Baroque, Art

BAROQUE, ART. - The term "baroque", which today criticism uses in a historical sense, that is, without any intrinsic value judgment, to indicate the art of the seventeenth century and of a good part of the eighteenth, was born with a disparaging meaning, containing within it, even amid etymological or derivative uncertainties, the sense of false, of extravagant, of reprehensible. And this serves to make clear how the art of that time finds its chronological limit in the fierce polemic that the Neoclassicism inveighed against it, accusing it of delirious abnormality and of convulsive and unbridled arbitrariness; and, at the same time, how Baroque art stands out most distinctly in the face of that (called Mannerist) which had preceded it. But this very objective individuality and intimate coherence not only with the taste of the entire epoch in which it unfolded, but also with the manifestations of contemporary poetry and literature, persuaded the criticism of our century to overcome every polemical preconception and to place Baroque art in the light to which it has full right.

The famous tercet of Marino is customarily taken almost as the quintessential symbol of Baroque taste: "È del poeta il fin la meraviglia: - Parlo dell'eccellente e non del goffo - Chi non sa far stupir vada alla striglia."

And in truth the sense of the marvelous can well signify - by way of compendious approximation - the intimate formal content of the artistic expressions of the seventeenth century.

Having reached, in the intellectualist presumptions of the sixteenth century, the fullness of the ideals aimed at by the fifteenth century, artists believed they had to adhere to the imitation of the greatest masters, and they informed their figurative theory with this; so much so that art, intrinsically, resolves itself in composition rather than in the invention of individual formal elements, finding therein its new language (v. MANIERISMO).

But against such undeniable subjection rose up the free imagination, which turned to overcoming cultural conceptuality, to crossing every theoretical limit, and, especially, to overstepping, in every sense, the forms in whatever acceptation had become established and consolidated.

So that it amazed, for example, to see columns twist into thick spirals, pediments break, gables multiply and curve; walls bend and lose every geometric appearance, shadow and light replace the elementary nature of the constructive material, the orders become a mere expedient of pictorialism; buildings transform from strictly architectural into scenographic pretexts; the human figure count not so much for itself as for the pictorial exuberances to which its movement, always exasperated, gave rise, whether in its attitudes or - and even more - in the drapery that transfigured it fantastically; landscape value subordinate the figure, light prevail over the drawn form, the unexpected replace the preordained. And since the men and artists of the seventeenth century took pleasure in being astonished before such "irregularities" of artistic expressions, to the point of degenerating into emphasis and virtuosity, on this fundamental and imperative taste, Baroque art cannot be, not merely inferior, but not even comparable to that of other periods, and must therefore be recognized as fully valid in itself and for itself (v. ARTE), and indeed admirable for the unprejudiced triumph of imagination, vitality, and exuberant freedom in which it is quintessentialized.

A genuinely Roman phenomenon, Baroque architecture constituted the environment suited to the visual triumph of the Catholic Church emerged from the cares of the Counter-Reformation (v. CONTRORIFORMA, ARTE DELLA); and the style attains its heights - opposed in so much freedom of expression, but identical as historical value - in the very lofty personalities of Bernini and Borromini. Already Maderno in the facade of S. Susanna (1666) proposes the theme of the animated facade, enriched - almost formed - by oppositions of luminous values; and the statues there assume a value not so much decorative as constitutive through their intrinsic architectural quality. And taking up and strengthening the cue (moreover not new) of Vignola in the church of the Gesù (begun in 1568), the side naves are annulled, to let the central one triumph, a vast hall covered with a vault, populated with composite altars, at times elaborate, scenographically completing themselves in the side chapels and more significantly in the deep apse: the ultimate scenario where, among gilded "glories" and bursting lights, the diffuse and magniloquent value concludes pictorial value of the polychrome marbles, of the sepulchral monuments, of the vast paintings which never as now agree chorally in the architectural unity.

The interior of St. Peter's will be the most extensive example. But the churches of Bernini (1598-1680) more completely signify the affirmation of pictorialism entrusted to the free play of mass values. St. Andrea al Quirinale, with its elliptical plan, with its entrance baldachin shaped in a counter-curve, is among the most conspicuous examples; and there is full stylistic coherence with the work that marked Bernini's architectural debut, the baldachin of St. Peter's, where, through the spiral columns, through the bronze laden with unsuspected reflections, through the simulation of draperies and vegetable elements, together with the scenographic value of the whole, the Baroque taste finds its most characteristic affirmation: beyond form in the sixteenth-century sense, matter, in its illusionistic simulation, is transfigured into values that go beyond the work to diffuse themselves into environmental determinations.

In Bernini's work the intentions and conquests of his predecessors are summed up, and from it his followers radiate, from the last Mannerists to the true Baroque artists: from Giacomo della Porta (facade of S. Luigi dei Francesi of 1584), to Rughesi (S. Maria in Vallicella of 1605); from Martino Longhi the Elder (d. 1591, S. Girolamo degli Schiavoni), from Domenico Fontana (1543-1607; lateral facade of S. Giovanni in Laterano) and from Maderno (facade of St. Peter's, 1607-14) through G. B. Soria (1581-1651; facade of S. Gregorio al Celio) and Algardi (1595-1654, facade of S. Ignazio), down to Rainaldi (1611-91; facade of S. Maria in Campitelli), to Carlo Fontana (1634-1714; facade of S. Marcello), to Martino Longhi the Younger (1682-1753; facade of SS. Vincenzo e Atanasio a Trevi), to Sardi

(1680-1753; facade of the Maddalena), and still further to the reactionary eighteenth-century composure of Salvi (though magniloquent in the Trevi Fountain), of Specchi (who, together with De Sanctis, wrote the magnificent testament of Roman Baroque in the staircase of Trinità dei Monti) and even of the classicizing Galilei (facade of St. John Lateran), a contemporary of the already neoclassical Vanvitelli.

A singular and most lofty figure (who can be included in the Berninian current) is Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669), who especially with the exterior of S. Maria della Pace manifested the ardor of his style in moving masses and in illusorily multiplying the surrounding space, appropriating the surrounding void, raising his work to a scenographic and, one might say, urbanistic value.

Civil architecture evidently follows the same taste; in the Palazzo di Montecitorio, by Bernini, despite its sobriety, the majestic character of the whole accords with the "bizzarria" of the lower windows, whose sills appear as if rough-hewn from raw rock; whereby the massive power of the whole is enhanced.

Through the building prodigality of the popes and noble families (especially the Barberini and the Chigi), all of Rome acquires its unmistakable face, where urban planning seems (and in this sense is resolved) to be replaced by scenographic and panoramic values. Here indeed, as a backdrop to the streets, rhythmically ordered and animated by the re-erected obelisks, are the new city gates (the greatest example being that of the Popolo by Bernini); and the fountains that rendered architecturally, in the most intimately Baroque sense, the fleetingness of water and gave rise to the utmost exasperation of the marvelous (one recalls the one called the Fiumi in Piazza Navona, also by Bernini, where the obelisk is set upon the void). The portals, broad and framed in solemn architecture, become the foreground of the vista of courtyards that are transfigured in the im-

(phot. Anderson)

sudden picturesqueness of the gardens and panoramic backdrops; and finally, minute particular elements participate in the scenography of the whole — as, for example, the windows of the Palazzo Barberini "fleeing upward" in the perspectival simulation of depth — so that even individual forms find full renewal.

Borromini (1599-1667), who is regarded, through uncontrolled anecdote, as the antagonist of Bernini, in truth completes his genius, integrating the meaning of the Baroque.

Not by virtue of a fantastic play of masses, but through the richest elaboration of linear elements in the gentle and extraordinarily complex undulation of the façades, and in short in the complete overcoming of every traditional realism, Borromini expresses the truest meaning of the art of his time.

The plans of his churches, though derived from rigorous geometric compositions, suggest such indefiniteness in spatial values as to justify the proposition of the most recent criticism that sees in Borromini the triumph of an intimate "Gothic" sensibility. All the more so since, in elevation, he substitutes for the enhancement of constructive, or at any rate heavy, elements an innervation of members, bands and meshes, which exalt above all else the value of drawing. The interior of the dome of the celebrated S. Carlino alle Quattro Fontane, and more especially the spiral spire of the dome of S. Ivo, fully exemplify this.

To Bernini and Borromini is traced the rich expansion of Baroque architecture in Italy and abroad.

In Italy, with Guarini (1624-83, chapel of the S. Sindone in Turin) and with Juvarra (1685-1737, the Palazzina di Stupinigi) Piedmont becomes characteristic for palaces and churches where the complexity of the original schemes is refined to the point of preluding the later eighteenth-century "rococo"; in the Veneto, though in the wake of the very strong local tradition, especially Longhena (1598-1682; S. Maria della Salute in Venice) would constitute the last great lagoon art; scanty traces in Florence and Tuscany, faithful to Renaissance nobility; sporadic but well-established forms in Romagna and Emilia; not very significant traces in Lombardy, where the expectation of Neoclassicism was more alive. In Naples, on the other hand, especially through the work of Fanzaga (1591-1678; church and cloister of S. Martino), the taste for the polychromy of inlaid marbles spreads, and Sicilian architecture is enriched in a Spanish manner, continuing into the eighteenth century, especially at Catania. Entirely original is Apulian Baroque (which is in fact connected with the Spanish "plateresco"), where the special quality of the stone, soft and compact, favors the lavish ornamental sculpture entirely placed at the service of architecture, which flourishes and foams in the monuments of Lecce, popularly defined as the Florence of the Baroque.

Abroad the Baroque was enthusiastically received; and the legacy of Bernini, who was the author of a project for the Louvre palace, spread from the well-known Parisian churches (Val de Grâce) to the point of influencing the sensibility of the Swede Tessin (1615-81): in Germany, especially at Dresden, examples abound. In Spain, where Italian artists had lavished their works from the sixteenth century onward, the new style was limited, as, moreover, almost everywhere outside Italy, to enriching traditional data pictorially. But it is certain that everywhere in Europe the schemes of Roman Baroque churches are still today predominant over the forms later than the seventeenth century.

Just as, in every part of the world, the theme of the villa was received, as it matured in Rome with the greatest examples of the villas of Tusculum and Tibur, as the consummate expression of Baroque taste.

Sculpture, not content with the exaltation of its already illustrated architectural value, expressed in itself its triumphant Baroque essence.

The commemorative monument in itself imposes — mutually — the necessity of composing statuary into architectural complexes. And even the "group" and the isolated statue lose every trace of sixteenth-century academicism and satisfy the desire for the marvelous proper to the age. Bernini, without doubt, proclaims the style of the time, from his youthful works (the celebrated Apollo and Daphne of the Galleria Borghese) to the great statues of the churches. And everywhere the agitation of the draperies, the simulation of matter, the bursting and broad attitude of the figures, transfigure plastic value, through an absolute pictorialism, in the exclusive sense of motion, in which form departs from its traditional definition. Thus in the monuments in St. Peter's (for example, that of Urban VIII and of Alexander VII), in the celebrated St. Teresa in S. Maria della Vittoria and in the B. Ludovica Albertoni in S. Francesco a Ripa; and especially in the complex of the Chair of St. Peter, almost a triumphal "machine" as a backdrop to the basilica and the baldachin.

The same taste — for the pictorial, the animated, the grandiose, the panoramic — informs the sculptural altarpieces that become the backdrop and completion of the altars. And these, which replace the great altarpieces of the painters, had their greatest maker in Algardi (1595-1654) who, though embodying a reaction to the exuberances of Bernini, constitutes a conspicuous testimony to the tendencies followed by the numerous host of "minor" artists who prolonged the art of the two masters down to the full eighteenth century.

Painting too, like the other manifestations of figurative art, revealed the new attitudes of the spirit and the demands of taste.

To the dull academicism of formal types, painters polemically opposed either the freedom of intimate judgment expressed on the masters of the Renaissance, drawing from them elements (and not models) for new works of art, or absolute novelty, that is, a radical transposition of iconographic, compositional and formal themes. And thus the Carracci (v.) and Caravaggio (v.) were born.

The Carracci compose broadly, with a manner that then seemed boldness in the face of the placid works of Barocci, still latently sixteenth-century, scenes rich in fantasy, though with the concern to imitate, following a careful selection, the parts that then seemed best, of Raphael, of Michelangelo, of Correggio, of the Venetians. But this eclecticism of academic flavor — theoretically erroneous — they dissolved into compositional freedom; and while their "Accademia degli Incamminati" and their "Scuola dei Desiderosi" claimed to halt, in that theoretical and didactic position, the course of art, in fact the Carracci determined a whole series of fantastic scenes (suffice it to recall the examples of the Palazzo Farnese)

which gave rise to the later great decorative paintings, those that integrated architecture, just as sculpture already had.

But the true revolutionary was Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610). Starting from Lombard painting, enlivened – though in a wholly generic way – by Venetian painting, he set himself fiercely against the lingering intellectualism of the Carracci; and he rejected the cultural contribution of his great but exhausted predecessors in order to turn frankly to the observation of reality. And the more bare, simple, essential and corporeal this reality was, the more abundantly it stirred a pretext for art in Caravaggio's soul, who renewed a sort of expressive primitivism. The elementary spontaneity of a basket of fruit became painting of the same nobility as a sacred subject; indeed, a "picture of flowers" was certainly truer than a homage to Michelangelo. And so too in the most strictly pictorial values: in Caravaggio's most mature and most typical works, light is the single and supreme creator of form. No longer, therefore, the drawing that defines and exhausts every aspect, that determines spaces, that creates illusions about dimensions; but a plastic and chromatic world, as rich as reality is rich, yet made true only by the sudden incidence of the light that reveals it to lived experience and therefore only in the parts that such light – bursting in – surprises. So much so that light ceases, for the first time in the history of painting (save for occasional exceptions, consisting mostly in searches for nocturnal effects), to be a merely optical presupposition or a pictorial "environment," and constitutes itself the despotic protagonist of the visible and therefore of the expressible. Whence that dramatic effect, those contrasts of shadow, where the terms are always violent and immediate; whence space is not as-

It assumes more the function of stage design but is connected with the forms so closely as to cancel itself out as an individual value. The canvases of S. Luigi dei Francesi, of S. Maria del Popolo, and the one depicting the Death of the Virgin in the Louvre museum testify to the stylistic coherence and the fertile substance of the innovator.

Opposed by his contemporaries, who accused him of brutal realism, of irreverence toward tradition and toward the schematism of iconography, he was instead adopted by painters as a revealing liberator. Even many heirs of the Carracci, such as Reni (1575-1642) and Guercino (1591-1666), were revived by the warmth of Caravaggio; and Rembrandt and Velázquez drew from him the decisive spur to their own expressive power.

But with Guercino, with Lanfranco (1582-1647) and especially with Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669) and with Father Pozzo (1642-1708) and even more forcefully with Baciccio (1639-1709), painting exalted its premises of Baroque art; and it became, in the highest sense, decorative: in the sense that it simulated open space and into that space projected, in the greatest freedom of imagination, the richest and most sumptuous compositions, for which architecture exalted itself, decisively overstepping every determination of space and every formal limit. Linear perspective, raised to the highest virtuosity, allowed the "quadraturista" Andrea Pozzo to "break through" the vault of S. Ignazio with the ideal prolongation of complex architectures, amid which is exalted the glory of the titular Saint and even more the glory of the name of Jesus which, carried by the Society, spreads throughout the world; and aerial perspective leads to the highest peaks the imaginative resources of Gaulli, author of the vault of the church of the Gesù. Here the colors, as they fade, are punctually accompanied by the inverse progression of luminous intensity, greatest at the apex of a radiant pyramid; and the surprising "sottinsù," suspended without any visibly drawn support in the free sky, the enhancement of light, the necessity of going beyond the frame of the vault and of expanding painting onto canvases that overstep the moldings and the members of the architecture — this supreme overstepping seems to sum up in itself the experiences and the ideals of the century.

The subjects change: from the "battles" of Salvator Rosa to the mythological scenes of Albani, from the "still lifes" of Ruoppolo (1620-85) to the war scenes of Strozzi (1581-1644); from the cloudy and radiant "settings" of the sacred scenes of the Carracci and of Domenichino (1581-1641) to landscape, valid in itself: from the "classical" landscape of Claude Lorrain (1600-82) to the one more turned toward the theorizing neoclassical of Poussin (1594-1665), "philosopher-painter," down to the delight in the rustic, the characteristic, the picturesque of ruins; it is all, in short, an exhausting of the repertoire that was later to close in the cultural rigor of the educational and evocative painting of the following century; and in the last heir of the Baroque and of Gaulli, Tiepolo (1696-1770), the light settles into the whitened brightness, splendid though it be, of vast and swept skies; just as the historical, realistic, and cultural premises of the seventeenth century, no longer handmaidens of imagination, are revived in the prelude of true academicism inherent in the painting of Carlo Maratti (1625-1713).

But by now the Baroque is extinguished, and it will undergo the acrimonious condemnation of the cold neoclassicism that followed. - See PLATES LIX-LXII.

Adriano Prandi