The word Baroque (Baroque) originally meant an irregularly shaped pearl, and had a pejorative connotation at the time, when its flamboyant, showy style was seen as demeaning to the Renaissance style, but it is now recognized as one of the great artistic styles of Europe.
The classicists considered Baroque to be a degenerate and disintegrating art, and it was only later that a fairer assessment of Baroque art was made. Baroque art arose in the second half of the 16th century, its heyday was the 17th century, and it declined into the 18th century, except in northern and central Europe. Baroque art first arose in Italy, it is undoubtedly related to the Counter-Reformation, Rome was the center of the church's power at that time, so it is not surprising that it sprang up in Rome, it can be said that, although Baroque art is not a religious invention, but it is for the church to serve the church and be used by the religion, and the church is the strongest pillar of it. In a nutshell, baroque art has some characteristics as follows: first of all, it has luxurious characteristics, it has both religious characteristics and hedonistic colors; secondly, it is a kind of passionate art, which breaks the rational serenity and harmony, with a strong romanticism, and puts great emphasis on the artist's rich imagination thirdly, it is extremely emphasized, the movement, the movement and the change can be said to be the soul of the baroque art; fourthly, it is very concerned with the Fifth, it is comprehensive, baroque art emphasizes the comprehensive means of art forms, for example, in the architecture of the importance of architecture and sculpture, painting, in addition, baroque art also absorbed some of the factors and imaginations of literature, drama, music and other fields; Sixth, it has a strong religious color, religious themes in baroque art occupies a dominant position; Seventh, most of the baroque artists had a tendency to stay away from life and times, such as in some zenith paintings, the human figure became as insignificant as some floral patterns. Of course, some positive Baroque art masters are not in this case, such as Rubens, Benigni's works and life still maintain a close connection.
The origin of the term baroque, there are two statements are very influential. Italian B. Croce and others believe that the origin of Baroco, originally a specialized term of logic in the trinitarian style; the other that the origin of the Portuguese baroco or Spanish barrueco, meaning all kinds of irregular shape of the pearl, derived from the "irregular". 17th century before the end of the initial Baroque used in art criticism, refers to a variety of irregular, strange, that is, deviant things. 18th century used as a pejorative, generally refers to the violation of the laws of nature and classical art standards. Until the middle of the 19th century, Baroque was used as a pejorative rather than a name of art style. 1888 H. Werfling published the book "Renaissance and Baroque", which made a systematic exposition of the Baroque style, and from then on, the concept of Baroque as an art style was determined. 20 century western scholars made more in-depth research on Baroque, giving it different meanings, but as an art style is still the mainstream. The Baroque style is still the main stream.
Baroque architecture is an architectural and decorative style developed on the basis of Italian Renaissance architecture in the 17th and 18th centuries. Characterized by its free form, the pursuit of dynamic, preferring rich decorations and carvings, strong colors, often interspersed with curved surfaces and oval space.
The original meaning of the word Baroque is strange and eccentric, and the classicists used it to refer to this architectural style, which was considered to be deviant. This style played an important role in opposing the rigidity of the classical form, the pursuit of free-spirited style and the expression of secular interest, etc., on the city square, garden art to literature and art departments have had an impact, once widely popular in Europe.
The Italian Renaissance late famous architect and architectural theorist Vignola designed the Jesuit Church in Rome is a masterpiece of the transition from Mannerism to Baroque style, which is also known as the first Baroque building.
Mannerism is a style of art in Europe in the late 16th century. Its main feature is the pursuit of grotesque and unusual effects, such as deformation and incongruity of the way to express the space, to exaggerate the slender proportions of the figures. In the history of architecture, it is used to refer to the tendency to reflect the pre-Baroque style in the works of certain Italian architects during the period from 1530 to 1600.
Rome Jesuit church plan is rectangular, the end of the protruding a shrine, from the Gothic church customary Latin cross evolved, the narthex wide, vaulted ceiling full of statues and decorations. Two rows of small prayer rooms replace the original side aisles on either side. A vaulted ceiling rises from the center of the cross. The altar of the church is richly and freely decorated, and the mountain flowers on it break through the classical French style for iconography and decorative light. Church fa?ade borrowed from the early Renaissance architect Alberdi designed the treatment of the Florence Santa Maria Chapel. Above the main entrance, the layered eaves and flowers are made into overlapping arcs and triangles, and leaning columns and flat pilasters are used on both sides of the main entrance. Two pairs of large scrolls were made on both sides of the upper fa?ade. These treatments are unique, and later widely imitated.
Baroque style broke the blind worship of ancient Roman architectural theorist Vitruvius, but also broke the late Renaissance classicists formulated a variety of rules and regulations, reflecting the secular idea of yearning for freedom. On the other hand, the Baroque style of the church is rich and magnificent, and can cause a fairly strong mystical atmosphere, but also in line with the requirements of the Catholic Church to show off their wealth and the pursuit of mystery. Therefore, baroque architecture from the beginning of Rome, soon spread throughout Europe, and even as far as the Americas. Some Baroque buildings are overly ambitious, even to the point of cumbersome piling.
From the 17th century and 30s, the Italian church wealth is increasing, each parish has built their own baroque style church. Due to the small scale, it was not suitable to adopt the Latin cross-shaped plan, so it was mostly changed to a single space nave such as round, oval, plum blossom, round petal cross, etc., and curved surfaces were heavily used in the modeling.
Typical examples are St. Carlo's Church in Rome, designed by Borromini. Its nave plan is nearly olive-shaped, surrounded by a number of small irregular prayer rooms; in addition there are living courtyard. Nave plan and ceiling decorations emphasize the curve of the dynamic, fa?ade mountain flower disconnection, the eaves of the horizontal curved, wall concave and convex degree is very large, richly decorated, there is a strong effect of light and shadow. Despite the pure design techniques, but also inevitably have a sense of artifice 9. 17th century, after the mid-17th century, baroque churches are popular in Italy, there is no lack of novel and original works, but there are also poor techniques, stacked excessive building.
The papal authorities, in order to show off the wealth of the Papal States to the pilgrims, built wide avenues and grand squares in Rome, which opened up new avenues for the freewheeling style of the Baroque.
17th century Roman architect Fontana built Rome Polo Square, is the convergence of three radial arteries, the center of an obelisk, surrounded by statues, the arrangement of green belts. Between the radial arteries there are two symmetrical churches of the same style. This square is open and unrestrained, many countries in Europe to follow suit. France in front of the Palace of Versailles, Russia in front of the Petersburg Admiralty building were built radial square. Outstanding Baroque architects and master sculptors Bernini designed the square in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, surrounded by Roman Taskean colonnade, the entire layout of the bold, dynamic, light and shadow effect is strong.
Baroque architectural style is also popular in some countries in Central Europe, especially in Germany and Austria. 17th century, the second half of Germany, many architects studied in Italy returned to the Italian Baroque architectural style with the German national architectural style combined. To the first half of the 18th century, the German Baroque architectural art has become a strange flower in the history of European architecture.
German baroque church building appearance simple and elegant, soft modeling and decoration is not much, the outer walls of the dry, with the natural environment and coordination. Church interior decoration is very gorgeous, resulting in a strong contrast between inside and outside. Famous examples are the fourteen saints pilgrimage church on the outskirts of Bamberg, the monastery church in Rohr.
Fourteen Saints Pilgrimage Church is a very novel layout, the main hall and shrine made of three consecutive oval, arched ceilings also echo this, the church interior up and down covered with stucco molded into a variety of plant shapes decorative motifs, brilliant. The exterior of the church is rather bland, with a pair of towers on the front, decorated with gentle curves and a sense of intimacy.
Rohr Abbey Church is also simple in appearance, the interior decoration is exquisite, especially the upper ceiling of the shrine, covered with white marble carved flying angels, the shrine in the center of the Virgin Mary and two angels composed of a group of carvings; below the shrine is a group of saints with different expressions of the statue.
Austria's Baroque architectural style is mainly imported from Germany. the first half of the 18th century, many famous buildings in Austria are designed by German architects. Such as Vienna's Schuberbrunn Palace, the exterior is a serious form of classical architecture, the internal hall has an Italian baroque style, all the columns in the hall are carved into human statues, the top of the columns and vaults are full of relief decorations, is a product of the combination of the baroque style and the classicist style.
Emerged in the mid-17th century, its style free-spirited, complex modeling, rich in change, just some of the architectural decorations piled up too much. Spain's Santiago Cathedral for the typical examples of this period of architecture.
The Baroque period of music is usually considered to be roughly from 1600 to 1750, i.e., from the beginning of Monteverdi to Bach and Handel.
In fact, the most important feature of Baroque music was its accompaniment, the flugelhorn bass. The bass player plays the bass part on the lute or organ (or the lute or guitar), with numbers indicating which chords he should play. The bass is often played by two players, one of whom plays the bass part on a cello (or vihar or tuba), an instrument that extends the sound, while the other plays the fill chords.
This kind of use of the bass through the weave is: the top of a vocal or instrumental melodic voice, the bottom of a bass instrument, filled with harmonies in the center, which is typical of the Baroque music style. The upper part of the voice is also often used two, sometimes written for two singers, sometimes two violins (at this time that is called trio sonata), this structure is also very typical of Baroque music, especially the bass can not be missing through the bass, indicating that the concept of the bass to produce harmony for the Baroque music is how important it is the center of the concept. The emergence of this concept was not sudden; in the mid-sixteenth century there was already a distinction between the bass voice and several other vocal lines above it in polyphonic music, but it was only during the Baroque period that this style became clearly established.
In conjunction with, and related to, the changes described above was the abandonment of polyphony (or, more precisely, the fact that polyphonic music became an old-fashioned method used almost exclusively in a certain type of church music). The emphasis on harmony inevitably led to a number of terminations of the harmonic progression in a piece of music; these terminations, called terminations or wind-ups, were formed as a result of a series of harmonic progressions of a certain standard. Related to this is the rhythmic progression; in vocal music, the melody must follow (or even exaggerate) the natural rhythm of the language in order to express the emotion of the lyrics; in instrumental music (including some vocal music, especially chorales) dance rhythms are used. As the bass uses the rhythmic patterns of dance music, it accelerates the development of tonal feeling and the tendency to proceed toward a particular tone.
At the same time, this process was accelerated by the appearance of new types of instruments, the most important of which were the violin family. At that time, the violin's articulation was suited to the clarity of polyphonic music but lacked rhythmic dynamics, whereas the violin's clean, clear bow and its ability to play brilliantly virtuosic music were suited to music with dance rhythms, which were more virtuosic than monophonic songs. The alternation of vocal and instrumental styles is a typical Baroque technique, and the alternation of two different styles in Baroque music was for novelty and effect.
The important early Baroque musical forms were the monophonic song (as opposed to polyphonic music of the previous period) and the associated body-loaded operas and oratorios, which emphasized the close integration of voice and music, and in the case of operas the effect of scenery. Counterpoint was not used in mono-melodic music, and its forms developed from the combination of melody and bass, such as sectional song forms, iambic pentameter structures, and variations on recurring bass voices. There have been corresponding developments in instrumentation, such as instruments suitable for playing through-bass combinations, as well as alternatives to the violin of the Violin family, which is more flexible and capable of playing a higher vocal-like range.