Baroque Era Essay

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Baroque Era: Art, Music & Architecture http://booksofart. com/western-art/baroque-art/ March 28, 2011 Term Paper: Western Civilization Baroque Architecture, Music and Art During the late 16th century until the 18th century in Europe the artistic style known as Baroque became popular. Steve Wakefield said it best in his book Carpetier’s Baroque fiction: returning Medusa’s gaze that the Baroque era is best described as “a style characterized by dynamic movement, overt emotion and self-confident rhetoric.” According to the book History and Appreciation of Art, "The term “Baroque” is from the Portuguese Barroco, which means a 'misshapen pearl' and the Baroque was the final phase of the Renaissance or an era distinct from both the Renaissance and the modern era"(History and Appreciation of Art)."Baroque, as a formal style, is characterized by open compositions in which elements are placed or seem to move diagonally in space" (Stokstad pg. 721). Besides being an age focused on the arts, it also was the age known for scientific and mathematical discoveries of great scientists like Galileo and Newton, and great mathematicians like Descartes, Newton and Leibnitz famous. In the Baroque era things like architecture, music and art had their own certain style. Movement, energy and tension create the feeling of the arts during the Baroque era. Things like contrasts of light and shadow along with and infinite amount of space are definitely shown in this type of art. "The artist would often portray the figures as individuals with their own personalities, to capture the inner workings of the mind and to portray the passions of the soul on their faces" (Sullivan1). Spirituality is very common in works of baroque art especially in Roman Catholic countries for example, paintings depicting scenes of something like miracles are common. Another feature of the art
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