COUNTER REFORMATION BAROQUE STYLES I

Origins

-Italy and Spain: 1620-70, then it spreads

-1545® 1563 Council of Trent

The implications of the Council’s determinations

-humanism, Neoplatonism® Aristotelian scholasticism

-seductive voices of antiquity® medieval fire and brimstone

-God: Loving Father ® Judge

-Christ: Good Shepherd® Great Avenger

-access to science and literature® censorship

Recall: Veronese Last Supper

 

-Council of Trent: a new mandate for religious art

-direction toward clarity (for understanding)

-realism (for direct meaning)

-emotion (for piety and fervor)

 

Counter Reformation Religious Groups

-Philip Neri: "The Oratorians"

-laypersons ; met informally; no vows

-emphasis on music; songs must be easy to sing

-Palestrina

-Musical mini-dramas are forerunners to Handel’s Oratorio

 

-Ignatius Loyola (1534 "Soldiers of Christ"): religion for the real world

-vows: 1) poverty, 2) chastity, 3) obedience

-education, ministry

-1548 Ignatius Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises

-guided journey through contemplation of hell, humility, death, glory, etc.

-journey involves all 5 senses (e.g., Fifth Meditation: On Hell)

 

 

 

ITALY
  1. Architecture

    2. Church of Il Gesu- prototype of many Counter Reformation churches

    San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane (Fig. 13.5)

    -complex interplay of geometric shapes

     

     

  2. Painting

-Caravaggio: solitary figure

-called an "artistic bohemian"

-real-life approach to religious figures: was his "graphic naturalism" too much realism for contemporaries? (Fleming, p. 385)

 

Calling of St. Matthew

Death of the Virgin

St. Francis

Crucifixion of St. Peter

 

New conceptions of space and time:

Copernicus, Galileo, Discovery of Americas

-Earth is not at the center of universe

-Europe is not at the center of the Earth

Supper at Emmaus

Conversion of St. Paul

-Artemisia Gentileschi

tenebrism, what is

 

Judith Slaying Holofernes

-Jewish widow slays Holofernes, leader of Assyrian army

 

Women in the Fine Arts, an ongoing exploration

-Have talented women been ignored and left out of the canon of "fine art"?

 

-Have women been precluded from becoming masters because of societal expectations, rigid societal structures, etc.?

 

 

-Andrea Pozzo

-St. Ignatius in Glory 1691-4 (Fig. 13.11)

-Advises artist on perspective: "to draw all points to that true point, the Glory of God"

-Technique: foreshortening

-ceiling fresco of Church of Sant’ Ignazio

-quadrattura® illusion to trick us that architecture extends beyond Church

3) Sculpture

 

Bernini: the most representative and productive champion of the Counter Reformation baroque

 

Fountain of the Four Rivers

Apollo and Daphne

 

St. Teresa in Ecstasy Cornaro Chapel (Fig 13.15)

Cornaro Family in Theatre Box

-religion and theatre fuse

 

 

SPAIN

 

  1. Architecture

    2. -Escorial Palace

    -Son of Charles V, Philips II, moves capital to centrally located Madrid

    -Monarch has Old World wealth and New World resources

    -builds new palace for court in a rather conservative style

    -Palace has a few intended functions: What are they (Fleming, pp. 390-1)?

     

     

     

     

    -Churrigueresque Style

    -Churriguera altarpiece (Fig. 13.19)

    -A reaction to Philip’s "formal severity"

     

  2. Painting

    3.  

    El Greco ("The Greek")

    Martyrdom of St. Maurice and Theban Legion

    **-Moral dilemma: to serve the state or to serve God

    Jesus: render to Caesar what is Caesar’s

    Jesus: You shall love the Lord your God with all your being

    As Bill Clinton showed us, ranking moral values (family, personal pursuits, politics, religion, etc.) may conflict.

    A fact of modern life: we make trade-offs…

     

    Velazquez Las Meninas

    -little princess of Spain

    -two Rubens paintings in background

    -artist stands at easel painting what proportionally could very well be this very painting

    -mirror in background shows the princess’s parents; the subjects being painted?

    -But why the 6 gazes? Are we eavesdropping?

    -Michel Foucault (1966): "a representation of representation"

     

    Velazquez Water Carrier of Seville

    -naturalistic genre painting; Velazquez’s skill was his objectivity, external eye

     

     

  3. Music

 

Palestrina

 

Victoria

 

SPAIN AND THE NEW WORLD

Civilizations and expansion:

Fertile Crescent, China had "leads" on West, why didn’t they get here first?

Jared Diamond’s thesis:

1) Fertile crescent- possessed no "compelling geographical advantages" more than domestic farming and animal husbandry

-oil masks serious disadvantage in Middle East

  1. China- have iron, compass, gunpowder, paper, printing, etc. earlier than West.

 

-leads to political power, sea control

-navigation® had 100s of ships

-7 Chinese fleets sail between 1405 and 1433

-navigation suspended when political infighting ends it

-China - CENTRALIZED;

-no where to go when an order is given!

-Compare: Columbus ® France, Portugal, dukes turn him down.

-Spain turns him down

-on second try, he gets the okay to sail with 3 ships

-political fragmentation has its advantages!!

 

 

 

IDEAS

  1. Militant Mysticism:

    2. The enemies: A) Protestants, B) pagans in Africa, Asia, and Americas, C) Materialism, D) Rationalism unleashed by free scientific inquiry

     

    Mechanistic worldview® purges spirituality from cosmos

     

     

  2. The Jesuits:

    3. Meets enemies with education and missionary work

     

  3. Mysticism and the Arts:

Pozzo

El Greco