Baroque Art

Baroque Art

1. Characteristics

   • Importance of colour over drawing.
   • A focus on light, artists used the chiaroscuro technique.
   • Realism. Showed things as they really were.
   • Movement in the compositions. Techniques, such as foreshortening, asymmetry...

2. Not Spanish painting schools (catholic)

   • French school
     • French painting was influenced by academic art, for example, in the work of Nicolas Poussin.
   • Flemish school
     • The work of Peter Paul Rubens, the main exponent of Flemish painting, exemplifies the main characteristics of Baroque aesthetics.
   • Italian school
     • The leading naturalist painter was Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. He is the father of tenebrism, a style characterised by an abrupt contrast between dark backgrounds and sources of light.

3. Spanish schools

   • Diego Velázquez (Master of light) 1599 (Seville) - 1660
     • At the age of 11, began training in the workshop of Francisco Pacheco. He became court painter.
     • Characterised by:
       • -The masterful use of light and aerial perspective.
       • -Complex compositions of different planes and sources of light.
       • -The realism of the scenes and psychological depth of the figures.
   • Zurbarán (Reality) 1598 (Extremadura) - 1664
     • His early work was influenced by Caravaggio's tenebrism. He is famous for his religious paintings; he painted a series of female saints.
   • Ribera (Tenebrism) 1591 (Xátiva) - 1652
     • He was known as Lo Spagnoletto and worked as a painter in Italy. His paintings and portraits reflected Caravaggio's tenebrism and the drama of the Spanish Baroque style.
   • Murillo (Realism and Idealism) 1617 (Seville) - 1682
     • He painted many religious scenes. He also produced genre paintings, depicting scenes from everyday life. He represented reality in a tender idealised light.

4. Not Spanish painting schools (protestants)

   • Dutch school
     • Rembrandt van Rijn, Frans Hals and Johannes Vermeer are the artists that best reflect this school of Protestant Baroque painting.