Baroque and Rococo
This independent art-history module develops baroque and rococo. Study the named works, compare their materials and formal features, and explain how artistic choices relate to function, patronage and context. These examples support shared subject foundations; they do not establish the regional examination’s official prescribed works, question pattern or regional marking criteria.
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.