The Bible and the Arts in the 17th Century

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Cathedra Petri (or Chair of St. Peter), gilded statuary, gold, woods, stained drinking glass, 1647-53 (alcove of Saint Peter'southward Basilica, Vatican City, Rome)

Rome: From the "Whore of Babylon" to the Resplendent Helpmate of Christ

When Martin Luther tacked his 95 theses to the doors of Wittenburg Cathedral in 1517 protesting the Catholic Church building's corruption, he initiated a move that would transform the religious, political, and artistic landscape of Europe. For the adjacent century, Europe would be in turmoil equally new political and religious boundaries were determined, often through bloody war machine conflicts. Only in 1648, with the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia, did the conflicts betwixt Protestants and Catholics subside in continental Europe.

Martin Luther focused his critique on what he saw as the Church's greed and abuse of power. He called Rome, the seat of papal ability, "the whore of Babylon" decked out in finery of expensive art, grand architecture, and sumptuous banquets. The Church responded to the crisis in 2 ways: by internally addressing bug of corruption and by defending the doctrines rejected by the Protestants. Thus, while the first two decades of the 16th century were a menses of lavish spending for the Papacy, the heart decades were a period of austerity. As one visitor to Rome noted in the 1560s, the entire urban center had get a convent. Piety and divineness ruled the 24-hour interval.

Past the finish of the 16th century, the Catholic Church was once again feeling optimistic, fifty-fifty triumphant. It had emerged from the crisis with renewed vigor and clarity of purpose. Shepherding the true-blue—instructing them on Cosmic doctrines and inspiring virtuous beliefs—took heart stage. Keen to rebuild Rome's reputation as a holy city, the Papacy embarked on all-encompassing edifice and decoration campaigns aimed at highlighting its aboriginal origins, its beliefs, and its divinely-sanctioned authorization. In the eyes of faithful Catholics, Rome was non an unfaithful whore, just a pure bride, beautifully adorned for her union with her divine spouse.

View of the Cerasi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome with Annibale Carracci's altarpiece, The Assumption of the Virgin, 1600-01, oil on sheet, 96 in × 61 inches and to the right, Caravaggio's Conversion of Saint Paul (Conversion of Saul), 1601, 91 in × 69 inches

The Art of Persuasion: to Instruct, to Delight, to Move

While the Protestants harshly criticized the cult of images, the Catholic Church ardently embraced the religious power of art. The visual arts, the Church argued, played a key role in guiding the faithful. They were certainly as important as the written and spoken give-and-take, and perhaps even more important, since they were accessible to the learned and the unlearned alike. In order to be effective in its pastoral role, religious art had to be clear, persuasive, and powerful. Non merely did it accept to instruct, information technology had to inspire. It had to motion the faithful to experience the reality of Christ'southward sacrifice, the suffering of the martyrs, the visions of the saints.

Caravaggio, The Crowning with Thorns, 1602-04, oil on sheet, 165.5 10 127 cm (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

The Church's emphasis on art'south pastoral function prompted artists to experiment with new and more straight ways of engaging the viewer. Artists similar Caravaggio turned to a powerful and dramatic realism, accentuated by bold contrasts of light and nighttime, and tightly-cropped compositions that enhance the physical and emotional immediacy of the depicted narrative. Other artists, like Annibale Carracci (who also experimented with realism), ultimately settled on a more than classical visual linguistic communication, inspired by the vibrant palette, idealized forms, and balanced compositions of the Loftier Renaissance. However others, like Giovanni Battista Gaulli, turned to daring feats of illusionism that blurred not merely the boundaries betwixt painting, sculpture, and architecture, but also those betwixt the real and depicted worlds. In so doing, the divine was made physically present and palpable. Whether through shocking realism, dynamic movement, or exuberant ornamentation, seventeenth-century art is meant to print. It aims to convince the viewer of the truth of its message by impacting the senses, awakening the emotions, and activating, fifty-fifty sharing the viewer's space.

Giovanni Battista Gaulli, as well known every bit il Baciccio, The Triumph of the Name of Jesus, Il Gesù ceiling fresco, 1672-1685

The Cosmic Monarchs and Their Territories

The monarchs of Kingdom of spain, Portugal, and France also embraced the more ornate elements of seventeenth century art to celebrate Catholicism. In Spain and its colonies, rulers invested vast resources on elaborate church facades, stunning, aureate-covered chapels and tabernacles, and strikingly-realistic polychrome sculpture. In the Spanish Netherlands, where sacred art had suffered terribly as a upshot of the Protestant iconoclasm (the devastation of fine art), borough and religious leaders prioritized the adornment of churches as the region reclaimed its Cosmic identity. Refurnishing the altars of Antwerp's churches kept Peter Paul Rubens' workshop busy for many years. Europe's monarchs also adopted this artistic vocabulary to proclaim their own power and condition. Louis 14, for case, commissioned the splendid buildings and gardens of Versailles equally a visual expression of his divine right to rule.

View of paintings by Peter Paul Rubens in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich

The Protestant North

In the Protestant countries, and especially in the newly-independent Dutch Republic (mod-day Holland), the artistic climate changed radically in the aftermath of the Reformation.

Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait, c. 1630, oil on canvass, 651 x 746 cm (National Gallery of Art, Washington)

Two of the wealthiest sources of patronage—the monarchy and the Church building—were now gone. In their stead arose an increasingly prosperous middle class eager to limited its status, and its new sense of national pride, through the buy of fine art.

By the heart of the 17th century a new market had emerged to meet the artistic tastes of this class. The demand was now for smaller calibration paintings suitable for display in individual homes. These paintings included religious subjects for individual contemplation, every bit seen in Rembrandt's poignant paintings and prints of biblical narratives, as well as portraits documenting individual likenesses.

Willem Claesz Heda, Banquet Piece with Mince Pie, 1635, oil on canvas, 42 x 43-3/four inches (National Gallery of Art, Washington)

But, the greatest alter in the marketplace was the dramatic increase in the popularity of landscapes, yet-lifes, and scenes of everyday life (known as genre painting). Indeed, the proliferation of these subjects as independent artistic genres was one of the 17th century's near significant contributions to the history of Western art. In all of these genres, artists revealed a swell involvement in replicating observed reality—whether it be the light on the Dutch landscape, the momentary expression on a face, or the varied textures and materials of the objects the Dutch nerveless as they reaped the benefits of their expanding mercantile empire. These works demonstrated as much artistic virtuosity and physical immediacy as the grand decorations of the palaces and churches of Catholic Europe.

Francisco de Zurbarán, Saint Francis of Assisi According to Pope Nicholas V's Vision, c. 1640, oil on canvas, 110.5 x 180.5 cm (Museum Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona)

"Baroque"—the Word, the Style, the Menstruum

In the context of European history, the menses from c. 1585 to c. 1700/1730 is frequently called the Baroque era. The give-and-take "baroque" derives from the Portuguese and Spanish words for a large, irregularly-shaped pearl ("barroco" and "barrueco," respectively). Eighteenth century critics were the get-go to apply the term to the art of the 17th century. It was not a term of praise. To the eyes of these critics, who favored the restraint and gild of Neoclassicism, the works of Bernini, Borromini, and Pietro da Cortona appeared baroque, cool, even diseased—in other words, misshapen, like an imperfect pearl.

By the middle of the 19th century, the give-and-take had lost its debasing implications and was used to describe the ornate and circuitous qualities nowadays in many examples of 17th-century art, music and literature. Somewhen, the term came to designate the historical period as a whole. In the context of painting, for example, the stark realism of Zurbaran'south altarpieces, the serenity intimacy of Vermeer'southward domestic interiors, and restrained classicism of Poussin'southward landscapes are all "Bizarre" (now with a upper-case letter "B" to indicate the historical period), regardless of the absence of the stylistic traits originally associated with the term.

Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with St. John, 1640, oil on canvas, 39-1/2 x 53-5/8 inches (Art Institute of Chicago)

Scholars continue to contend the validity of this label, albeit the usefulness of having a characterization for this distinct historical period, while also acknowledging its limitations in characterizing the variety of creative styles present in the 17th century.

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/masteryart1/chapter/reading-the-baroque-art-politics-and-religion-in-seventeenth-century-europe/

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