Paintings in the Baroque Cultural Movement

Baroque painting is a painting associated with the Baroque cultural movement. The movement is often identified with Absolutism, the Counter Reformation and Catholic Revival. Paintings during the period beginning around 1600 and continuing throughout the 17th century, and into the early 18th century are identified today as Baroque paintings.

Baroque style featured "exaggerated lighting, intense emotions, release from restraint, and even a kind of artistic sensationalism". It is characterized by great drama, rich, deep color, and intense light and dark shadows.

Rembrandt van Rijn, The Night Watch or The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, 1642, oil on canvas

Baroque art was meant to evoke emotion and passion instead of the calm rationality that had been prized during the Renaissance.

Jos de Ribera, Martyrdom of St Philip, 1639

Among the greatest the Baroque period are: Caravaggio Rembrandt Rubens Velzquez Poussin Vermeer

painters

of

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Caravaggio is an heir of the humanist painting of the High Renaissance.

His realistic approach to the human figure, painted directly from life and dramatically spotlit against a dark background, shocked his contemporaries and opened a new chapter in the history of painting.

Caravaggio, Boy with a Basket of Fruit

Caravaggio, Martirio di San Pietro

Carravagios ability to use chiaroscuro light effects effectively enabled him to enhance the dramatic effect of his works.

In paintings, chiaroscuro refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted", and this meaning has extended to other visual arts such as photography and cinema.

Chiaroscuro can also be seen in the paintings of Poussin and Vermeer.

Nicolas Poussin, Diane et Endymion

Johannes Vermeer, The milkmaid

Dutch paintings in the baroque period

The prosperity of 17th century Holland led to an enormous production of art by large numbers of painters who were mostly highly specialized and painted only genre scenes, landscapes, Stilllifes, portraits or History paintings.

Technical standards were very high, and Dutch Golden Age painting established a new repertoire of subjects that was very influential until the arrival of Modernism.

Notable Dutch Paintings

Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael, Bentheim Castle

Rembrandt van Rijn, The abduction of Europa.