The main themes of baroque art. Baroque style in architecture Characteristics of individual styles

Today let's deal with the most interesting baroque art style. Its emergence was influenced by two important events of the Middle Ages. Firstly, this is a change in worldview ideas about the universe and man, associated with the epoch-making scientific discoveries of that time. And secondly, with the need for those in power to imitate their own greatness against the backdrop of material impoverishment. And the use of an artistic style that glorifies the power of the nobility and the church was most welcome. But against the background of mercantile tasks, the spirit of freedom, sensuality and self-awareness of a person as a doer and creator broke into the style itself.

- (Italian barocco - bizarre, strange, prone to excesses; port. perola barroca - a pearl with a vice) - a characteristic of European culture of the 17th-18th centuries, the center of which was Italy. The Baroque style appeared in the XVI-XVII centuries in Italian cities: Rome, Mantua, Venice, Florence. The Baroque era is considered to be the beginning of the triumphal procession of "Western civilization". opposed to classicism and rationalism.

In the 17th century, Italy lost its economic and political power. Foreigners, the Spaniards and the French, begin to manage on its territory. But exhausted Italy has not lost the height of its position - it still remains the cultural center of Europe. The nobility and the church needed everyone to see their strength and viability, but since there was no money for new buildings, they turned to art to create the illusion of power and wealth. This is how the baroque appeared in Italy.

Baroque is characterized by contrast, tension, dynamism of images, the desire for grandeur and splendor, to combine reality and illusion. During this period, thanks to the discoveries of Copernicus, the idea of ​​the world as a rational and constant unity, as well as of man as a most rational being, changed. In the words of Pascal, a person began to realize himself "something in between everything and nothing", "one who catches only the appearance of phenomena, but is not able to understand either their beginning or their end."

The Baroque style in painting is characterized by the dynamism of compositions, the “flatness” and pomp of forms, the aristocracy and originality of subjects. The most characteristic features of the Baroque are catchy flamboyance and dynamism. A vivid example is creativity with their riot of feelings and naturalism in the depiction of people and events.

Caravaggio is considered the most significant master among Italian artists who created at the end of the 16th century. new style in painting. His paintings, painted on religious subjects, resemble realistic scenes of the author's contemporary life, creating a contrast between late antiquity and modern times. The heroes are depicted in twilight, from which the rays of light snatch out the expressive gestures of the characters, contrastingly writing out their specificity.

In Italian baroque painting, different genres developed, but mostly they were allegories, a mythological genre. Pietro da Cortona, Andrea del Pozzo, the Carracci brothers (Agostino and Lodovico) succeeded in this direction. The Venetian school became famous, where the genre of veduta, or urban landscape, gained great popularity. The most famous author of such works is the artist.

Rubens combined in his canvases the natural and the supernatural, reality and fantasy, learning and spirituality. In addition to Rubens, another master of the Flemish Baroque achieved international recognition -. With the work of Rubens, a new style came to Holland, where it was picked up and. In Spain, Diego Velasquez worked in the style of Caravaggio, and in France, Nicolas Poussin, in Russia, Ivan Nikitin and Alexei Antropov.

Baroque artists opened up to art new methods of spatial interpretation of form in its ever-changing vital dynamics, and activated their life position. The unity of life in the sensual-bodily joy of being, in tragic conflicts, is the basis of beauty in baroque art. The idealization of images is combined with turbulent dynamics, reality with fantasy, and religious affectation with emphasized sensuality.

Closely associated with the monarchy, the aristocracy and the church, baroque art was intended to glorify and promote their power. At the same time, it reflected new ideas about the unity, infinity and diversity of the world, about its dramatic complexity and eternal variability, interest in the environment, in the human environment, in the natural elements. Man appears no longer as the center of the Universe, but as a multifaceted personality, with a complex world of experiences, involved in the circulation and conflicts of the environment.

In Russia, the development of the Baroque falls in the first half of the 18th century. The Russian baroque was free from the exaltation and mysticism characteristic of Catholic countries, and possessed a number of national features, such as a sense of pride in the successes of the state and people. In architecture, baroque reached majestic proportions in the city and estate ensembles of St. Petersburg, Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo. In the visual arts, freed from medieval religious fetters, they turned to secular social themes, to the image of a human figure. Baroque everywhere evolves towards the graceful lightness of the Rococo style, coexists and intertwines with it, and from the 1760s. superseded by classicism.

Baroque (Italian barocco - “vicious”, “prone to excesses”, port. perola barroca - literally “pearl with vice”) is an artistic and architectural style, a trend in European art of the 17th-18th centuries, the center of which was Italy.

The Baroque style arose as an opposition to classicism and rationalism. The main idea of ​​the Baroque can be considered the rejection of "naturalness", which becomes synonymous with wildness. Baroque was designed to ennoble, embellish. It was during the Baroque that the first European park appeared in Versailles, where everything is drawn as if by a ruler, the trees are trimmed in the form of geometric shapes. Baroque is grandeur, splendor, a combination of reality and illusion, contrast, intensity of images.

The history of the baroque

The Baroque style came to replace the High Renaissance (Renaissance) in Italy, the birthplace of the Renaissance. In those days, Italy was exhausted, foreigners ruled in it, but it was she who remained the cultural center of Europe. To prove to the whole world the right to a privileged position, a style is needed that will emphasize power, wealth and luxury, while at the same time there was not enough money to build palaces. It was then that a new baroque style appeared, which allowed the illusion of power and wealth to be created by painting techniques, and not by natural expensive materials.

Famous architectural structures of the Baroque:

• Sanssouci Orangery Sanssouci Orangery
• Piazza San Pietro in Rome Piazza San Pietro in Rome
• Andrew's Church Andrew's Church
• Peterhof Peterhof

The main features of the Baroque

Baroque architecture is characterized by spatial scope, unity, fluidity of complex, usually curvilinear forms. Large scale colonnades, an abundance of sculpture on facades and in interiors, volutes, a large number of rake-outs, arched facades with a rake-out in the middle, rusticated columns and pilasters are often found. The domes acquire complex forms, often they are multi-tiered, as in St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. The characteristic details of the Baroque are Atlantes, caryatids, mascarons. From Mannerism, the Baroque inherited an attraction to the unusual, amazing, amazing.

Baroque architects

Carlo Maderno (Carlo Maderno; 1556-1629) - one of the founders of the Italian Baroque, a prominent representative of the Baroque in Italy. The main creation is the façade of the Roman church of Santa Susanna (1603).

Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) - the great Italian architect and sculptor, the largest representative of the Roman and all Italian baroque. His work is considered to be the standard of baroque aesthetics. Bernini's most famous work is Piazza San Pietro in Rome. In the novel and film "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown, the characters solve the riddles left by Bernini.

Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli (1700-1771) is a famous Russian architect of Italian origin, academician of architecture. Two of his most famous works: the ensemble of the Smolny Monastery and the Winter Palace with its famous Jordan Stairs. Rastrelli's famous Kyiv projects are the Mariinsky Palace and St. Andrew's Church in Kyiv. Built by order of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna under the direction of I. F. Michurin.

In Germany, the outstanding baroque monument is the New Palace in Sanssouci (authors - I. G. Bühring, H. L. Manter) and the Summer Palace in the same place (G. W. von Knobelsdorff).

Types of buildings in the Baroque style

The baroque is characterized by the complexity of plans, the splendor of interiors with unexpected spatial and lighting effects, the abundance of curves, plastically curving lines and surfaces; the clarity of classical forms is contrasted with sophistication in shaping. Painting, sculpture, painted wall surfaces are widely used in architecture.

The architectural forms of the Baroque inherited the Italian Renaissance, but surpassed it in complexity, diversity and picturesqueness. Strongly flared facades with profiled cornices, with colossal columns, semi-columns and pilasters for several floors, luxurious sculptural details, often fluctuating from convex to concave, give the structure itself movement and rhythm. Not a single detail is independent, as it was during the Renaissance. Everything is subordinated to the general architectural design, which includes the design and decoration of interiors, as well as landscape gardening and urban architectural environment.

The largest and most famous baroque ensembles in the world: Versailles (France), Peterhof (Russia), Aranjuez (Spain), Zwinger (Germany), Schönbrunn (Austria).

Baroque in the interior

The baroque style is characterized by ostentatious, sometimes even exaggerated luxury, although this style retains such an important feature of the classical style as symmetry.

Painting in the interiors of the Baroque style is one of the main, necessary dominants. The ceiling, decorated with bright rich frescoes, the walls of painted marble and gilding are frequent techniques for decorating the interior in the Baroque style. Contrasting colors are often used in Baroque interiors, such as a checkerboard-style marble floor where black and white tiles alternate in a checkerboard pattern. The use of gold and gilding in the interior is ubiquitous. Every corner of the interior should be richly decorated.

Furniture became a real piece of art, its pretentiousness and richness, it seemed, was intended only for decorating the interior, and were not of a utilitarian nature. Chairs, sofas and armchairs are upholstered with expensive, richly colored fabrics and tapestries. The beds are huge, with canopies and flowing bedspreads. Wardrobes are also large, decorated and inlaid. Mirrors are decorated with sculptures and stucco moldings with floral patterns, often gilded. Southern walnut and Ceylon ebony were often used as furniture material.

• basilica basilica
• Contemporary Baroque Contemporary Baroque
• Contemporary Baroque Contemporary Baroque
• Modani Modani
• Vismara Design Vismara Design
• Contemporary Baroque Contemporary Baroque
• Contemporary Baroque Contemporary Baroque
• Contemporary Baroque Contemporary Baroque
• Designed by Ophelia Pang Designed by Ophelia Pang

The history of the appearance of style

The Baroque art style originated in Italy at the end of the 16th century. The history of the name is associated with the Portuguese sailors, who used the word barocco to designate defective pearls of irregular shape. The Italians readily adopted the term, combining them with the artsy and strange manifestations of a new cultural trend.

The emergence of the Baroque is associated with the fading of the Renaissance: having abandoned the notions of classical harmony and a strict world order, the creators focused on the struggle between reason and feelings. From now on, the focus of their attention is the forces of the elements, expression, mysticism.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, baroque in architecture, art and music spread widely across Europe and America, and came to Russia. The heyday of the style coincided with the strengthening of absolute monarchies, the development of colonies, and the strengthening of Catholicism. It is logical that in urban planning it manifested itself in scale and monumentality.

Characteristic features of the Baroque

The solemn, complex, richly decorated style was used in the construction of city palaces, residences, and monasteries. The architectural solutions of court architects are subject to one idea: to surprise and delight.

The form

The main feature of the Baroque is the creation of a curved space, where planes and volumes are curvilinear and flow into each other, ellipses and rectangles predominate in the plans.

In the design of facades, rake-out is widely used, when part of the wall is exposed a little forward or, on the contrary, is deepened along with all the elements. It turns out the alternation of convex and concave sections with the effect of spatial illusion. All kinds of bay windows, towers and balconies make the facade composition even more expressive.

Order

A distinctive feature of baroque buildings is a deliberate violation of proportions in the antique order system.

Parts of the order (base, entablature, capital) are stretched, superimposed on each other, twisted; a previously harmonious structure (commensurate with a person) acquires massiveness and a ragged rhythm.

Exterior and interior decor

The main features of the Baroque also include excessive embellishment, which gave many reasons for accusations of bad taste.

The walls practically disappear under stucco, paintings, carved panels, sculptures, columns, mirrors. The desire for gigantism is manifested in heavy furniture, huge wardrobes, stairs. If we talk about baroque briefly, then this is a style of excesses. Due to the alternation of illuminated and shaded areas, customizable side lighting, the craftsmen created optical effects of expanding space. Golden, blue, pink colors set a solemn atmosphere.

Communication with the surrounding space

Our description of the Baroque style would be incomplete without an emphasis on the union of buildings with the surrounding area: a city square, a park, a garden. It was a progressive trend, buildings began to be perceived as one with the landscape: from now on, fountains, sculptural compositions, broken paths and lawns are a full part of the palace ensembles.

Baroque architectural elements

• Baroque facades are actively decorated with columns, voluminous large relief, arched gables.

Richly trimmed platbands are necessarily equipped with a keystone. Windows are made in the form of ovals, hemispheres, rectangular openings. Instead of columns to support beam ceilings, balustrades and roof vaults, statues of caryatids and Atlanteans are installed.

• Monumental sculptural compositions are one of the characteristic elements of the style.

The posture and facial expressions of the mythological and biblical figures convey the emotional tension, the drama of the plot, which corresponds to the concept of the complex structure of the world and human passions.

• Traditional baroque ornaments include arabesques, garlands, shells, cartouches, flower vases, cornucopias, and musical instruments.

Every detail is richly framed. In a bunch of historically close styles of baroque, rococo and classicism, the first one is significantly distinguished by its love for excessive decor. Rococo would then pick up this feature, placing more emphasis on grace and sophistication.

• One of the features of the architectural Baroque is the active use of mascarons in the facade design (a mask in the form of a human face or an animal's muzzle, located full face).

They were made of stone and plaster, placed above the front door, window openings, arches. Each mask has its own character: calm, frightening, comical. Thematic mascarons were chosen in accordance with the profile of the institution: images of the goddess of justice, lion heads were hung on the court, dramatic characters were hung on the theater, angels and children were hung on the church.

Baroque style in Italy

In each of the countries, a new architectural style manifested itself under the influence of political, social and cultural conditions. In this regard, we can talk about the national types of baroque: Italian, French, Spanish, German, English, Russian.

In the world heritage, the Italian Baroque is considered the primary source and inspiration. The leading role in the development of architecture was assumed by the Vatican. The Catholic Church in the 16th century began the active construction of temples and cathedrals, and not so much impressive in scale as majestic and emotionally charged in design.

Among the first created the famous church of Il Gesu, the project of Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola. Several orders are combined in the design of the main façade. Wide undulating volutes on the sides connect both facade tiers, such a decision has become a textbook for the churches of this period.

The largest Italian Baroque architects of the 17th century are Lorenzo Bernini, Francesco Borromini, Gvarino Guarini, Carlo Rainaldi. The whole world knows St. Peter's Square in Rome - the project of L. Bernini, where the colonnade creates an artificial perspective and visually increases the size of the cathedral.

french baroque

The main characteristics of the Baroque in France manifested themselves more in the interior decoration, while classicism dominates in the facade decoration.

A striking example of this approach is the Palace of Versailles, designed by Louis Leveau and Jules Hardouin-Mansart. The baroque theme in the design of the facade is indicated only by sculptures, which contrast with the direct geometry of the building with expressive forms.

Luxurious baroque decoration prevails in palace interiors, especially in the halls of War and Peace, the Mirror Gallery.

French architects combine baroque and classicism in the design of city mansions and country residences. Artistic fantasy gives way to the leading role of the severity of forms. The main architects of the period are Jacques Lemercier, Francois Mansart, Louis Leveau.

Castle architecture moves from traditional quadrangular fortresses to ensembles of a central building and side wings, with access roads and cultivated gardens. The volumes are simplified, the number of stucco on the facade is reduced, the dimensions become more modest - these are examples of baroque in the design of the castles of Vaud, Montmorency, Chanet, Maison-Lafitte.

Architecture of Spain, Portugal and Latin America

The baroque direction was most clearly manifested in the works of the Spanish brothers Churriguera (17-18 century), their work even got its own name - churrigueresco.

Facades and interiors abound with lavish decorations and are oversaturated with details: broken pediments, undulating cornices, curls, garlands, balustrades. The most famous building of this baroque style is the Cathedral of St. James in Santiago de Compostela.

Another part of Spanish architecture developed under the influence of Italian and French traditions. A typical example is the Royal Palace in Madrid, built in the likeness of Versailles by architects from Italy: Filippo Yuvarra, Giovanni Sacchetti, Francesco Sabatini. Classically austere facades are combined here with magnificent baroque interior decoration.

Portuguese baroque palaces are part of the world cultural heritage:

• The facade of the Rayo Palace (designed by Andre Soares) is richly decorated with stucco, due to the variety of forms, a dynamic effect is created.

• The largest royal palace in the country, Mafra, combines a basilica, a grandiose library and a Franciscan monastery.

• The Mateus Palace (designed by the Italian Nicolau Nasoni) has the status of the National Monument of Portugal, a park with marble sculptures is laid out around.

Having spread to the New World, the Baroque style won supporters from Argentina to Mexico. Typical examples are the cathedrals in Taxco and Mexico City, overloaded with decor, with exaggerated corner towers.

Russian baroque

In the Russian Empire, the architectural style developed in a special way. Taking as a basis the traditions of Russian architecture, he enriched himself with Western European canons during the time of Peter the Great. The highest point came in the middle of the 18th century, when the West was already abandoning pomp in favor of the severity of classicism.

Features of the Baroque style in Russia:

• Architectural plans and three-dimensional compositions are characterized by simplicity and a clearer structure.
• The main material for facade decoration is plaster with gypsum details, and not stone, as in the West. Therefore, there is a greater emphasis on ornamental modeling and color schemes.
• The buildings of the Russian baroque are made in bright and contrasting colors (blue, white, yellow, red, blue), covered with gilding, complex roofs are made of tinplate. The complex creates a festive, major character.

In the development of domestic architecture, it is customary to distinguish several historical stages.

Moscow baroque, late 17th century

This includes destinations named after patrons.

Characteristic features of the Naryshkin baroque style: symmetry, tieredness, centricity, white details on a red background. It combines the technique of ancient Russian wooden and stone construction with European Gothic, Mannerism, Renaissance. The famous multi-tiered Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Fili was designed in this form.

The Golitsyn direction uses only baroque decor in interior decoration. The architectural heritage is the Church of the Sign of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Dubrovitsy.

Stroganov buildings have a five-domed silhouette (traditional for a Russian church). The baroque decor here is extremely rich and detailed. An example is the Smolensk Church in Nizhny Novgorod.

Peter's baroque at the turn of the 17th-18th centuries

Under Peter the Great, foreign architects worked in Russia, transferring European experience to domestic craftsmen. The German Andreas Schlüter creates the Grotto in the Summer Garden of St. Petersburg. Johann Gottfried Schedel, also from Germany, supervised the construction of the Menshikov Palace on Vasilyevsky Island, in Oranienbaum, Strelna, Kronstadt. There is baroque solemnity in the projects, but the walls are flat, without twisted illusions.

The first Russian architect to receive a formal education was Mikhail Grigoryevich Zemtsov. Working in the Russian baroque style, he designed and built the Anichkov Palace, summer residences, park pavilions in St. Petersburg, the palace in Revel, and participated in the construction of the bell tower in the complex of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Baroque architecture of the mid-18th century

In the era of the reign of Empress Elizabeth (1740-1750s), a period of mature baroque begins, it is called Elizabethan. At this time they create B.F. Rastrelli, D. Ukhtomsky, S. Chevakinsky.

The construction of monumental complexes is called upon to strengthen the prestige of the imperial and noble authorities: palaces, cathedrals, monasteries, country residences. Palace apartments are planned according to the enfilade principle, the halls inside are decorated with gilded carvings, stucco molding, mirrors, and type-setting parquet. The situation is exclusively ceremonial.

The baroque style that reached its apogee in Russia at that time is associated with the work of Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli. His authorship belongs to the Tsarskoye Selo Catherine Palace, the Smolny Monastery, the Stroganov, Vorontsov and Winter Palaces.

The architectural style of the Baroque did not last long in the Russian state. At the end of the 18th century, luxury and excess were replaced by the rational beauty of classicism. But the palace ensembles created during this time still amaze with the scale of the idea and the splendor of decoration. The architecture of Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo and St. Petersburg is a source of inspiration for modern baroque, realized in private country mansions. Complex forms and extraordinary decorativeness are still valued here.

modern baroque

For ardent fans of style who want to have their own modern baroque house, we offer, implemented in the architectural office.

The main church of the Jesuit order, Il Gesu (Jesus) in Rome (1575), built by the architect Giacomo de la Porta on the basis of Vignola's project, can be attributed to the number of the first works in which the features of the Baroque are already clearly outlined. The deep development of the interior space is emphasized on the facade by accentuating the entrance. Its expressiveness is achieved by growing to the center of order forms, creating strong contrasts of light and shadow, dynamic movement of articulations from the edges to the axis. The plane of the facade is perceived as a massive "screen", behind which the main thing is the interior space. The side façades are of secondary importance, their simplified composition having little to do with the main façade.

Church of Il Gesu

Baroque features were especially pronounced in the architecture of the Church of San Carlo at the Four Fountains (1638-1640), built by one of the greatest masters of the Baroque, Francisco Borromini (1599-1667). Its lush and extremely saturated facade in the form of a tensely curved plane, dissected by two tiers of orders, is a kind of culmination of the principle of sharp emotional expressiveness, concentrated in the development of forms that accentuate the main entrance. The stone wall, thanks to its wave-like structure and sculptural quality, acquired the features of a soft plastic material, from which the architect freely "sculpts" the form, not so much caring about its logic and tectonicity, but about the direct sensory perception of the image, reflecting to a large extent the subjective attitude of the artist to the creative task. This manifested the architectural individualism and heightened psychologism characteristic of the Baroque, combined with the general formal features inherent in the style.

Church of San Carlo at the Four Fountains

One of the greatest masters of the Roman Baroque was Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). The church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale (1658), built by him in Rome, especially clearly reveals the baroque tendency to highlight the solemn portal on the facade. The facade facing the street in the form of a huge portal is essentially independent of the elliptical volume located in the depth of the site.

Church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale

The largest work of Bernini in Rome is the grandiose colonnade in front of the Cathedral of St. Peter, which completed in the middle of the XVII century. ensemble formation. By lengthening the cathedral, the composition turned from centric into deep, frontal-axial. Significance of the facade increased greatly, which at the beginning of the 17th century. was built by a major Baroque master K. Maderna. Its plane, processed by a colossal order, equal in width to 115 m, at a height of 45 m, suppresses with its scale a person who is perceived as tiny next to hypertrophied forms. Bernini created a vast square in front of the facade of the cathedral. The Doric colonnade, about 20 meters high, seems small in comparison with the facade and the huge space that it encloses. The axis of the cathedral dominates the composition, consistently organizing the interior, facade and space of the square.

Here, for the first time, following the ensemble of the Roman Capitol by Michelangelo, a unidirectional spatial composition of the square is created, strictly regular, axial, oriented towards the main object.

The first example of a regular street ensemble was the Uffizi Street in Florence (1569-1574), built by Michelangelo's student D. Vasari. However, the rectilinear street becomes a widespread principle of urban reconstruction only in the second half of the 17th century, when grandiose works were undertaken to rebuild medieval Rome.

Uffizi street

One of the most interesting completed ensembles is Piazza del Popolo - a square at the main northern entrance to Rome with three diverging streets - rays leading to different parts of the city. An obelisk was placed at the point of intersection of the beams, and between the streets on the square, two identical domed churches were built by the architect Rainaldi - a kind of propylaea, accentuating the beginning of the streets. Here, for the first time on a large scale, the city implemented the principles of regular planning, which became fundamental in the architecture and urban planning of classicism.

Piazza del Popolo

The great Michelangelo, with the power and expression of his individual style, in an instant destroyed all the usual ideas about the "rules" of drawing and composition.

Michelangelo is considered both the last master of the Renaissance and the creator of the Baroque style, for it was he who realized its main style-forming element - the plasticity of the wall. The crown of his work - St. Peter's Basilica in Rome is already considered to be in the Baroque style.

Saint Paul's Cathedral

Indeed, Michelangelo is the true "father of the Baroque", since in his statues, buildings, drawings there is, at the same time, a return to the spiritual values ​​​​of the Middle Ages and the consistent discovery of new principles of shaping. This ingenious artist, having exhausted the possibilities of classic plastic art, in the late period of his work created previously unseen expressive forms. His titanic figures are depicted not according to the rules of plastic anatomy, which served as the norm for the same Michelangelo just some ten years ago, but according to other, irrational form-building forces, brought to life by the imagination of the artist himself. One of the first signs of Baroque art: redundancy of means and confusion of scales. In the art of Classicism, all forms are clearly defined and delimited from each other. They are proportionate to the viewer; sculpture and architecture are also separated, and although decorative statues and murals are associated with architectural space, they always have frames and clear compositional boundaries. Michelangelo's "Sistine Plafond" is therefore the first work of the Baroque style, because it involved a clash of figures drawn, but sculptural in tangibility, and an incredible architectural frame painted on the ceiling, in no way consistent with the real space of architecture. The dimensions of the figures also mislead the viewer, they do not harmonize, but are dissonant even with the picturesque, illusory space created for them by the artist.

Other works by Michelangelo: the architectural ensemble of the Capitol in Rome, the interior of the Medici Chapel and the lobby of the library of San Lorenzo in Florence - showed classicist forms, but everything in them was embraced by extraordinary tension and excitement. Old architectural elements were used in a new way, primarily not in accordance with their constructive function. So in the lobby of the library of San Lorenzo, Michelangelo did something completely inexplicable. The columns are doubled, but hidden in the recesses of the walls and do not support anything, so their capitals are some kind of strange endings. There are imaginary, deaf windows on the walls. And the vestibule staircase, according to the witty remark of J. Burckhardt, "is suitable only for those who want to break their necks." On the sides, where necessary, the stairs do not have railings. The outer steps are rounded with completely useless curls at the corners. By itself, the staircase fills almost all the free space of the lobby, it does not invite, but only blocks the entrance.

In the project of St. Peter's Cathedral (1546), Michelangelo, in contradiction to Bramante, who began construction, subordinated the entire architectural space to the central dome, making the structure dynamic. Bundles of pilasters, double columns, dome ribs depict a coordinated, powerful upward movement. In comparison with the sketches of Michelangelo, the executor of the project Giacomo della Porta in 1588-1590. enhanced this dynamic by sharpening the dome; he made it not hemispherical, as was customary in the art of the Renaissance, but elongated, parabolic. Thus, the classicist ideal of balance was canceled, in which the visual aspiration from the bottom up was, as it were, extinguished by the static semicircular shape. The new silhouette emphasized a powerful movement upward, towards the sky.

Lobby of the San Lorenzo Library

Baroque is an artistic movement that developed in the early 17th century. Translated from Italian, the term means "bizarre", "strange". This direction touched different types of art and, above all, architecture. And what are the characteristics of baroque literature?

A bit of history

The leading position in the social and political life of Europe in the seventeenth century was occupied by the church. Evidence of this - outstanding monuments of architecture. It was necessary to strengthen church power with the help of artistic images. Something bright, pretentious, even somewhat intrusive was required. Thus, a new artistic direction was born, the birthplace of which was the then cultural center of Europe - Italy.

This direction began its development in painting and architecture, but later covered other types of art. Writers and poets did not stay away from new trends in culture. A new direction was born - baroque literature (emphasis on the second syllable).

Works in the Baroque style were designed to glorify the authorities and the church. In many countries, this trend was developed as a kind of court art. However, later varieties of Baroque were distinguished. There were also specific features of this style. The most active development of the Baroque was in Catholic countries.

Main features

The aspirations of the Catholic Church to strengthen its power were perfectly matched by art, the characteristic features of which were grace, pomposity, and sometimes exaggerated expressiveness. In literature, attention is paid to sensuality and, oddly enough, the bodily principle. A distinctive feature of baroque art is the combination of the sublime and the earthly.

Varieties

Baroque literature is a collection that can be opposed to the classic. Moliere, Racine and Corneille created their creations in accordance with strict standards. In the works written by representatives of such a trend as baroque literature, there are metaphors, symbols, antitheses, and gradation. They are characterized by illusory nature, the use of various means of expression.

Baroque literature subsequently divided into several varieties:

• marineism;
• gongorism;
• conceptism;
• euphuism.

Trying to understand the features of each of these areas is not worth it. A few words should be said about what the stylistic features of baroque literature are, who are its main representatives.

Aesthetics of the baroque

During the Renaissance, the idea of ​​humanism began to appear in literature. The dark medieval worldview was replaced by an awareness of the value of the human person. In actively developed scientific, philosophical and social thought. But before there was such a direction as baroque literature. What's this? We can say that Baroque literature is a kind of transitional link. She replaced the Renaissance poetics, but did not become its negation.

Baroque aesthetics is based on the clash of two opposing views. The works of this artistic movement bizarrely combine faith in human capabilities and belief in the omnipotence of the natural world. They reflect both ideological and sensual needs. What is the main theme in the creations created within the framework of the “baroque literature” direction? Writers did not give preference to a particular point of view regarding the place of man in society and the world. Their ideas vacillated between hedonism and asceticism, earth and heaven, God and the devil. Another characteristic feature of baroque literature is the return of antique motifs.

Baroque literature, examples of which can be found not only in Italian, but also in Spanish, French, Polish and Russian cultures, is based on the principle of combining the incongruous. The authors combined different genres in their work. Their main task was to surprise, stun the reader. Strange paintings, unusual scenes, a heap of various images, a combination of secularism and religiosity - all these are features of Baroque literature.

outlook

The Baroque era does not abandon the humanistic ideas characteristic of the Renaissance. But these ideas take on a certain tragic connotation. The person is filled with conflicting thoughts. He is ready to fight with his passions and the forces of the social environment.

An important idea of ​​the Baroque worldview is also the combination of real and fictional, ideal and earthly. The authors who created their works in this style often showed a tendency to disharmony, grotesqueness, and exaggeration.

The external feature of baroque art is a special understanding of beauty. Pretentiousness of forms, splendor, splendor are the characteristic features of this trend.

Heroes

A typical character of baroque works is a person with a strong will, nobility, and the ability to think rationally. For example, the heroes of Calderon - a Spanish playwright, one of the brightest representatives of baroque literature - are seized with a thirst for knowledge, a desire for justice.

Europe

Representatives of Italian baroque literature are Jacopo Sannadzor, Tebeldeo, Tasso, Gvarini. In the works of these authors there is pretentiousness, ornamentalism, verbal play and attraction to mythological subjects.

The main representative of the Baroque is Luis de Gongora, after whom one of the varieties of this artistic movement is named.

Other representatives are Baltasar Gracian, Alonso de Ledesmo, Francisco de Quevedo. It should be said that, having originated in Italy, the Baroque aesthetics subsequently received active development in Spain. Features of this literary trend are also present in prose. Suffice it to recall the famous Don Quixote. The hero of Cervantes lives partly in a world he has imagined. The misadventures of the Knight of the Sad Image are reminiscent of the journey of a Homeric character. But in the book of the Spanish writer there is grotesqueness and comedy.

Grimelshausen's Simplicissimus is a monument of Baroque literature. This novel, which may seem rather eccentric and not without comedy to contemporaries, reflects the tragic events in the history of Germany, namely the Thirty Years' War. In the center of the plot is a simple young man who is on an endless journey and experiences both sad and funny adventures.

Precise literature was predominantly popular in France during this period.

In Poland, baroque literature is represented by such names as Zbigniew Morsztyn, Vespasian Kochowski, Vaclav Potocki.

Russia

S. Polotsky and F. Prokopovich are representatives of Russian baroque literature. This trend has become somewhat official. Baroque literature in Russia found its expression primarily in court poetry, but it developed somewhat differently than in Western European countries. The fact is that, as you know, the Baroque replaced the Renaissance, which was almost unknown in Russia. The literary direction, which is discussed in this article, had little difference from the artistic direction inherent in the culture of the Renaissance.

Simeon Polotsky

This poet strove to reproduce in his poems various concepts and ideas. Polotsky gave logic to poetry and even brought it somewhat closer to science. Collections of his works resemble encyclopedic dictionaries. His works are mainly devoted to various social issues.

What poetic works does the modern reader perceive? Certainly more recent. What is dearer to a Russian person - baroque literature or the Silver Age? Most likely the second. Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Gumilyov... The creations that Polotsky created can hardly please the current lover of poetry. This author wrote a number of moralizing poems. It is quite difficult to perceive them today due to the abundance of obsolete grammatical forms and archaisms. “A man is a certain wine-drinker” - a phrase, a meaning that not every one of our contemporaries will understand.

Baroque literature, like other forms of art in this style, set the mood for freedom of choice of means of expression. The works were distinguished by the complexity of forms. And in them, as a rule, there was pessimism, caused by the belief in the impotence of a person against external forces. At the same time, awareness of the frailty of the world was combined with a desire to overcome the crisis. With the help, an attempt was made to know the higher mind, to comprehend the place of man in the expanses of the universe.

The Baroque style was the product of political and social upheavals. It is sometimes seen as an attempt to restore the medieval world view. However, this style occupies an important place in the history of literature, and above all because it became the basis for the development of later trends.