How Does 17th Century Dutch Art Compare to That of 17th Century Italy?

Caravaggio:1593-1610 1 of the most startling and salutary shocks ever administered to fashionable art is the piece of work of Caravaggio in the last few years of the 16th century. In about 1593 he arrives, at the age of xx, in a Rome which is however attracted to the esoteric niceties of mannerism.

The boyfriend soon introduces two invigorating new elements in his paintings: a use of limerick and lite which gives the viewer an immediate sense of drama; and an intense realism, endowing the characters in a scene with the believable attributes of ordinary people.

These qualities are axiomatic in the Supper at Emmaus in London'southward National Gallery. A single raking calorie-free, characteristic of Caravaggio, causes a strong dissimilarity betwixt bright details and night shadows - as in any interior lit by a lantern. The ii disciples are very ordinary travellers sitting down to a meal. As ane of them recognizes Jesus, he flings his arms wide in a gesture which almost bursts out of the sail towards usa.

This degree of ordinary reality is not to anybody's taste in a religious field of study. When Caravaggio delivers a commissioned painting in 1602, showing St Matthew writing his gospel, it is rejected by the outraged priests in accuse of the church of San Luigi in Rome.

The painting is a masterpiece (destroyed alas in Berlin in 1945), merely it is easy to sympathise why the priests dislike it. St Matthew has bare feet (with a big toe jutting disturbingly towards u.s.) and he is clearly a unproblematic man, struggling with the difficult gospel words as a youthful angel stands beside him to guide his hand across the page.

It is a profoundly touching paradigm, and one which brings a religious moment very shut to the states. Merely priests prefer something more respectful. Caravaggio duly obliges with the painting at present to be seen in the church. The composition remains intensely dramatic, but the angel is at present flying in the air as angels practice (even if he does cheekily count off the generations of Christ'southward ancestors on his fingers).

In a turbulent life (he has to abscond from Rome in 1606 later killing a man in a brawl after a lawn tennis friction match), Caravaggio continues to bring religion shut to home in this directly way. In more than than one great painting the pilgrims kneeling to the Virgin thrust the dirty soles of their blank anxiety right in the viewer's face.

In the long run the church prefers the drama of Caravaggio's compositions, and his powerful utilize of calorie-free and dark, to the peasant realism of his detail. The preferred way of the 17th century becomes the Baroque. This more than full-blown exaltation of religious sentiment borrows much from Caravaggio - but not the gritty detail.

Rome and Bologna: 1595-1639 While Rome remains the eye of Italian fine art during the 17th century, there is a strong influence from the school of Bologna headed past the Carracci family unit of painters. In 1595 Annibale Carracci is invited to Rome by a cardinal in the powerful Farnese family. He is given the task of painting the ceiling of the banqueting hall in the Farnese palace. The magnificent result is completed by 1604. Carracci'due south theme is classical (the loves of the gods, from Ovid's Metamorphoses), and so is his style - with echoes of both Raphael and Michelangelo.

This link between Bologna and Rome introduces a creative balance betwixt classical and Baroque tendencies in 17th century Italian art.

The Bolognese artists (in particular Guido Reni, who inherits the curtain of Annibale Carracci as the leading painter of the school) tend to retain a classical purity of line and composition. The artists of Rome incline more than towards the theatricality of a fully Baroque style.

The virtually spectacular expression of Roman baroque is the nifty ceiling painted for the Barberini palace in 1633-nine by Pietro da Cortona. In before Roman ceilings, such as Michelangelo's for the Sistine chapel or Carracci'southward for the Farnese palace, the figures remain obediently within their allotted architectural compartments. In the Barberini ceiling they are less restrained.

Cortona's figures seem to soar up, from the trompe-l'oeil continuation of the walls, similar a flock of startled birds. The sense of profusion and energy in this triumphal celebration is overwhelming. Officially the triumph is that of Divine Providence, but past a fortunate coincidence both divine providence and the Barberini family unit (ane of whom is now pope as Urban VIII) have bees as their emblem. The design makes it axiomatic that the real triumph is that of the Barberini.

Just this is a private palace. In public this ecstatic Roman fashion is more appropriately put to the service of the Catholic Reformation - and nowhere more so than in the sculptures of Bernini.

Bernini and baroque Rome: 17th century In the transformation of Rome into a bizarre city, no 1 plays a part comparable to that of the sculptor and architect Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini. In 1629 he is appointed builder to St Peter'due south, the creation of which has given a new excitement and dignity to the ancient city. Over the next forty years he provides magnificent features to impress the arriving pilgrims.

The first, completed in 1633, is the vast bronze canopy held up by four twisting columns (profusely decorated with the Barberini bees, for the pope at the time is Urban VIII). This construction, known as the Baldacchino, is at the very heart of the church - to a higher place the tomb of St Peter and beneath the dome.

The Baldacchino rises to a higher place an chantry at which merely the pope conducts mass. Visible betwixt the columns, from the indicate of view of the congregation, is Bernini's other dramatic contribution to the interior of St Peter'due south. This is a gilt tableau, a piece of pure theatre, to a higher place the chantry at the far end of the church building. Its fundamental feature is the papal throne of St Peter, held aloft among the clouds.

Sculpted gilded rays stream up from St Peter's throne towards heaven. In an extra dimension to the illusion they are joined past existent rays of golden light, shining from the afternoon sun through an amber window in which the holy dove spreads his wings. This glorious blend of sculpture and architecture is accomplished between 1657 and 1666.

Bernini tin exist seen in fifty-fifty more emotional and theatrical vein in his superb ensemble in the Cornaro chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria. The discipline is the mystical ecstasy of St Teresa of Avila, following her own account of being pierced by the pointer of divine dearest. The saint, in a palpitate of white marble robes, swoons equally a jubilant winged male child prepares to plunge an arrow into her centre. Real light from a subconscious window combines with sculpted rays to illuminate the scene from above.

In a final theatrical touch, in this nigh histrionic of religious masterpieces, sculpted members of the Cornaro family watch the scene from boxes to either side.

The Cornaro chapel is completed in 1652. The previous year Bernini has unveiled the nearly spectacular of Rome's many fountains. There are others by him in the urban center (in the Piazza di Spagna and the Piazza Barberini), merely this i in the Piazza Navona outdoes them all.

The blueprint of the Fountain of the Iv Rivers is Bernini's simply most of the carving - including the figures of the 4 river gods - is washed past others from his preparatory models. From the daze of its central concept (heavy obelisk on tiptop of hollow stone) to its lively and often surprising details, this is a worthy secular counterpart to Bernini'due south Christian contribution in the shaping of baroque Rome.

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Source: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=1353&HistoryID=ac87