Assignment 12- 17th and 18th Centuries

Assignment 12- 17^th and 18^th Centuries

I really like the Baroque Era of art.  The colors are amazing and there is such a strong emphasis on beauty.  It is a nice change from Renaissance art as it favored more ornamental designs instead of a simplistic elegance.  I like to see this kind of art because it is really pleasing to the eye, it invites you to take in every detail and see the contrasts between the light and the darkness.  One person who achieved this in sculpture was Gianlorenzo Bernini.  This can be seen in his sculpture St. Teresa in Ecstasy.

St. Teresa in Ecstasy, 1645-1652, marble and glit bronze, Gianlorenzo Bernini

The first thing that I noticed was the detail in the clothes.  There are so many indentations in the marble that I feel like the cloth is real, like I could touch it and it would bend in my fingers. 

            Sculpture was not the only thing that came out of the Baroque Era.  The paintings were also really nice.  They used contrast in their work, layering dark rich color next to bright bold colors.  One example of this is the Entombment of Christ.

Entombment of Christ, 1604, oil, Caravaggio

The dark background really makes the painting stand out.  Another thing that really made the period extravagant was the architecture.  They really went bold in the designs.  The most extreme example of Baroque art is the Palace of Versailles.

Central Portio of the Garden(west) façade, Palace of Versailles, 1669-1685, Louis Le Vau and Jules Hardoin Mansart

While the colors were not as bright as the colors in some other movements, fauvism, for example, I like the contrast that you get when you put a dark background with a light colored center.  The art of the Baroque era is very aesthetically pleasing.