Baroque and Rococo
Baroque (c. 1600-1750) and Rococo (c. 1730-1770) test your ability to read theatricality, naturalism and persuasive staging, and to separate Roman, Flemish, Dutch, French and Central European strands.
Core rules and vocabulary
- Caravaggio and the Carracci. Tenebrism, harsh raking light, unidealised bodies and contemporary dress (Calling of St Matthew, 1599-1600, Contarelli Chapel), against Annibale Carracci's eclectic classicism and the Farnese Gallery ceiling.
- Bernini and Borromini. Bernini's bel composto fuses architecture, sculpture, painting and hidden light: Ecstasy of St Teresa (1647-1652, Cornaro Chapel), St Peter's baldachin (1624-1633) and colonnade; Apollo and Daphne (1622-1625). Borromini works by geometry and undulating wall: San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (1638-1667), Sant'Ivo.
- Painting north and south. Rubens: colour, diagonals, energetic flesh (Descent from the Cross, 1612-1614). Rembrandt: psychological light, self-portraiture, etching (Night Watch, 1642). Vermeer: cool interior light, domestic genre. French academic debate: poussinistes (line) versus rubenistes (colour); Versailles under Louis XIV (Le Vau, Hardouin-Mansart's Hall of Mirrors, Le Notre's gardens, Le Brun's propaganda).
- Rococo. Asymmetry, rocaille ornament, pastel palette, intimacy and aristocratic leisure: Watteau's Pilgrimage to Cythera (1717, fete galante), Boucher, Fragonard's The Swing (1767); Tiepolo ceilings, Neumann's Vierzehnheiligen.
Worked example
Prompt: analyse Bernini's Ecstasy of St Teresa. Reasoning: white marble group set in a marble aedicule; a hidden window above floods the scene with real light continued by gilded bronze rays; relief portraits of the Cornaro family sit in theatre boxes, making the chapel a stage with the viewer as audience; the saint's swoon dramatises Counter-Reformation mysticism. Conclusion: the work is not sculpture alone but a total theatrical ensemble.
Traps that cost marks
Using tenebrism and chiaroscuro as synonyms; swapping poussinistes and rubenistes; attributing Versailles to Louis XV; calling Rococo 'late Baroque' without naming asymmetry, rocaille, pastel and secular intimacy; forgetting that Dutch Baroque is bourgeois and Protestant, not courtly Catholic.