Baroque Art
During the Baroque period, new ideas and views
of society and of religion
spurred up. To express these new ideas many
artists used the ideas of past
artists to further expand their own motives. "
If I have seen further (than
you and Descartes), it is by standing upon the
shoulders of Giants." Sir
Isaac Newton, 1676 The artists of the baroque
period were using past ideals as a
ladder to the prevalent and the gallant.
Four pieces of art that exceplified the
usage of the great minds of the past
were; The Rape of the Sabine Women by
Nicholas Poussin, The east façade
of the Louvre Palace, The View of Delft by
Jan Vermeer and The Palace of
Versailles. The magnificent artwork of Nicholas
Poussin shows the mixture
of Roman architecture and ideas. He copied the body
sculptures and the
basilicas of ancient Rome and added them to his medium of
oil. Poussin
traveled to Roman museums for inspiration and models. In The Rape
of the
Sabine Women, he shows how he balanced his art by carefully
arranging
opposites. Since he used statues for models, the people in his
painting look to
be chiseled and very statuesque. Poussin also uses a
background of a Roman city
to further enhance his love for the classical
world. He sought for permanent in
the momentary and the universal in the
individual. Many artists of the time
turned to classical Greece and Rome for
their ideas. Another prime example is
the East Façade of the Louvre Palace in
Paris, France. KING LOUIS XIV
originally commissioned this piece of work to
Gianlorenzo Bernini in 1665. The
king's finance minister felt " it left the
king housed no better than
before." so his plan was rejected and a French
architect named Claude
Perrault was appointed to finish the job. This
palace had to grand enough for
the "sun-king", so Perrault used classical
influences to achieve the
proper grandness fit for a king. He used a long
Corinthian colonnade, friezes,
and pilasters. This acted as a restraining
influence to the baroque ideas of the
time. Greek and Roman art influenced
many Europeans, especially the monarchs of
the time. No monarch showed that
better than King Louis XIV of France. His rule
of France's nobles required a
large palace to be built to accommodate and
preoccupy the people that could
have threatened his absolute power. During his
rule he added the Hall of
Mirrors, four large wings, stables, and a chapel to
the Versailles Palace.
The palace contains hundreds of Corinthian columns and
pilasters. The columns
are ornately decorated with gold leaf and colorful
paints. This palace is an
incorporation of grandiose baroque ideas and elegant
classical ideas. The
building is symmetrical, logical and is an application of
absolute space
composition. As many architects went to classical ideals, many
painters
revived Renaissance ideals. In the View of Delft, Jan Vermeer shows the
ideas
of landscape and perspective that were discovered during the
Renaissance.
This painting is unique because it has no single vanishing
point and its
pictorial space is in a horizontal sweep. The light in this
painting is coming
from a cloudy sky that is dispersing it unevenly
throughout the town landscape.
Using this light method, the city's
buildings are colored by different shades of
the sunlight. Vermeer added his
own inventive subjects as well as past ideas to
his paintings. The Baroque
period illustrated the respect and the love for
classical art forms as well
as other past forms. It was a melting pot of
classical and baroque ideas that
further expanded the arts and ideas of the
world. Using past ideas along with
current original ideas can make a new art
form. The Baroque period was the
epitome of this ideal and showed it very well
with its excellent
architecture, paintings, and
sculptures.