Lecture 30: Italian Baroque Painting in Rome

Italian Baroque Painting in Rome ...................................................

Lecture 30

Carracci and his followers, and then at the art of Caravaggio; two

contrasting artists who not only formed a bridge from the 16th century

into the 17th century, but were really the founders of 17th-century art—

art that is commonly called Baroque ....

T

he Sack of Rome in 1527 resulted in physical and psychological

catastrophe for the city. The climate was similar to the period following

the Black Death in the 14th century—austere, anti-Humanist, even

anti-artistic. Recovery began in 1585 with the papacy of Sixtus V, who began

to transform Rome. The repair of aqueducts allowed access to water for

parts of Rome that had largely been abandoned. In turn, these sections of the

city became accessible to pilgrims who traveled to Rome to visit St. Peter’s

and other pilgrimage churches, such as Santa Maria Maggiore or St. Paul’s

Outside the Walls. Broad avenues were constructed to connect these basilicas,

and the northern gateway to Rome was dramatized with a restructured piazza,

the Piazza del Popolo, with three avenues fanning into the city. The period

saw rapid canonization of Counter-Reformation men and women who had

demonstrated their commitment to the ideals of the early Christian era, as well

as to the needs of the poor and suffering. These new saints had sometimes

lived within memory and, therefore, were especially meaningful.

The Church was ready to demonstrate the grandeur of the revitalized capital

of Western Christianity by building and decorating new churches and

palaces, and the patronage of popes and their aristocratic families À owed

freely. In the service of these objectives, a new stylistic language developed

that came to be known as Baroque.

Baroque is a style ornamented in a curvilinear and highly decorative way;

its name derives from the French and Portuguese word barocco, meaning an

irregularly shaped pearl. Some art historians refuse to call the French classical

artist Poussin a Baroque artist, though he worked in Rome at the height of

the style. Some would rather not call Caravaggio a Baroque artist, and there

have been many other exclusions. Others want to move the beginning of the