Baroque and Rococo

Baroque and late Baroque, or Rococo, are loosely defined terms, generally applied by common consent to European art of the period from the early 17th to mid-18th century.

Baroque was at first an undisguised term of abuse, probably derived from the Italian word barocco, which was a term used by philosophers during the Middle Ages to describe an obstacle in schematic logic. Subsequently this became a description for any contorted idea or involuted process of thought. Another possible source is the Portuguese word barroco, with its Spanish form barrueco, used to describe an irregular or imperfectly shaped pearl; this usage still survives in the jeweler’s term baroque pearl.

The derivation of the word Rococo is equally uncertain, though its source is most probably to be found in the French word rocaille, used to describe shell and pebble decorations in the 16th century. In the 18th century, however, the scope of the word was increased when it came to be used to describe the mainstream of French art of the first half of the century; Neoclassical artists used it as a derogatory term. Fundamentally a style of decoration, Rococo is much more a facet of late Baroque art than an autonomous style, and the relationship between the two presents interesting parallels to that between High Renaissance and Mannerist art.

During the Baroque period (c. 1600–1750), architecture, painting, and sculpture were integrated into decorative ensembles. Architecture and sculpture became pictorial, and painting became illusionistic. Baroque art was essentially concerned with the dramatic and the illusory, with vivid colours, hidden light sources, luxurious materials, and elaborate, contrasting surface textures, used to heighten immediacy and sensual delight. Ceilings of Baroque churches, dissolved in painted scenes, presented vivid views of the infinite to the worshiper and directed him through his senses toward heavenly concerns. Seventeenth-century Baroque architects made architecture a means of propagating faith in the church and in the state. Baroque palaces expanded to command the infinite and to display the power and order of the state. Baroque space, with directionality, movement, and positive molding, contrasted markedly with the static, stable, and defined space of the High Renaissance and with the frustrating conflict of unbalanced spaces of the preceding Mannerist period. Baroque space invited participation and provided multiple changing views. Renaissance space was passive and invited contemplation of its precise symmetry. While a Renaissance statue was meant to be seen in the round, a Baroque statue either had a principal view with a preferred angle or was definitely enclosed by a niche or frame. A Renaissance building was to be seen equally from all sides, while a Baroque building had a main axis or viewpoint as well as subsidiary viewpoints. Attention was focused on the entrance axis or on the central pavilion, and its symmetry was emphasized by the central culmination. A Baroque building expanded in its effect to include the square facing it, and often the ensemble included all the buildings on the square as well as the approaching streets and the surrounding landscape. Baroque buildings dominated their environment; Renaissance buildings separated themselves from it.

The Baroque rapidly developed into two separate forms: the strongly Roman Catholic countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Flanders, Bohemia, southern Germany, Austria, and Poland) tended toward freer and more active architectural forms and surfaces; in Protestant regions (England, the Netherlands, and the remainder of northern Europe) architecture was more restrained and developed a sober, quiet monumentality that was impressive in its refinement. In the Protestant countries and France, which sought the spirit through the mind, architecture was more geometric, formal, and precise—an appeal to the intellect. In the Roman Catholic south, buildings were more complex, freer, and done with greater artistic license—an appeal to the spirit made through the senses.

Treatises on the orders and on civil and military architecture provided a theoretical basis for Baroque architects. While many 16th-century architects published treatises on architecture or prepared them for publication, major 17th-century architects published very little. Two fragmentary volumes by Francesco Borromini appeared years after his death, and Guarino Guarini’s major contribution (though he brought out two volumes on architecture before he died) did not appear until well into the 18th century. Other Italian publications tended to be repetitions of earlier ideas with the exception of a tardily published manuscript of Teofilo Gallaccini, whose treatise on the errors of Mannerist and early Baroque architects became a point of departure for later theoreticians.

In France, Jacques-François Blondel and Augustin d’Aviler published notes for lectures given at the Academy of Architecture, but the most important publications were those of Fréart de Chambray and Claude Perrault. Perrault attacked established Italian theory. Other notable French works included writings by René Ouvard, André Félibien, Pierre Le Muet, and Julien Mauclerc. In England, Sir Henry Wotton’s book was an adaptation of Vitruvius, and Balthazar Gerbier’s was a compendium of advice for builders. Among the notable 17th-century German publications were books by Georg Boeckler, Josef Furttenbach, and Joachim von Sandrart.

During the period of the Enlightenment (about 1700 to 1780), various currents of post-Baroque art and architecture evolved. A principal current, generally known as Rococo, refined the robust architecture of the 17th century to suit elegant 18th-century tastes. Vivid colours were replaced by pastel shades; diffuse light flooded the building volume; and violent surface relief was replaced by smooth flowing masses with emphasis only at isolated points. Churches and palaces still exhibited an integration of the three arts, but the building structure was lightened to render interiors graceful and ethereal. Interior and exterior space retained none of the bravado and dominance of the Baroque but entertained and captured the imagination by intricacy and subtlety.

In Rococo architecture, decorative sculpture and painting are inseparable from the structure. Simple dramatic spatial sequences or the complex interweaving of spaces of 17th-century churches gave way to a new spatial concept. By progressively modifying the Renaissance-Baroque horizontal separation into discrete parts, Rococo architects obtained unified spaces, emphasized structural elements, created continuous decorative schemes, and reduced column sizes to a minimum. In churches, the ceilings of side aisles were raised to the height of the nave ceiling to unify the space from wall to wall (e.g., church of the Carmine, Turin, Italy, 1732, by Filippo Juvarra; Pilgrimage Church, Steinhausen, near Biberach, Germany, 1728, by Dominikus Zimmermann; Saint-Jacques, Lunéville, France, 1730, by Germain Boffrand). To obtain a vertical unification of structure and space, the vertical line of a supporting column might be carried up from the floor to the dome (e.g., church of San Luis, Sevilla, Spain, begun 1699, by Leonardo de Figueroa). The entire building was often lighted by numerous windows placed to give dramatic effect (e.g., Schloss Brühl, near Cologne, by Balthasar Neumann, 1740) or to flood the space with a cool diffuse light (e.g., Pilgrimage Church, Wies, Germany, by Zimmermann, 1745).