written by Evan McMurtry Let's face it, when confronted with Baroque art at any art gallery it can be daunting. What am I supposed to draw from this style of art? Not to mention the fact that museum labels only give select facts about a work of art. The reality from a historical point of view is that an art gallery can only give us fragmentary glimpses of the past. The question, 'What is baroque art?', or better stated, 'What makes baroque art different from other periods and movements?' has several stock answers. Firstly, it is art in the service of power. This answer goes that the early seventeenth century was fraught, politically and militarily, with the Thirty Years War and democratic inklings in many regions of Europe. As a response, many patrons sought to bolster their claims to power. In short, it was the birth of artistic propaganda. Secondly, it is art as theatre. This answer goes that artists now highlighted the dramatic moments in a patron's career, all leading to the apotheosis of said patron. In addition, the art is now set in a mis-en-scene, that is stage like in order to present the drama clearly. I would take this one step further: modern theatre has the concept of a 'fourth wall', in which the spectator's suspension of disbelief is maintained by a wall between the stage and spectator that is never breached. The exception would be comedy and pantomime, which feel free to break the fourth wall: think of Monty Python's Flying Circus referencing the viewer or the production qualities. This brings us to Rome, Italy, where the 'fourth wall' is constantly breached, with pilgrims and worshipers being drawn in, during any Jubilee Year by the hundreds of thousands. In addition, it was a site of ceremony, grand banquets, and ritual for visiting diplomats and ambassadors from all over Europe, which occurred during the cataclysms of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Moreover, in the seventeenth-century it was the entire city of Rome - not merely the Vatican - as it was the era before most of Rome was annexed by the Italian Republic. So, Rome wasn't a few paintings in a gallery, but a myriad of sculptors, masons, chefs, among others, all building a magnificent edifice in the heart of Christendom, all under the guidance of learned patrons and intellectuals. Rome had been remade as a theatre by successive popes since the fifteenth-century, however, according to scholars this process accelerated during the Thirty Years War when the city became a hub of diplomacy. According to historian Mario Rosa (Court and Politics in Papal Rome: 1492-1700 eds. Signorotto and Visceglia), in the Rome of Pope Gregory XV (pictured below in a bust in the AGO collection from 1621) learned societies flourished under the patronage of cardinals, such as the Accademia dei Virtuosi, in which men of letters met to debate the new philosophy of governance of the day, the so-called Reason of State. As it was seen as a potential justification for aristocratic tyranny, they sought to temper this with guidance from Scripture. For instance, one official argued that the example of King David could invoke vengeance upon a subject under certain conditions, which in turn was denounced by Agostino Mascardi as '''the vainest of conceits' to express 'paradoxes representing a danger to morals'" (84) during an address to the Accademia dei Desiosi. It was through conversations with such learned men that a cardinal or prelate would possess modesty, affability, courtesy, and concern for the poor, according to Gregory XV (96). His nephew, Cardinal Ludovisi, became a patron of artists, most famously Guercino, who painting his Chariot of Aurora on the ceiling of Villa Ludovisi. Gregory XV's papacy was shortlived, to be succeeded by Urban VIII. A noted poet, canon lawyer, a major patron of artistic projects throughout Rome (see image (left) of Bernini's portrait, which recently was lent temporarily to the AGO from the National Gallery of Canada). Peter Rietbergen (in Power and Religion in Baroque Rome: Barberini Cultural Policies) describes how Rome was lit up with fireworks upon the occasion of election of a new emperor, paraphrasing the chronicler Giacinto Gigli: "a huge "theatre" had been constructed outside the Cardinal's dwelling... surrounded by an arcade of 40 arches, each crowned with a short inscription extolling Ferdinand's many virtues; odoriferous water sprouted from fountains on the piazza within this arcade. The first of February a banquet was offered to members of the Sacred College, and to the resident ambassadors, while the people were given free wine. The imperial ambassador acted likewise, with fireworks and other festivities" (183-184). Ultimately, these diplomatic efforts dragged on and on as the Thirty Years War was fought up until 1648 to a stalemate, and France emerged as the strongest Continental power under Louis XIV.
However, this did not put a damper on the renewal of the Rome as the world's theatre, especially under Alexander VII (see preparatory drawing below by Pietro da Cortona for a painting that Alexander commissioned on the occasion of da Cortona's papal knighthood. For another later study see also https://www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/search#/8/collection/904519/the-guardian-angel). Piazza Del Popolo, the Scala Regia, Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, and St. Peter's Square were all completed under his tenure. By the end of the seventeenth-century Rome was completed in its intended form, only to be partly annexed by the new Italian Republic in 1870 during the unification of Italy. So, whereas Rome had been mostly cow pasture during the Middle Ages, sparsely populated and in ruins, successive patrons seized the opportunity to renew the urban fabric as a theatre of the world.
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