1.
List and
describe three distinct features of Baroque art and/or design?
A distinctive element of Baroque art is
chiaroscuro and tenebrism. Chiaroscuro is the treatment of light and shade in
drawing and painting. This is an effect of contrasted light and shadow created
by light falling unevenly or from a particular direction on something.
Tenebrism is from the Italian tenebroso
(murky), it is also called dramatic illumination. This combination makes a
picture looks like there is a spotlight on or in it. The Baroque artist Caravaggio, is usually credited
with the invention of the style. Yet
there were many artist who display this light dark play beautifully, such as
Tintoretto’s The Last Supper; Velázquez’s Las Meninas
and Peter Paul Rubens’ A Night Scene.
Another component of Baroque art is energy
and movement. This is most visibly apparent in sculpture of the time. This
sense of motion is called dynamism. A
lot of the sculptures display in their uncontrolled poses with twisting torsos,
unbalanced postures, and strong curves. Baroque statues regularly have multiple
ideal viewing angles, and are designed to be placed in the middle of a large
space to see all angles. You can see these features in Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Theresa, Augustin Pajou, Psyché abandonnée (Psyche Abandoned), Angelo de' Rossi, St.
James the Less.
One more classic feature of the Baroque
era is the external façade. The external façade often characterized by a
dramatic central projection. The difference between a Renaissance façade and a
Baroque façade has to do with the ornamentation of the structure. A Baroque façades, regularly exhibits a focus
of rich elements like blind arches, curved walls, statues, relief sculpture,
and columns around a central entrance, which strongly draws the eye. Whereas
Renaissance façades usually consist of identical sections,
which one’s eye isn’t really drawn to any particular point.
2.
List and
describe three distinct features of Rococo art and/or design?
A significant feature of Rococo art is the
use of pastel colors. The light colors were used to oppose the dark, bold
colors used in Baroque art. At this time the use of delicate, bright color
important to reflect the mindset of the people in the era. Pastels were used in
paintings and also in interior design. You can find this in Francois Hubert
Drouais’ Marquise de Caumont La Force, Franz
Xaver Winterhalter’s Princess Elizabeth
Esperovna Belosselsky and in the interior of “Green Room” of Charlottenburg
(Berlin).
An additional component of Rococo art
light subject matter. In this particular time period people wanted to stray
from the seriousness and religious matter shown in Baroque art. The Rococo
style of art is all about leisure, love, lightheartedness, pleasure and a
little erotica. You will find pieces of art with people playing, and lounging
and even a little nudity. People in this era wanted to kick back relax and have
carefree fun. Also even though there was nudity in these paintings it was done
in a vulgar way but a more tasteful refined approach. These features are shown
throughout art pieces such as Jean-Antoine Watteau’s The Scale of Love, François Boucher’s,
Resting Girl (Marie-Louise O'Murphy), and Jean
Honore Fragonard’s The Musical Contest.
A lasting feature of the Rococo era is the
ornamentation. In Rococo the decoration of decoration was very popular. Walls
were covered in murals, plaster, paneling and then adorned with sculptures and
more paintings. This was mimicked inside and out, the outside of buildings were
festooned as heavily as the inside. It was very important to over decorate a space
in more than one feature. Everything from everyday houses to churches
demonstrated this ornate elaboration. To see this we can look at the Salon de
la princesse Hotel de Soubise, Paris and the Sanssouci Palace; Potsdam,
Germany.
3.
Describe
some of the evolutions in furniture that come out of these eras.
Furniture before the times of the Baroque
and Rococo eras was hard, heavy, architectural, and functional only. Furniture
was only used as necessity not because people liked it or because it was comfortable.
During the time before these eras furniture was anything but comfortable. Also
there was no plan of how furniture should look therefore it looked like the
only thing people really knew which was architecture. This ideal of furniture
resembling architecture still applied to these times but it also developed into
its own entity and form. Like I mentioned before ornamentation is a big thing
at this time and you see it all over the furniture.
At these times furniture began to get
comfortable, chairs started having backs and arms to them, they were even
elongated into the couch, and everything had padding. This was because it
became acceptable to lounge and relax. Another aspect to come out of this time
is the need to decorate the whole piece of furniture. Before furniture was
decorated by laying a tapestry over it but now furniture was decorated the same
way the walls and exteriors of buildings. Another reason furniture was
decorated all the way around is because now out in a room rather than pushed
against a wall this again goes back to it being acceptable to relax in public
settings. Furniture moving into the middle of a room also called for it to be
light weight. Before now furniture was heavy and unmovable because you didn’t
want anyone to steal it but I presume this became less of a factor because
furniture became easy to be moved it around for necessitates of a social
settings. This can only be achieves if furniture light enough for moving.
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