Baroque and Rococo

Among the greatest painters of the Baroque are Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Rubens, Velazquez and Vermeer. Caravaggio is an heir of the humanist painting of the Renaissance. His realistic approach to the human figure, painted directly from life and dramatically spotlit against a dark background, shocked his contemporaries and opened a new chapter in the history of painting. Baroque painting often dramatizes scenes using light effects; this can be seen in works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Le Nain and La Tour.

Rococo followed as a decadent sub-genre of Baroque, lighter, often frivolous and erotic. The French masters Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard represent the style, as do Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Thomas Gainsborough.

Baroque is a term loosely applied to European art from the end of the 16th century to the early 18th century, with the latter part of this period falling under the alternative stylistic designation of Late Baroque. The painting of the Baroque period is so varied that no single set of stylistic criteria can be applied to it. This is partly because the painting of Roman Catholic countries such as Italy or Spain differed both in its intent and in its sources of patronage from that of Protestant countries such as Holland or Britain, and it is partly because currents of classicism and naturalism coexisted with and sometimes even predominated over what is more narrowly defined as the High Baroque style.

The Baroque style in Italy and Spain had its origins in the lastdecades of the 16th century when the refined, courtly, and idiosyncratic style of Mannerist painting had ceased to be an effective means of artistic expression. Indeed, Mannerism's inadequacy as a vehicle for religious art was being increasingly felt in artistic circles as early as the middle of that century. To counter the inroads made by the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church after the Council of Trent (1545–63) adopted an overtly propagandistic stance in which painting and the other arts were intended to serve as a means of extending and stimulating the public's faith in the church and its doctrines. The church thus adopted a conscious artistic program, the products of which would make an overtly emotional and sensory appeal to the faithful. The Baroque style of painting that evolved from this program was paradoxically both sensuous and spiritual; while naturalistic treatment rendered the painted religious image more readily comprehensible to the average churchgoer, dramatic and illusory effects were used to stimulate piety and devotion. This appeal to the senses manifested itself in a style that above all emphasized movement and emotion. The stable, pyramidal compositionsand the clear, well-defined pictorial space that were characteristic of Renaissance paintings gave way in the Baroque to complex compositions surging along diagonal lines. The Baroque vision of the world is basically dynamic and dramatic; throngs of figures possessing a superabundant vitality energize the painted scene by meansof their expressive gestures and movements. These figures are depicted with the utmost vividness and richness through the use of rich colours, dramatic effects of light and shade, and lavish use of highlights. The ceilings of Baroque churches thus dissolved in painted scenes that presented convincing views of the saints and angels to the observer and directed him through his senses to heavenly concerns.