The Baroque: Action and Realism in the Arts

Jan 13, 2011
Conrad Clough

Painting of Bernini's David Sculpture - Giovanni Paolo Pannini'

From about 1600 to 1750 there was an explosion in the arts emphasizing action and realism. Welcome to the Baroque.

The Baroque period is often said to span from the beginning of the 17th century until the middle of the 18th. This was a time of tremendous conflict in Western Europe, the wars of religion raged until the Treaty of Westphalia in1648, and soon afterward nation states, philosophies and the sciences all began to separate themselves from the church.

More than two hundred years after it first emerged, the movement known as Social Realism has not faded into obscurity, it is still going strong. Social realism, along with the conflict of the time is mirrored in the arts of the baroque period, sculptures captured in the midst explosive motion, paintings that make masterful use of foreshortening to evoke nearly living three dimensional images on a two dimensional canvas, and beautiful poetry that is full of dramatic action.

Sculpture

Anyone looking at Gianlorenzo Bernini’s statue of David can tell at a glance what makes baroque sculpture so revolutionary from that which had come before. Looking back at Donatello’s bronze David, or Michelangelo’s marble statue of the same man, it can be seen that the older sculptures are static, the hero is posed and standing in a dignified way as if he were actually standing for the artist as a model.

Not so with Bernini’s David, Bernini captures David in action, in the midst of an explosive burst of motion, at the very moment when he is hurling the sling stone that will catapult him from shepherd boy to hero of Israel. Another of Bernini’s famous sculptures, one which Gloria Fiero calls a “multimedia masterpiece” is The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. This sculpture shows action as well, with Saint Teresa in the throes of a vision, and an angel about to pierce her with a fiery spear that burns with the greatest of pleasures. In Francios Girardon’s Apollo Attended by the Nymphs, the same sense of action and motion is conveyed, although Apollo rests on a throne, he is raising his hands and feet that the nymphs can wash him, and the nymphs themselves are all in motion, some washing the god, while others bear jars and platters.

Although often attributed to Girardon alone, according to Jessica Gregg “this was actually a collaborative effort by Girardon and [Thomas] Regnaudin. Girardon-Louis XIV favorite sculpter [sic], did the Apollo and two of the nymphs, or Nereids as some texts refer to them, and the remaining three are by Regnaudin”. David, Saint Teresa, Apollo and the nymphs, these statues are busy, they are alive, not at all the staid sculptures of the renaissance standing there on their pedestals like extras from a modern movie set who accidentally caught a glimpse of Medusa’s eyes.

Paintings

Paintings also seemed to come more alive in the baroque. Artists like Caravaggio brought their paintings to life with intense foreshortening, making the characters look like they were three dimensional, even though they were painted in two dimensions. In his painting The Supper at Emmaus, Caravaggio’s mastery of foreshortening is highlighted, both in the hand that Christ is raising to bless the bred, and in the arms and hand of the disciple at the right of the painting who is throwing his arms out in surprise as he recognizes Christ for who he truly is.

The effect astonishes; according to Fiera Christ’s arm “seems to project sharply outward, as if to bless us as well as the bread”. Foreshortening such as Caravaggio uses tends to imply action of some sort in a painting, and while portraits, landscapes and still lives continue to be painted in the baroque, many of the best paintings of the period, such as Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Slaying Holofernes, are focused on action.

Despite the more active, and in many cases more realistic style, the same messages of social realism that are found in the older works of art such as Pieter Bruegel painting Triumph of Death and Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death woodcuts can be found in baroque art. Perhaps the best example of this is in Nicolas Poussin’s Arcadian Shepherds. The shepherds are gathered around an old tomb, and upon the tomb is written “Et in Arcadia Ego” or “I also dwell in Arcadia” meaning death is in Arcadia as well.

Much like the earlier plague-inspired pieces of art, such as Holbein’s Dance of Death, Poussin’s message is clear, even in idyllic Arcadia death is a constant, or in the words of Fiero, “Poussin’s moral allegory, at once a pastoral elegy and a memento mori, instructs us that death is universal”.

Poetry

The poetry of the baroque period was just as full of social realism as was the art and sculpture. Robert Blair’s “The Grave” has around 800 lines dealing with death and bereavement and echoes Holbein and Poussin’s sentiment that death is universal. Lines 28-31, strike home this point: See yonder hallow'd fane;—the pious work / Of names once fam'd, now dubious or forgot, / And buried midst the wreck of things which were; / There lie interr'd the more illustrious dead.

The dynamic action of the Baroque is well attested to in the poetry as well. In John Milton’s Paradise Lost there is lots of action, early in the first book Satan is hurled from heaven like a meteor, hard to get more active then that (or dramatic).

Action and Realism

The poetry, painting, and sculpture of the Baroque period captured both the essence of the conflicts of the times and social realism. The statues of the baroque are full of intense, almost theatrical action, while the paintings use foreshortening to come to life upon the canvas, and the poetry is full of action, drama and the themes of social realism. Far from having faded in the two hundred years since it emerged, social realism was in many ways hitting its stride during the Baroque period.

The conflicts of the 17th century such as the wars of religion, the Catholic reformation, and the rise of secularism among nations, all contributed to the style that is called the Baroque. The arts of the Baroque period are some of the best ever produced… if it is Baroque, don’t fix it.