Art (Baroque art.), The style of European art and architecture of the 17-18 centuries. At different times, different content was put into the term "baroque" - "bizarre", "strange", "prone to excesses." At first, it wore an offensive connotation, implying nonsense, absurdity (perhaps it goes back to the Portuguese word for an ugly pearl). Currently, it is used in works of art to determine the style that prevailed in European art between Mannerism and Rococo, that is, from about 1600 to the beginning of the 18th century. Art inherited dynamism and deep emotionality from Baroque mannerism, and from the Renaissance - solidity and splendor: the features of both styles harmoniously merged into one single whole.

Baroque. (Clementinum Library, Prague, Czech Republic).

The most characteristic features - flashy flamboyance and dynamism - corresponded to the self-confidence and aplomb of the newly empowered Roman Catholic Church. Outside Italy, the Baroque style took its deepest roots in Catholic countries, and, for example, in Britain, its influence was negligible. The origins of the tradition of Baroque art in painting are two great Italian painters - Caravaggio and Annibale Carracci, who created the most significant works in the last decade of the 16th century - the first decade of the 17th century.

The history of the appearance of the style

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

The emergence of the baroque is associated with the extinction of the Renaissance: abandoning the concept of classical harmony and a strict world order, the creators focused on the struggle between reason and feelings. From now on, their focus is on the forces of the elements, expression, mysticism.

During the 17-18 centuries, baroque architecture, art and music spread widely throughout Europe and America, came to Russia. The flourishing 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, monasteries. The architectural solutions of the court architects are subordinated to one idea: to surprise and delight.

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 prevail in the plans.

In the design of facades, raskrepka is widely used, when part of the wall is exposed slightly forward or, on the contrary, deepens along with all the elements. The result is an alternation of convex and concave sections with the effect of a 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 ancient 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 decoration, which gave many reasons for accusations of bad taste.

The walls practically disappear under the stucco molding, painting, carved panels, sculptures, columns, mirrors. The desire for gigantism manifests itself in heavy furniture, huge wardrobes, stairs. In short, baroque is a style of excesses. Due to the alternation of illuminated and shaded zones, adjustable side lighting, the craftsmen created the optical effects of expanding the space. Golden, blue, pink colors created a solemn atmosphere.

Connection with the surrounding space

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

Baroque architectural elements

• Baroque facades are actively decorated with columns, large volumetric relief, bow-type pediments.

The richly finished platbands are necessarily equipped with a keystone. Windows are made in the form of ovals, hemispheres, rectangular openings. Instead of columns to support beamed ceilings, balustrades and roof arches, statues of caryatids and Atlanteans are installed.

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

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

• Traditional Baroque designs include arabesques, garlands, shells, cartouches, flower vases, cornucopias, musical instruments.

Every detail is richly framed. In a combination of historically close styles of Baroque, Rococo and Classicism, the former stands out significantly for its love of excessive decor. This trait will then be picked up by Rococo, placing greater 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 in full face).

They were made of stone and plaster, placed over the front door, window openings, arches. Each mask has its own character: calm, frightening, comic. 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 on the theater, angels and children on the church.

Baroque style in Italy

In each country, 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 Vatican took the leading role in the development of architecture. In the 16th century, the Catholic Church 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 to create the famous Church of Ile Gesu, a project by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola. Several orders are combined in the design of the main facade. Wide wavy volutes on the sides connect both façade tiers; this solution became a textbook for the churches of this period.

The largest Italian Baroque architects of the 17th century are Lorenzo Bernini, Francesco Borromini, Guarino 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 Levo and Jules Hardouin-Mansart. The baroque theme in the design of the facade is indicated only by sculptures, which contrast with the expressiveness of forms with the straight geometry of the building.

Lush 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 urban 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 Leveaux.

The castle architecture moves from traditional quadrangular fortresses to ensembles of a central building and side wings, with driveways and cultivated gardens. The volumes are simplified, the number of stucco moldings on the facade is reduced, the dimensions are becoming more modest - these are examples of the baroque in the design of the castles of Vaud, Montmorency, Chanet, Mason-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 centuries), their work even received its own name - churrigueresco.

Facades and interiors are replete with lush decorations and oversaturated with details: broken pediments, undulating cornices, curls, garlands, balustrades. The most famous building of this baroque 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 Juvarra, Giovanni Sacchetti, Francesco Sabatini. Classically austere facades are combined with magnificent baroque interiors.

Portuguese baroque palaces are included in the world cultural heritage:

• The facade of the Rayo Palace (project by André Soares) is richly decorated with stucco molding, due to the variety of forms, the effect of dynamism is created.

• The country's largest royal palace, 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 it.

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

Russian baroque

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

Features of the baroque style in Russia:

• Architectural plans and volumetric compositions are characterized by simplicity and a clearer structure.
• The main material for facade decoration is plaster with plaster details, and not stone, as in the West. Therefore, there is a greater emphasis on ornamental modeling and color solutions.
• 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 of the late 17th century

This includes destinations named after the patron surnames.

The characteristic features of the Naryshkin Baroque style: symmetry, layering, centricity, white details on a red background. It combines the techniques of Old Russian wood and stone construction with European Gothic, Mannerism, and Renaissance. This is how the famous multi-tiered Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Fili was designed.

The Golitsyn direction uses only baroque decor in the interior decoration. The architectural heritage is the Church of the Sign of the Most Holy Theotokos in Dubrovitsy.

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

Peter's Baroque at the turn of the 17-18 centuries

Under Peter I, foreign architects work in Russia, who pass on European experience to domestic masters. 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 Vasilievsky Island, in Oranienbaum, Strelna, Kronstadt. There is a baroque solemnity in the projects, but the walls are made flat, without distorted illusions.

The first Russian architect to receive a formal education was Mikhail Grigorievich 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, participated in the construction of the bell tower in the Peter and Paul Fortress complex.

Baroque architecture of the mid-18th century

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

The construction of monumental complexes is called upon to strengthen the prestige of the imperial and noble power: palaces, cathedrals, monasteries, country residences. The palace apartments are planned according to the enfilade principle, the halls inside are decorated with gilded carvings, moldings, mirrors, parquet flooring. The furnishings are exclusively ceremonial.

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

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

Modern baroque

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

BAROQUE, LITERATURE- the literature of the ideological and cultural movement, known as the baroque, which affected various spheres of spiritual life and developed into a special artistic system.

The transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque was a long and ambiguous process, and many features of the Baroque were already ripening in Mannerism (the style flow of the late Renaissance). The origin of the term is not entirely clear. Sometimes it is traced to the Portuguese term, which means "a pearl of a bizarre shape," sometimes to a concept that denotes one of the types of logical syllogism. There is no consensus on the content of this concept, the interpretation remains ambiguous: it is defined as a cultural era, but often it is limited to the concept of "artistic style". In domestic science, the interpretation of the baroque as a cultural trend, characterized by the presence of a certain world outlook and artistic system, is approved.

The emergence of the baroque was determined by a new attitude, the crisis of the Renaissance world outlook, the rejection of his great idea of ​​a harmonious and grandiose universal personality. Already because of this, the emergence of the baroque could not be associated only with the forms of religion or the nature of power. At the heart of the new ideas, which determined the essence of the baroque, was an understanding of the complexity of the world, its deep contradictions, the drama of being and the destiny of man, to some extent these ideas were influenced by the strengthening of the religious quests of the era. The peculiarities of the Baroque determined the differences in the outlook and artistic activity of a number of its representatives, and within the existing artistic system, very little similar artistic trends coexisted.

Baroque literature, like the entire movement, is characterized by a tendency towards complexity of forms and a desire for majesty and splendor. Baroque literature comprehends the disharmony of the world and man, their tragic opposition, as well as internal struggles in the soul of an individual. Because of this, the vision of the world and man is most often pessimistic. At the same time, the baroque in general and its literature in particular is permeated by faith in the reality of the spiritual principle, the greatness of God.

Doubt about the strength and unshakability of the world led to its rethinking, and in the culture of the Baroque, the medieval doctrine of the mortality of the world and man was fancifully combined with the achievements of new science. The idea of ​​the infinity of space led to a radical change in the vision of the picture of the world, which is acquiring grandiose cosmic proportions. In the Baroque, the world is understood as eternal and majestic nature, and man - an insignificant grain of sand - is simultaneously merged with it and opposes it. It seems to dissolve in the world and become a particle subject to the laws of the world and society. At the same time, a person in the minds of baroque figures is subject to unbridled passions that lead him to evil.

Exaggerated affection, extreme exaltation of feelings, the desire to know the beyond, elements of fantasy - all this is fancifully intertwined in the perception of the world and artistic practice. The world, in the understanding of the artists of the era, is torn and disordered, man is just a pitiful toy in the hands of inaccessible forces, his life is a chain of accidents and, by virtue of this, is chaos. Therefore, the world is in a state of instability, an immanent state of change is inherent in it, and its laws are subtle, if at all comprehensible. The baroque, as it were, splits the world: in it, the earthly coexists next to the heavenly, and the lowly coexists next to the sublime. This dynamic, rapidly changing world is characterized not only by impermanence and transience, but also by the extraordinary intensity of being and the intensity of anxious passions, the combination of polar phenomena - the grandeur of evil and the greatness of good. Another feature was characteristic of the baroque - it sought to identify and generalize the laws of life. In addition to recognizing the tragedy and contradictory nature of life, the representatives of the baroque believed that there is a kind of higher divine intelligence and there is a hidden meaning in everything. Therefore, we must come to terms with the world order.

In this culture, and especially in literature, in addition to focusing on the problem of evil and the frailty of the world, there was also a desire to overcome the crisis, to comprehend the highest rationality, combining both good and evil principles. Thus, an attempt was made to remove the contradictions, the place of man in the vast expanses of the universe was determined by the creative power of his thought and the possibility of a miracle. With this approach, God appeared as the embodiment of the idea of ​​justice, mercy and higher reason.

These features manifested themselves more clearly in literature and fine arts. Artistic creativity gravitated towards monumentality, it strongly expressed not only the tragic beginning, but also religious motives, themes of death and doom. Many artists were characterized by doubts, a sense of the frailty of life and skepticism. Characteristic are the arguments that the afterlife is preferable to suffering on a sinful earth. For a long time, these features of literature (and of the entire culture of the Baroque) made it possible to interpret this phenomenon as a manifestation of the counter-reformation, to associate it with feudal-Catholic reaction. Now this interpretation has been resolutely discarded.

At the same time, in the baroque, and especially in literature, various stylistic tendencies were clearly manifested, and individual trends diverged quite far. Reconsideration in the latest literary criticism of the character of Baroque literature (as well as the culture of the Baroque itself) led to the fact that two main stylistic lines stand out in it. First of all, an aristocratic baroque emerges in literature, in which a tendency towards elitism has been manifested, towards the creation of works for the "elite". There was something else, democratic, the so-called. "Lower" baroque, which reflected the emotional shock of the broad masses of the population in the era under consideration. It is in the lower baroque that life is depicted in all its tragic contradictions; this trend is characterized by rudeness and often playing on low plots and motives, which often led to parody.

Descriptiveness is of particular importance: artists strove to depict and present in detail not only the contradictions between the world and man, but also the contradictions of human nature itself and even abstract ideas.

The idea of ​​the volatility of the world gave rise to an extraordinary expressiveness of artistic means. A mixture of genres becomes a characteristic feature of baroque literature. Internal inconsistency determined the nature of the image of the world: its contrasts were revealed, instead of the Renaissance harmony, asymmetry appeared. Emphasized attentiveness to the mental structure of a person revealed such a trait as exaltation of feelings, emphasized expressiveness, a display of deepest suffering. The art and literature of the Baroque is characterized by extreme emotional tension. Another important technique is dynamics, which flowed from an understanding of the volatility of the world. Baroque literature knows no rest and static, the world and all its elements are constantly changing. For her, the baroque becomes typical of a suffering hero in a state of disharmony, a martyr of duty or honor, suffering turns out to be almost its main property, there is a feeling of futility of earthly struggle and a feeling of doom: a person becomes a toy in the hands of forces unknown and inaccessible to his understanding.

In literature, one can often find an expression of fear of fate and the unknown, anxious expectation of death, a feeling of the omnipotence of anger and cruelty. Expression of the idea of ​​the existence of a divine universal law is characteristic, and human arbitrariness is ultimately restrained by its establishment. Due to this, the dramatic conflict also changes in comparison with the literature of the Renaissance and Mannerism: it is not so much the hero's struggle with the world around him, as an attempt to comprehend divine intentions in a collision with life. The hero turns out to be reflective, facing his own inner world.

Baroque literature insisted on freedom of expression in creativity, an unrestrained flight of fantasy is inherent in it. The Baroque strove for excessiveness in everything. Because of this, there is an emphasized, deliberate complexity of images and language, combined with a striving for beauty and affectation of feelings. The Baroque language is extremely complicated, unusual and even deliberate techniques are used, pretentiousness and even bombast appear. The feeling of the illusory nature of life and the unreliability of knowledge led to the widespread use of symbols, complex metaphor, decorativeness and theatricality, and determined the appearance of allegories. Baroque literature constantly confronts the true and the imaginary, the desired and the actual, the problem of "being or appearing" becomes one of the most important. The intensity of passions has led to the fact that feelings have supplanted reason in culture and art. Finally, the baroque is characterized by a mixture of the most varied feelings and the appearance of irony, "there is no such thing as serious or so sad that it could not turn into a joke." The pessimistic worldview gave rise not only to irony, but also caustic sarcasm, grotesque and hyperbole.

The desire to generalize the world pushed the boundaries of artistic creativity: baroque literature, like fine art, gravitated towards grandiose ensembles, at the same time, one can notice a tendency towards the process of “domesticating” the natural principle in man and nature itself, subordinating it to the will of the artist.

Typological features of the Baroque determined the genre system, which was characterized by mobility. Characterized by the advancement to the forefront, on the one hand, of the novel and drama (especially the genre of tragedy), on the other, the cultivation of poetry that is complex in concept and language. Pastoral, tragicomedy, and novel (heroic, comic, philosophical) become predominant. A special genre is burlesque - a comedy parodying high genres, roughly grounding the images, conflict and plot moves of these plays. In general, in all genres, a "mosaic" picture of the world was built, and in this picture imagination played a special role, and incompatible phenomena were often combined, metaphor and allegory were used.

Baroque literature had its own national specifics. It largely determined the emergence of separate literary schools and movements - marinism in Italy, conception and cultism in Spain, the metaphysical school in England, precision, libertinage in France.

First of all, the baroque arose in those countries where the power of the Catholic Church increased most: Italy and Spain.

With regard to the literature of Italy, we can talk about the origin and formation of baroque literature. The Italian Baroque found its expression first of all in poetry. His ancestor in Italy was Gianbatista Marino (1569-1625). Born in Naples, he lived a hectic, adventurous life and achieved European fame. His worldview was inherent in a fundamentally different vision of the world compared to the Renaissance: he was quite indifferent in matters of religion, he believed that the world consists of contradictions that create unity. Man, however, is born and doomed to suffering and death. Marino used the usual literary forms of the Renaissance, first of all, the sonnet, but filled it with a different content, while simultaneously searching for new linguistic means in order to amaze and stun the reader. His poetry used unexpected metaphors, comparisons and images. A special technique - a combination of contradictory concepts such as "learned ignoramus" or "rich beggar", is inherent in Marino and such a baroque feature as understanding the grandeur of the natural world, the desire to combine the cosmic principle with the human (collection Lyre). His largest works are a poem Adonis(1623) and Massacre of the innocents... Both mythological and biblical subjects were interpreted by the author emphatically dynamically, were complicated by psychological collisions and were dramatic. As a theorist of the baroque, Marino promoted the idea of ​​the unity and consubstantiality of all arts. His poetry gave rise to the school of marinism and received a wide response beyond the Alps. Marino linked Italian and French cultures, and his influence on French literature was such that he was experienced not only by the followers of the Baroque in France, but even by one of the founders of French classicism F. Malerbe.

Baroque acquires special significance in Spain, where baroque culture manifested itself in almost all areas of artistic creation and affected all artists. Spain, in the 17th century. which was in decline, under the rule not so much of the king as of the church, gave a special mood to baroque literature: here the baroque acquired not only a religious, but also fanatical character, a desire for the otherworldly, emphasized asceticism was actively manifested. However, it is here that the influence of folk culture is felt.

The Spanish Baroque turned out to be an unusually powerful trend in Spanish culture due to the special artistic and cultural ties between Italy and Spain, specific internal conditions, and the peculiarities of the historical path in the 16th and 17th centuries. The golden age of Spanish culture was associated primarily with the baroque, and to the maximum extent it manifested itself in literature, focused on the intellectual elite ( cm... SPANISH LITERATURE). Some of the techniques were already used by artists of the late Renaissance. In Spanish literature, the baroque found its expression in poetry, and in prose, and in drama. In Spanish poetry of the 17th century. the baroque gave rise to two currents that fought among themselves - cultism and conceptism. The supporters of the first opposed the disgusting and unacceptable real world to the perfect and beautiful world created by the human imagination, which only a few can comprehend. The adherents of cultism turned to Italian, the so-called. "Dark style", which is characterized by complex metaphors and syntax, appealed to the mythological system. The followers of Conceptism used an equally complex language, and a complex thought was clothed in this form, hence the ambiguity of each word, hence the play on words and the use of puns characteristic of the Conceptists. If Gongora belonged to the first, then Quevedo belonged to the second.

First of all, the baroque manifested itself in the work of Luis de Gongor y Argote, whose works were published only after his death ( Compositions in poems by Spanish Homer, 1627) and brought him the fame of the greatest poet of Spain. The greatest master of the Spanish Baroque, he is the founder of "cultism" with its learned Latin words and complexity of forms in very simple plots . Gongora's poetics was distinguished by the desire for polythinking, his style is replete with metaphors and hyperboles. He achieves exceptional virtuosity, and his themes are usually simple, but revealed in an extremely complicated way, complexity, according to the poet, is an artistic means of enhancing the influence of poetry on the reader, and not only on his feelings, but also on the intellect. In his works ( The Legend of Polyphemus and Galatea, Loneliness) he created the Spanish Baroque style. Gongora's poetry quickly gained new adherents, although Lope de Vega was in opposition to it. No less significant for the development of the Spanish Baroque is the prose legacy of F. Quevedo (1580-1645), who left a large number of satirical works, which show a disgusting ugly world that becomes distorted through the use of the grotesque. This world is in a state of motion, fantastic, surreal and wretched. Drama is of particular importance in the Spanish Baroque. Mostly baroque masters worked in the genre of tragedy or drama. Tirso de Molina (Frey Gabriel Telles) made a significant contribution to the development of Spanish drama. He created about 300 plays (86 survived), mostly religious dramas (auto) and comedies of mores. A master of masterly designed intrigue, Tirso de Molina became the first author to process the image of Don Juan in world literature. His Seville mischief or stone guest not only is the first development of this plot, but is also sustained in the spirit of the Baroque with the utmost naturalism in the last scene. The work of Tirso de Molina, as it were, threw a bridge from Mannerism to Baroque, in many respects he opened the path along which the playwrights of the Calderon school went, building their own artistic system, a synthesis of Mannerism and Baroque.

Calderon became the classical master of baroque drama. In all his dramas, he used a logically harmonious and thoughtful composition to the smallest detail, maximized the intensity of the action, concentrating it around one of the characters, expressive language. His legacy is associated with Baroque drama. In his work, the pessimistic principle found its ultimate expression, primarily in religious and moral-philosophical writings. The pinnacle is the play Life is a dream, where the baroque attitude has received the fullest expression. Calderon showed the tragic contradictions of human life, from which there is no way out, except for turning to God. Life is portrayed as excruciating suffering, any earthly blessings are illusory, the boundaries of the real world and sleep are blurred. Human passions are perishable, and only the awareness of this perishability gives knowledge to a person.

The Spanish 17th century in literature was completely baroque, as in Italy. To a certain extent, he summarizes, reinforces and emphasizes the experience of all baroque Europe.

In the Netherlands, the baroque is established almost completely, but here there is almost no feature characteristic of Italy and Spain: striving for God, religious frenzy. The Flemish Baroque is more corporeal and rude, permeated with the impressions of the surrounding everyday physical world, or is turned to the contradictory and complex spiritual world of man.

Much more deeply Baroque affected German culture and literature. Artistic techniques, the outlook of the Baroque spread in Germany under the influence of two factors. 1) The atmosphere of the princely courts of the 17th century, in everything following the elite fashion of Italy. Baroque was determined by the tastes, needs and moods of the German nobility. 2) The tragic situation of the Thirty Years' War influenced the German Baroque. Because of this, an aristocratic baroque existed in Germany along with folk baroque (poets Logau and Griffius, prose writer Grimmelshausen). The largest poet in Germany was Martin Opitz (1597-1639), whose poetry is quite close to the poetic forms of the Baroque, and Andreas Griffius (1616-1664), in whose work both the tragic perturbations of the war were reflected, and the theme of the frailty and futility of all earthly joys. His poetry was polysemantic, used metaphors, it reflected the deep religiosity of the author. The largest German novel of the 17th century is associated with the Baroque. Simplicissimus H. Grimmelshausen, where the suffering of the people during the war years was captured with tremendous force and tragedy. Baroque features are fully reflected in it. The world in the novel is not just a realm of evil, it is chaotic and changeable, and changes only happen for the worse. The chaos of the world also determines the destiny of man. The fate of a person is tragic, a person is the embodiment of the mutability of the world and being. To an even greater extent, the outlook of the baroque was manifested in German drama, where tragedy is bloody and depicts the most savage crimes. Life is seen here as a vale of sorrow and suffering, where any human endeavors are in vain.

Much less baroque was inherent in the literature of England, France, the Dutch Republic. In France, elements of the baroque were clearly manifested in the first half of the 17th century, but after the Fronde, baroque in French literature was supplanted by classicism, and as a result, the so-called "grand style" was created. The Baroque in France took on such specific forms that there is still debate about whether it even existed there. Its elements are already inherent in the work of Agrippa d "Aubigne, who in Tragic poems expressed horror and protest against the cruelty of the surrounding world and in The Adventures of Baron Fenest posed the problem "to be or to seem." Later, in the French Baroque, admiration and even the depiction of the cruelty and tragedy of the world is almost completely absent. In practice, the Baroque in France turned out to be associated, first of all, with such a common feature (inherited from Mannerism) as the desire for illusion. French authors sought to create a fictional world, far from the roughness and absurdity of reality. Baroque literature turned out to be associated with mannerism and goes back to the novel by O. d "Yurfa Astrea(1610). A precision literature arose that demanded maximum abstraction from everything base and rude in real life, was detached from prosaic reality. The principles of the pastoral were affirmed in the precise novel, as well as the emphatically sophisticated, sophisticated and flowery speech. The language of precision literature made extensive use of metaphors, hyperboles, antitheses and paraphrases. This language was formed clearly under the influence of Marino, who visited the French court. Literary salons became the conductor of a precise, lofty language. Representatives of this trend include, first of all, M. de Scuderi, the author of novels Artamen or the great Cyrus(1649) and Clelia... The Baroque gets a different life during the Fronde, in the work of the so-called free-thinkers poets, in which the features of Mannerism and Baroque are intertwined (Cyrano de Bergerac, Théophile de Vio). A burlesque poem is widely spread, where there is a dissonance of style and content (sublime heroes under low, rude circumstances). Baroque tendencies manifested themselves in the drama of the first half of the 17th century, where pastorals and tragicomedies triumphed, where ideas about the diversity and variability of life and an appeal to dramatic conflicts were reflected (A. Ardi).

In France, the baroque found its expression in the work of one of the greatest philosophers of the 17th century, thinker and stylist B. Pascal. He expressed in France the whole tragedy of the Baroque world outlook and its sublime pathos. Pascal - a brilliant natural scientist - in 1646 turned to Jansenism (a trend in Catholicism, condemned by the church) and published a series of pamphlets Provincial Letters... It was published in 1670 Thoughts, where he spoke about the dual nature of man, manifested in glimpses of greatness, and in insignificance, the blatant contradiction of his nature. The greatness of a person is created by his thought. Pascal's perception of the world is tragic, he speaks of the boundless spaces of the world, firmly believes in the expediency of the world order and opposes the greatness of the world to the weakness of man. It is he who owns the famous baroque image - "A man is a reed, but this is a thinking reed."

In England, baroque tendencies were most clearly manifested in the theater after Shakespeare and literature. A special version has developed here, which combines elements of baroque and classicism literature. Baroque motifs and elements affected poetry and drama to the greatest extent. English theater of the 17th century did not give the world baroque playwrights who could be compared with the Spanish, and even in England itself, their work is incomparable in scale with the talents of the poet J. Donna or R. Burton. In drama, Renaissance ideals were gradually combined with the ideas of Mannerism, and the last playwrights of the pre-revolutionary era were closely connected with the aesthetics of the Baroque. Baroque features can be found in late drama, especially by Fr. Beaumont and J. Fletcher, J. Ford ( Broken heart, Perkin Warbeck), F.Massinger ( Duke of Milan), among individual playwrights of the era of the Restoration, in particular in Rescued Venice T. Otueya, where the exaltation of passion is revealed, and the characters are inherent in the features of Baroque martyrs. In the poetic heritage, under the influence of the Baroque, the so-called "metaphysical school" took shape. It was founded by one of the greatest poets of the era of J. Donn. He and his followers were characterized by a penchant for mysticism and sophisticated sophisticated language. For greater expressiveness of paradoxical and fanciful images, not only metaphors were used, but also a specific technique of versification (the use of dissonances, etc.). Intellectual complexity with inner confusion and dramatic feelings determined the rejection of social issues and the elitism of this poetry. After the revolution in the era of the Restoration, both baroque and classicism coexist in English literature, and elements of both artistic systems are often combined in the works of individual authors. This is typical, for example, of the most important work of the largest of the English poets of the 17th century. - Of a lost paradise J. Milton. Epic poem Lost heaven(1667) was distinguished by an unprecedented grandeur for the literature of the era both in time and in space, and the image of Satan as a rebel against the established world order was characterized by gigantic passion, rebelliousness and pride. Emphasized drama, extraordinary emotional expressiveness, allegorism of the poem, dynamism, extensive use of contrasts and contrasts - all these features Of a lost paradise brought the poem closer to the baroque.

Baroque literature created its own aesthetic and literary theory, which generalized the already existing artistic experience. The most famous works of B. Gracian Wit or the art of a sophisticated mind(1642) and Aristotle's spyglass E. Tesauro (1655). In the latter, in particular, the exclusive role of metaphor, theatricality and brightness, symbolism, the ability to combine polar phenomena are noted.

Irina Elfond

Literature:

Golenishchev-Kutuzov I.N. Literature of Spain and Italy of the Baroque era. In the book: - Romance literature . M., 1975
Stein A.L. Spanish Baroque Literature... M., 1983
Vipper Yu.B. Baroque in Western European literature of the 17th century... –In the book: Creative destinies and history. M., 1990
XVII century. in European literary development... SPb, 1996
Foreign literature of the Renaissance, Baroque, Classicism... M., 1998
History of foreign literature in the 17th century... M., 1999
Silyunas V.Yu. Lifestyle and art styles (Spanish Mannerist and Baroque theater). SPb, 2000
Pakhsaryan N.T. History of foreign literature of the 17th – 18th centuries... M., 2001
Baroque and Classicism in the History of World Culture. M., 2001
Chekalov K.A. Mannerism in French and Italian Literature... M., 2001

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 a rejection of "naturalness", which becomes synonymous with savagery. Baroque was intended to beautify, embellish. It was during the Baroque period in Versailles that the first European park appeared, where everything was drawn as a rule, the trees were trimmed in the form of geometric shapes. Baroque is greatness, splendor, combination of reality and illusion, contrast, tension of images.

The history of the emergence of the Baroque

The Baroque style replaced the High Renaissance (Renaissance) in Italy, the birthplace of the Renaissance. In those days, Italy was exhausted, foreigners rule in it, but it is she who remains 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 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 Baroque architectural structures:

• Sanssouci greenhouse Sanssouci greenhouse
• Piazza San Pietro in Rome Piazza San Pietro in Rome
• St. Andrew's Church St. Andrew's Church
• Peterhof Peterhof

The main signs of the Baroque

Baroque architecture is characterized by spatial scope, cohesion, fluidity of complex, usually curvilinear forms. Large-scale colonnades, an abundance of sculptures on the facades and in interiors, volutes, a large number of rivets, bow facades with ripping in the middle, rusticated columns and pilasters are often found. The domes acquire complex shapes, they are often multi-tiered, like those of St. Peter's in Rome. The characteristic details of the Baroque are the Atlanteans, Caryatids, and Mascarons. Baroque inherited from Mannerism an attraction to the unusual, amazing, astounding.

Baroque architects

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 facade 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 heroes solve the riddles left by Bernini.

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

In Germany, an outstanding Baroque monument is the New Palace in Sanssouci (authors - J.G.Buring, H.L. Munter) and the Summer Palace there (G.V. von Knobelsdorf).

Types of Baroque structures

The baroque is characterized by the complexity of the plans, the splendor of the interiors with unexpected spatial and light 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 loosened facades with profiled cornices, with colossal columns, semi-columns and pilasters on several floors, luxurious sculptural details, often fluctuating from convex to concave, give the structure itself movement and rhythm. No detail is independent, as it was during the Renaissance. Everything is subordinated to the general architectural concept, which includes the design and decoration of interiors, as well as the 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 is decorated with bright rich frescoes, walls of painted marble and gilding are frequent interior decorating techniques in the Baroque style. Contrasting colors are often used in baroque interiors, such as a checkerboard-style marble floor where black and white slabs 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 has become a real piece of art, its pretentiousness and wealth, it seemed, was intended only for interior decoration, and did not have a utilitarian character. Chairs, sofas and armchairs are upholstered in expensive, richly colored fabrics and tapestries. The beds are huge, with canopies and flowing bedspreads. Wardrobes are also large, decorated and inlaid. The mirrors are decorated with sculptures and stucco moldings with floral patterns, often gilded. Southern walnut and Ceylon ebony were often used as furniture materials.

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Today, let's take a look at the most interesting artistic style of the Baroque. Its origin was influenced by two important events of the Middle Ages. Firstly, this is a change in the worldview of the universe and man, associated with the epoch-making scientific discoveries of that time. And secondly, with the necessity of holding those in power to imitate their own greatness against the background of material impoverishment. And the use of an artistic style that glorifies the power of the nobility and the church was very helpful. But against the background of mercantile tasks, the spirit of freedom, sensuality and self-awareness of a person as a doer and creator broke through into the style itself.

- (Italian barocco - bizarre, strange, prone to excesses; port.perola barroca - pearl with vice) - a characteristic of European culture of the 17th-18th centuries, the center of which was Italy. The Baroque style appeared in the 16th-17th centuries in Italian cities: Rome, Mantua, Venice, Florence. The Baroque era is considered to be the beginning of the triumphal march of "Western civilization". opposed classicism and rationalism.

In the 17th century, Italy lost its economic and political power. Foreigners - Spaniards and French - begin to rule on its territory. But the exhausted Italy has not lost the height of its positions - it still remains the cultural center of Europe. The nobility and the church needed everyone to see their strength and consistency, 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 emerged on the territory of Italy.

Baroque is characterized by contrast, tension, dynamism of images, striving for grandeur and splendor, for combining reality and illusion. During this period, thanks to the discoveries of Copernicus, the idea of ​​the world as a rational and permanent unity, as well as of man as a rational being, changed. In the words of Pascal, a person began to recognize himself as "something in between everything and nothing", "one who catches only the appearance of phenomena, but is unable to understand either their beginning or their end."

The Baroque style in painting is characterized by dynamism of compositions, "flatness" and splendor of forms, aristocratic and uncommon plots. The most characteristic features of the Baroque are striking flamboyance and dynamism. A striking example is creativity and with their riot of feelings and naturalism in depicting 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, written on religious subjects, resemble realistic scenes of the author's modern life, creating a contrast between the times of late antiquity and modern times. The heroes are depicted in the twilight, from which rays of light capture the expressive gestures of the characters, contrastingly writing out their specificity.

In Italian painting of the Baroque era, 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 veda, or urban landscape, became very popular. The most famous author of such works is an 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 has achieved international recognition -. With the work of Rubens, a new style came to Holland, where it was picked up by and. In Spain, Diego Velazquez worked in the manner of Caravaggio, and in France - Nicolas Poussin, in Russia - Ivan Nikitin and Alexey Antropov.

Baroque artists discovered new techniques for the spatial interpretation of form in its ever-changing life dynamics to art, and activated their life position. The unity of life in the sensual and bodily joy of being, in tragic conflicts forms the basis of beauty in baroque art. The idealization of images is combined with violent dynamics, reality with fantasy, and religious affectation with an emphasized sensibility.

Closely associated with the monarchy, aristocracy and the church, the art of the Baroque was intended to glorify and promote their power. At the same time, it reflected new ideas about the unity, boundlessness and diversity of the world, about its dramatic complexity and eternal variability, interest in the environment, in the environment of man, in the natural elements. A person no longer appears 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 characteristics, such as a sense of pride in the successes of the state and people. In architecture, the Baroque reached a majestic scale in the city and estate ensembles of St. Petersburg, Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo. In the visual arts, freed from the medieval religious shackles, they turned to secular public themes, to the image of a human activist. Baroque evolves everywhere to the graceful lightness of the Rococo style, coexists and intertwines with it, and since the 1760s. superseded by classicism.