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Baroque / Baroque Revival architecture

Table of contents:

See also: William and Mary Baroque style furniture

Baroque - 1600-1750

Relevant 17th century historical events:

Etymology: "Baroque" means "curious, odd, or strange" in French. The Portuguese "barroco" means "a large irregular pearl." The term "Baroque" was initially used with a derogatory meaning, to underline the excesses of its emphasis, of its eccentric redundancy, its noisy abundance of details, as opposed to the clearer and sober rationality of the Renaissance.

Definition: a European style of architecture and decoration which developed in the 17th cent. in Italy from late Renaissance and Mannerist forms, and culminated in the churches, monasteries, and palaces of southern Germany and Austria in the early 18th cent.

Religious origin: Baroque was the dominant style of European art between Mannerism and Rococo. This style originated in Rome and is associated with the Catholic Counter-Reformation, its salient characteristics -- overt rhetoric and dynamic movement -- being well suited to expressing the self-confidence and proselytizing spirit of the reinvigorated Catholic Church.

The Baroque originated around 1600. The canon promulgated at the Council of Trent (1545ó63), by which the Roman Catholic Church addressed the representational arts by demanding that paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather than to the well-informed, is customarily offered as an inspiration of the Baroque, which appeared, however, a generation later. This turn toward a populist conception of the function of ecclesiastical art is seen by many art historians as driving the innovations of Caravaggio and the Carracci brothers, all of whom were working (and competing for commissions) in Rome around 1600.

In Italy, Baroque was the Catholic art of the popes (in opposition to the art of the Protestant north where no images were allowed).

Bernini, in Italy, was one of the great Baroque architects.

Spread: In the 17th century, Rome was the artistic capital of Europe, and the Baroque style soon spread outwards from it, undergoing modification in each of the countries to which it migrated, as it encountered different tastes and outlooks and merged with local traditions:

Art: Caravaggio, El Greco, Diego Velazquez, Peter Paul Rubens, Jan Vermeer, Frans Hals, Rembrandt.

Music: The term Baroque also is used to designate the style of music composed during a period that overlaps with that of Baroque art, but usually encompasses a slightly later period. Opera was born during the Baroque era.

Composers: J. S. Bach, G .F. Handel, Antonio Vivaldi, Domenico Scarlotti, and Georg Philipp Telemann.

Baroque characteristics:

Mirrors: Mirrors began to appear in the this century, e.g., the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles.

Architects: Gianlorenzo Bernini, Carlo Moderno, Francesco Borromini, François Mansart, Jules Hardouin, Charles LeBrun. Christopher Wren

England

England's introduction to the Baroque style occurred after the Great Fire in 1666 destroyed most of London. Charles II set out to rebuild London in grand style and appointed Christopher Wren (1632-1723) as surveyor to his court. Wren had traveled to Paris in 1665 and returned to England with countless engravings depicting the ornate French Baroque style. The grandiose nature of the French Baroque style had impressed the king; however, it was ill-suited for London.

Through Wren's achievements, an English national style was established, and he was knighted for his architectural accomplishments. Wren's interpretation of the high Baroque style supplanted excessive ornamentalizing with classic Palladianism.

Baroque Architecture examples:

Baroque Revival 1885-1914
Nineteenth century revival of European Baroque style

Widely adopted in Great Britain and the British Empire from about 1885 until World War I, particularly for government, municipal and commercial buildings.

In France, Baroque Revival is known as Second Empire, a style imported to the U.S, including Buffalo.

Baroque Revival examples from Buffalo architecture:

Photos and their arrangement © 2002 Chuck LaChiusa
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