The 4 most important characteristics of the Baroque

When we think of Baroque art, those twisted and dramatic images of churches come to mind, where we can already see a suffering Christ, already a Magdalene in penance with her eyes ravaged in tears.

Yes, Baroque art is often an excessive art (we must admit it), and also pathetic (in its truest meaning, that is, highly expressive). Often times, this style awakens attraction and rejection in us in equal measure.

But what is actually the Baroque? What is your language? What are you trying to convey to us? What is your aesthetic ideal?

In this article we will try to thread the needle and briefly describe the essence and the most important Baroque characteristics.

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What is Baroque art?

We call Baroque art style that developed in Europe from the late 16th to the early 18th century. Despite being established in a very specific period of history, it did not have the same characteristics in all European countries.

The Roman Catholic Church played a fundamental role in its development, a role that we will explain later. By way of summary, we can say that the Baroque (specifically, the Catholic Baroque, from southern Europe) sought to move the faithful through expression, exalted emotion and drama.

But first, let's stop at its origins, since otherwise we will not understand how this style was created.

The origins of the Baroque

Before starting to address the characteristics of the Baroque, which can help us to recognize and understand it, we are going to briefly review some aspects of its origin.

1. Name

As with many other words that are now used academically without any problem, the term "Baroque" was born in the Enlightenment as a more or less pejorative concept. It was used to designate something "extravagant" or "confusing", in clear opposition to the "balanced" and "clean" style of the late 18th century, which recovered the classical canons.

Thus, in the same way that the term "Gothic" was originally used to disparage the art of the second Middle Ages (an art of goths, barbarians, they said), "baroque" served in turn to name those excessive styles of the centuries preceding the Illustration.

Because the Baroque was born in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the scene of his birth is clear and concrete. Let's see what historical, social and ideological facts paved the way for its appearance.

2. The Baroque and the Counter-Reformation

One hundred years earlier, at the beginning of the 16th century, a German monk named Martin Luther had nailed his 95 theses to the doors of the Wittenberg palace church, of a religious nature, where, among other things, he fiercely attacked the Church for its excessive greed and corruption.

Specifically, the objective of his criticism was the indulgences that the Church sold in those years in exchange for the remission of punishment for sins. Remember that the Vatican was financing the construction of the new St. Peter's Basilica, and such a work required coffers always full.

Luther's rebellion forever split the Western Church. Gradually, the German princes were aligning themselves with his cause, and after the Reformation, Rome only had the loyalty of southern Europe, especially France, Italy and Spain.

It was then that the Roman Church deployed an authentic religious propaganda campaign to preserve the Catholics who were still faithful to it.. This response, which was called the Counter-Reformation for obvious reasons, had its greatest and best vehicle of expression in Baroque art.

The Baroque: a new art for an ancient faith

Indeed, the Vatican imbued this new style with all its ideological artillery. The aim was that the faithful, when contemplating a canvas or a sculpture, would receive an impact of faith, of the "true faith", of course, and in this way remove them from any Lutheran "deviations".

How did Baroque art move its audience in this way? Through various techniques and various resources that we will detail below.

1. Emotionality

Baroque is a highly dramatic language, of that there is no doubt. The main objective of it was, as already pointed out, to move her audience. Therefore, he must feel identified with what she saw reflected before her eyes.

For this end, expressions are dramatized to the maximum. Saints in martyrdom suffer, and they suffer greatly. Christ himself truly agonizes on the Cross. You can perceive every one of his sores, every one of his drops of blood and all the convulsions of his body. The penitent Magdalene's face is swollen and red from crying so much. Some sculptures even included elements such as natural hair or crystal tears. to accentuate the realistic effect of the images, and also their pathos.

We can easily imagine the reaction of the faithful when contemplating such works. The saint is no longer a mystical, unattainable being, who shows no sign of pain; he is a human being like him, who bleeds, groans and suffers. More powerful still is the image of Christ. The Son of God has a forehead full of blood, his sides full of wounds; Christ is not only God, he is also a man.

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2. Showmanship

The Spanish and Italian Baroque take this drama to the maximum, to the point that figures and scenes seem taken from a stage.

The theater enjoyed great fame in the baroque world and, related to it, the sharp contrasts of light and shadow on the canvases. Very often we have the sensation of finding ourselves not in front of a painting, but in front of a theatrical scene frozen in time. The arrangement of the figures, their bombastic gestures and, above all, that powerful focus of unreal light, responsible for the famous baroque chiaroscuro, are some of the elements that help convey that feeling.

And, again, imagine the reaction of the faithful when faced with something similar. Like the ancient Greek theater, these effects should produce a catharsis inside. He then had the certainty of being before something supernatural, divine, true. It was the "real" faith unfolding before him. That was neither more nor less the intention of the Church of Rome, and therefore it squeezed all the possibilities of this new style and brought it closer to its cause.

3. Chiaroscuro

We have already commented on it in the previous point; In the baroque paintings of the Mediterranean area (that is, Catholic), the play of light and shadow is usually abrupt and violent.

A powerful beam of light appears from one corner of the canvas, similar to that of a modern theater or cinema spotlight.. In some paintings, the chiaroscuro that this beam of light causes is so intense that many of the characters are almost in darkness. This intense and direct light serves to highlight the main character or some important expression in the storytelling.

In Caravaggio's "Supper at Emmaus", the light makes the magnificent face of Christ shine, while his disciples remain in shadow around him. It is not known exactly where the light source comes from; Perhaps a bonfire located at the extreme left of the painting, which we cannot see? From the flickering light of a candle?

With Baroque art we always have that vague feeling of unreality, of vision, of scenery.. And this despite the fact that not a few artists, like Caravaggio himself, took their models from the lowest strata of society and placed their characters in everyday and simple environments.

4. Exaggeration (and confusion) of feelings

One of the common denominators in Catholic Baroque art is exaggeration. The pain is multiplied by a thousand, the wounds bleed more than normal, the facial expressions seem taken from a stage. And even more: feelings and emotions are not only exacerbated, but are sometimes confused.

Take for example Bernini's famous sculpture "The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa." The saint is receiving a divine ray in her heart, which is thrown at her by an angel. Her face decomposes in a mystical ecstasy. But... It could well be the face of a woman who is experiencing intense sexual pleasure.

The Baroque constantly deceives us, tending us ephemeral illusions, as if everything were part of a great set, a huge farce, an eternal play. "Life is a dream", as collected in the famous work of Calderón, baroque by the way.

Light-shadow, mysticism-sensuality, pain-pleasure... in the baroque world, the binomials, the dichotomies, apparently irreconcilable, always find a point of union, and many times they are confused with each other.

The different "Barrocos"

So far we have mainly talked about the Baroque of the Catholic zone, that is, those who made the movement the vehicle of expression for the Counter-Reformation. The truth is that there is no single Baroque (as in all styles), since in northern Europe, mostly Lutheran, it developed in a completely different way. Let's see.

1. The Golden Age of the Netherlands

In the Dutch area, the Baroque is intimacy. Lutheranism had brought greater introspection and individualism by claiming that only personal faith can save us.

What's more, in Protestant countries there was no strong Church, as was the one in Rome, which could promote the great works of the Baroque, which were promoted in Spain or Italy. The result was a production of very intimate canvases with a simple theme (never religious), which the bourgeois of the cities commissioned to decorate their rooms. It is in this context that we must place the exquisite Dutch interiors, masterfully executed by painters such as Vermeer and Jan Steen.

Far away are these works of the bombastic epics of the baroque (and universal) genius that was Rubens. Indeed, Rubens painted mostly for Spain, a country that was at the forefront of the Counter-Reformation from the beginning.. For this reason, much of the artist's work is imbued with that southern baroque air, bombastic and affected, which has nothing to do with the withdrawn Dutch or English expression.

2. France and classicism

France, a country straddling Catholic and Protestant Europe, developed a much more classical Baroque than Spanish. Especially during the reign of Louis XIV, that is, in the middle and late seventeenth century, French baroque expression was restrained and balanced, highly inspired by classical models. As an example, we can cite the works of Nicolas Poussin.

Baroque architecture

Architecture did not undergo such crucial transformations as in the case of painting or sculpture. The classic construction elements were kept (pilasters, tympanums, capitals, columns ...) especially in the case of France, with classicist examples such as the wonderful Palace of Versailles.

Of course, the Baroque introduced a series of modifications in the architecture that moved away from the Greek and Roman canons and that they were not always well received. For example, classical elements were given a new arrangement, and from them, the baroque finds its own original and unique form of expression.

But, we must repeat it, typical Baroque architecture is essentially classical. We will have to wait until the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to find truly new styles, such as the Spanish churrigueresque style, unique in the history of art.

Bibliographic references:

• Czech, F. & Morán, J.M. (2001) The Baroque. Madrid: Isthmus.
• Gombrich, E.H. (2002). The history of art Madrid: Debate.
• Langdon, H. Caravaggio (2010). Barcelona: Edhasa.