompass virtually every important feature of Portuguese architecture and design. The Baroque shrines and Palaces of Braga are noted for polychrome ornamental patterns, undulating roof-lines, and irregularly shaped window surrounds.

Brazilian architects also explored plasticity in form and decoration, though they rarely surpassed their continental peers in ostentation. The Churches of Mariana and the Rosario at Ouro Preto are based on Borromini's vision of interlocking elliptical spaces. At São Pedro dos Clérigos, Recife, a conventional stucco-and-stone façade is enlivened by "a high scrolled gable squeezed tightly between the Towers".

Even after the Baroque conventions passed out of fashion in Europe, the style was long practised in Brazil by Aleijadinho, a brilliant and prolific architect, in whose designs hints of Rococo could be discerned. His church of Bom Jesus de Matozinhos, at Congonhas, is distinguished by a picturesque silhouette and dark ornamental detail on a light stuccoed façade. Although Aleijadinho was originally commissioned to design São Francisco de Assis, at São João del Rei, his designs were rejected, and were displaced to the Church of São Francisco in Ouro Preto, instead.

PART FIVE FOLLOWS.

Baroque (Part Three).

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

English: Interior of the Parish Church of Saint Martin, 
at Gurnitz, Klagenfurt, Austria.

Deutsch: Inneres der Pfarrkirche Sankt Martin in Gurnitz, 
Marktgemeinde Ebenthal in Kärnten, Bezirk 
Klagenfurt Land, Kärnten / Österreich.

Photo: 15 May 2008.

Source: Own work.

Author: Johann Jaritz.

(Wikimedia Commons)

English: Interior of the Basilica of Vierzehnheiligen, 
(Basilica of The Fourteen Auxiliary Saints), 
near Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany.

Deutsch: Innenansicht Basilika Vierzehnheiligen (Germany).

Source: Own work.

Date: 5 September 2005.

Author: Asio otus.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Sacred Baroque Music from The Royal Chapel of Spain.
Available on YouTube at
http://youtu.be/CHki7gZhARM.

The Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers (also Basilika Vierzehnheiligen) is a Church located near the town of Bad Staffelstein, near Bamberg, in Bavaria, Southern Germany. The Late-Baroque-Rococo Basilica, designed by Balthasar Neumann, was constructed between 1743 and 1772. It is dedicated to the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of Saints venerated together in the Catholic Church, especially in Germany, at the time of the Black Death. [Editor: Another name for these Saints is the Fourteen Auxiliary Saints.]

English: The Basilica of Vierzehnheiligen, Bamberg, Germany.

Español: Basílica de Vierzehnheiligen.

Photo: 4 September 2005.

Source: Own work.

Author: Schubbay.

(Wikimedia Commons)

The last phase of Baroque architecture in Italy is exemplified by Luigi Vanvitelli's Caserta Palace, reputedly the largest building erected in Europe in the 18th-Century. Indebted to contemporary French and Spanish models, the Palace is skillfully related to the landscape. At Naples and Caserta, Vanvitelli practiced a sober and classicising academic style, with equal attention to aesthetics and engineering, a style that would make an easy transition to Neoclassicism.

In the North of Italy, the Monarchs from the House of Savoy were particularly receptive to the new style. They employed a brilliant triad of architects - Guarino Guarini, Filippo Juvarra, and Bernardo Vittone - to illustrate the grandiose political ambitions and the newly-acquired royal status of their dynasty.

Guarini was a peripatetic Monk who combined many traditions (including that of Gothic architecture) to create irregular structures remarkable for their oval Columns and unconventional façades. Building upon the findings of contemporary geometry and stereometry, Guarini elaborated the concept of architectura obliqua, which approximated Borromini's style in both theoretical and structural audacity. Guarini's Palazzo Carignano (1679) may have been the most flamboyant application of the Baroque style to the design of a private house in the 17th-Century.

Church of Saint Anne in Kraków, Poland.

Photo: 14 July 2010.

Source: Own work.

Author: Gryffindor.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Fluid forms, weightless details, and the airy prospects of Juvarra's architecture anticipated the art of Rococo. Although his practice ranged well beyond Turin, Juvarra's most arresting designs were created for Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia. The visual impact of his Basilica di Superga (1717) derives from its soaring roof-line and masterful placement on a hill above Turin. The rustic ambiance encouraged a freer articulation of architectural form at the royal hunting lodge of the Palazzina di Stupinigi (1729). Juvarra finished his short but eventful career in Madrid, where he worked on the royal Palaces at La Granja and Aranjuez.

English: The Pilgrimage Church of Saint Anne, Haigerloch, Germany.

Deutsch: Haigerloch Wallfahrtskirche Sankt Anna.

Photo: 3 August 2009.

Source: Own work.

Author: Rainer Halama.

Permission: Own work, attribution required

(Multi-license with GFDL and Creative Commons CC-BY 2.5).

(Wikimedia Commons)

Among the many who were profoundly influenced by the brilliance and diversity of Juvarra and Guarini, none was more important than Bernardo Vittone. This Piedmontese architect is remembered for an outcrop of flamboyant Rococo Churches, quatrefoil in plan and delicate in detailing. His sophisticated designs often feature multiple vaults, structures within structures and Domes within Domes.

The island of Malta contains a variety of Baroque architecture, most importantly the capital city of Valletta. It was laid out in 1566 to fortify the Knights of Rhodes, who had taken over the island when they were driven from Rhodes by Islamic armies. The city, designed by Francesco Laparelli on a grid plan, and built up over the next century, remains a particularly coherent example of Baroque urbanism. Its massive fortifications, which were considered state of the art until the modern age, are also largely intact. Valletta became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980.

The High Altar at Wallfahrtskirche Steinhausen, 

in the village of Steinhausen,

near Bad Schussenried, Germany.

Photo: 22 October 2012.

Source: Own work (Selbst fotografiert).

Author: Mattana.

(Wikimedia Commons)

As Italian Baroque influences penetrated across the Pyrenees, they gradually superseded in popularity the restrained classicising approach of Juan de Herrera, which had been in vogue since the Late-16th-Century. As early as 1667, the façades of Granada Cathedral (by Alonso Cano) and Jaén Cathedral (by Eufrasio López de Rojas) suggest the artists' fluency in interpreting traditional motifs of Spanish Cathedral architecture in the Baroque aesthetic idiom.

In contrast to the art of Northern Europe, the Spanish art of the period appealed to the emotions rather than seeking to please the intellect. The Churriguera family, which specialised in designing Altars and Retables, revolted against the sobriety of the Herreresque classicism and promoted an intricate, exaggerated, almost capricious style of surface decoration known as the Churrigueresque.

Toledo Cathedral, Spain, 

from the Plaza del Ayuntamiento.

Photo: 5 August 2012.

Source: Own work.

Author: Nikthestoned.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Within half a century, they transformed Salamanca into an exemplary Churrigueresque city. Among the highlights of the style, the interiors of the Granada Charterhouse offer some of the most impressive combinations of space and light in 18th-Century Europe. Integrating sculpture and architecture even more radically, Narciso Tomé achieved striking chiaroscuro effects in his Transparente for Toledo Cathedral.

The development of the style passed through three phases. Between 1680 and 1720, the Churriguera popularised Guarini's blend of Solomonic Columns and composite order, known as the "supreme order". Between 1720 and 1760, the Churrigueresque Column, or Estipite, in the shape of an inverted Cone or obelisk, was established as a central element of ornamental decoration. The years from 1760 to 1780 saw a gradual shift of interest away from twisted movement and excessive ornamentation toward a neoclassical balance and sobriety.

PART FOUR FOLLOWS.

Baroque (Part Two).

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopaedia,
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.

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.