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Baroque and Rococo
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Baroque and Rococo
Art Map |
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Guarino Guarini
Louis Le Vau
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The Church
By the mid-16th century, enthusiasm for the centralized plan as the
ideal form for liturgical buildings was waning. After the Council of
Trent, Counter-Reformation tendencies within the Catholic Church
began to advocate a return to the basilica type. The Gesu (1568-71),
the mother-church of the Roman Jesuits, designed by Jacopo Vignola
(1507-73), combined both longitudinal and centralized schemes, while
its monumental dome served both as a visual climax and as an
allusion to the symbolic journey of the soul towards God, which
begins below in the nave. Elsewhere, Vignola varied the centralized
type, providing the church of Sant'Anna dei Palafrenieri (c.1570)
with an oval rather than circular ground plan, a device that
remained popular through the 17th century. Baroque church
architecture tends to stress either the longitudinal axis, formed by
the pathway from the entrance to the altar, or the vertical axis
formed by the altar and the dome, with increasingly daring effects.
This was the case at St Peter's when, in 1607, Carlo Maderno
(1556-1629) added a nave and aisles to Michelangelo's centrally
planned church.
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Borromini was later to create dramatic tensions in
his interior spaces by drastic variations of scale, while the
Turinese engineer and architect Guarino Guarini (1624-83) rejected
the idea of a dome as an enclosing bubble by accentuating
certain sections left open to reveal a complicated play of
light.
Domes also
became important features in the urban landscape. In designing the
church of Santa Maria della Salute (1631-48) in Venice, Baldassare
Longhena (1598-1682) recognized the group of domes of St Mark's as a
model for developing a new emphasis on exterior spaces. At the Roman
church of Sant'Ivo alia Sapienza (1642-62), Borromini gave an
overall unity to the scheme by mirroring the ground plan in the
outline of the base of the cupola; as the dome rises, it transforms
into a perfect circle, while the decorative motifs suggest a
continual acceleration of the upward movement of its structure.
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Guarino Guarini, San Lorenzo Turin, cupola
on octagonal base, 1668.
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Francesco Borromini, San Carlo alle
Quattro Fontane, Rome,
view of the
interior 1638-67.
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Guarino Guarini, San Lorenzo, Turin, interior of dome.
Guarini also
designed the dome of the Chapel of the Holy Shroud in St John's
Cathedral, Turin.
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Gianlorenzo Bernini,
facade of Sant'Andrea ai Quirinale,
Rome,
1658-71.
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BAROQUE CHURCH FACADES
In Baroque architecture in general and in ecclesiastical buildings
in particular, the facade was extremely important, acting as the
element of mediation between internal and external spaces.
In Rome, this idea can be traced back to the late 16th-century
church of the Gesu. the facade of which was designed by Giacomo
della Porta (1533-1602). It is bi-partite. with a strong central
axis, emphasized by the double tympanum and portal. During the 17th
century, church facades became increasingly important in urban
areas. Pietro da Cortona's Santa Maria delta Pace (1656-57) has an
emphatically projecting portico, while the movement in the convex
upper section is countered by the flanking walls that curve back to
form a fan-shaped space. Bernini reinterpreted Cortona's ideas in
Sant'Andrea al Quirinale (1658-61), where the interior and exterior
are linked by the exetlra, or colonnade, while the convex pronaos,
or projecting porch, invites the passer-by in. These features are
repeated inside the church, marking the boundary between the oval
space for the congregation and the main altar. Alternating concave
and convex walls were also used by Francesco Borromini for San
Carlino alle Quattro Fontane (1667). His facade is like a theatre
curtain revealing playful, illusionistic scenery, and provides a
taste of what was to come in the 18th century. The many churches
built after the Sack of Rome in 1527 and through the High Baroque
period lend harmony to Rome's townscape.
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Giacomo della Porta, facade of the Gesu. Rome, 1568-71.
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____________________________
____________________________
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see collection:
Gianlorenzo Bernini
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Gianlorenzo
Bernini
(b Naples, 7 Dec 1598; d Rome, 28 Nov
1680).
Sculptor, architect, draughtsman and painter, son of Pietro
Bernini. He is considered the most outstanding sculptor of
the 17th century and a formative influence on the
development of the Italian Baroque style. His astonishing
abilities as a marble carver were combined with an inventive
genius of the highest order. From the mid-1620s the support
of successive popes made his the controlling influence on
most aspects of artistic production in Rome. Although his
independent works of sculpture, both statues and portrait
busts, are among the most brilliant manifestations of their
kind in Western art, his genius found its highest expression
in projects in which he combined sculpture, painting and
architecture with scenographic daring and deep religious
conviction to express more fervently than any other artist
the spiritual vision of the Catholic Counter-Reformation
Church.
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The Palazzo
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Gianlorenzo Bernini, design for the new facade of the Louvre, first
proposal, 1664-65. Musee du Louvre, Paris. |
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The most important aristocratic residence to be built in Rome during
the first half of the 17th century was the Palazzo Barberini,
designed during the reign of Pope Urban VIII. In 1626, the project
was entrusted to Carlo Maderno and it was completed after his death
by Bernini, assisted by Borromini (1630-32). Its H-plan was inspired
by the traditional layout of country villas; the courtyard, flanked
by two short projecting wings, introduces the central block, which
has an open loggia and entranceway placed on an axis with an oval
space that leads out to the garden. Despite being innovative, the
design "was not imitated for some time in Rome. On the contrary,
great emphasis was laid on the facades of city buildings, as occurs
at the Palazzo di Montecitorio, designed by
Bernini for the Pamphili
family (1650-55). Its long facade is in five sections, with a
projecting central portion and slanting lateral wings; the pilaster
bases and window cornices look as if they have been hewn out of
rock. The entablature of the portal was originally supported by
pairs of telamonic figures (later removed by Carlo Fontana), a motif
that was to be widely used in High Baroque architecture in Austria
and Central Europe, especially by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach
(1656-1723). An even more influential design was
Bernini's facade
for the Palazzo Chigi in the Piazza Santi Apostoli. The central
projecting section of the front elevation has pilasters on high
bases and is framed by two lateral wings; it is emphasized by a
large projecting cornice and balustrade. This design is echoed in
Vienna in the Liechtenstein Palace, on which Domenico Martinelli
(1650-1718) started work in 1692; the city palace of Prince Eugene
of Savoy, 1696; and the Schonborn-Batthyany Palace, both by Fischer
von Erlach. The plan of the Barberini palace was exported to France
when Bernini was summoned to Paris in 1665 to submit designs for the
enlargement of the Louvre.
His first proposal comprised two grand salons, one above the other,
giving their shape to the central oval from which, on the exterior,
two concave wings project. This scheme, derived in spirit from
Borromini, was not approved. In his next design,
Bernini envisaged a
massive block with slightly protruding corner-stones set on a base
hewn to resemble a reef emerging from the sea, in complete contrast
to the austere lines of the building itself. Work began on this
project in 1665, immediately after Bernini's return to Rome, but
soon came to a stop. A commission formed by Charles Le Brun
(1619-90), Louis Le Vau (1612-70), and Claude Perrault (1613-1688)
successfully argued for the adoption of classicism as the canonical
French artistic style, in preference to copying Italian taste. As a
result, a colonnade was added to the eastern facade of the palace in
homage to the architecture of classical antiquity. Unlike the
Italian palazzo, the French hotel particulier was connected
to the street by a half-open courtyard, or cour d'honneur.
The living quarters, or corps de logis, were set further back. As
the century progressed, the hotel generally became a U-shape
around the courtyard, cut off from its urban environment as in Jean
Androuet Du Cerceau's Hotel de Sully (1624-29) in the Marais
district of Paris. The courtyard of the Hotel Lambert (1640-44),
built by Louis Le Vau on the He Saint-Louis for Nicolas Lambert, was
surrounded by a continuous Doric entablature, giving a sense of
continuity to the space, reinforced by the gently curved concave
corners at both ''ends" of the facade.
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Plan of the Palazzo Barberlnl, Rome. |
Louis Le Vau, Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, 1657-61.
The chateau, with
its garden by Le Notre,
was built for Nicolas Fouquet, Louis XIV's
chief minister.
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CARLO MADERNO
Carlo Maderno (1556-1629) was a transitional artist who bridged the
styles of Mannerism and Baroque in Rome. A nephew and pupil of
Domenico Fontana, he designed the facade of Santa Susanna
(1595-1603). He was appointed by Pope Paul V as architect to St
Peter's and designed its facade and nave, adopting a basilical plan
contrary to Michelangelo's intentions.
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Gianlorenzo Bernini, facade of Palazzo di Montecitorio. Rome,
1650-55.
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Jutes Hardouin-Mansart and Charles Le Brun,
Hall of Mirrors, Palace
of Versailles, 1678-84.
The immensely long mirrored gallery was
intended to rival
the Louvre gallery In size and magnificence, which
entailed
changing Le Vau's earlier plan.
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THE ROYAL PALACE OF VERSAILLES
Versailles is the key expression of 17th-century absolutism and
epitomizes the ethos and taste of Louis XIV's reign. It was adopted
as a model by other monarchs throughout Continental Europe until the
end of the 18th century. Work began at Versailles in 1661, building
around the nucleus of a hunting lodge constructed by Louis XIII in
1624. Louis Le Vau was responsible for the project and designed the
central section of the new palace, the two wings forming the
courtyard, and the garden facade. When the king decided to move the
royal court and government to Versailles in 1677, Jules
Hardouin-Mansart was commissioned to enlarge the palace, adding the
vast entrance courtyard and two immense wings north and south of the
central block. From the outset, the palace was envisaged as the
fulcrum of an urban system set in a landscape that appeared to
stretch to infinity. Andre Le Notre, in charge of the king's parks
and gardens after 1662 and the inventor of the "French garden", drew
on the Italian tradition of symmetry for his network of axial
pathways. Designed to appear endless, they are punctuated by
unexpected pavilions, clipped trees, and open spaces. In this way,
Le Notre increased the sense of space and scale, emphasized by
steps, terraces, large expanses of reflecting water, and spectacular
fountains. The palaces interior decoration, under the charge of
Charles Le Brun, represents the peak of virtuosity in French Baroque
art, especially Hardouin-Mansart's Hall of Mirrors (1678-84).
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Louis Le Vau, Palace of Versailles,
garden facade, 1661-90.
Le Vau
designed many of the buildings at
Versailles, which Louis XIV visualized as
a symbol of his reign,
almost more of a
king s city than Paris itself. |
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Hotel des Invalides, Paris, plan of the whole complex, 1670-1706.
Created as a home for war veterans, the building had to express the
ideas of grandeur and sovereignty that inspired Louis XIV's military
campaigns.
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THE CHURCH OF THE INVALIDES
Jules Hardouin-Mansart was commissioned by Louis XIV to build a new
chapel (1680-1706) among the existing buildings of the Hotel des
Invalides military hospital and home for war veterans (1670-76). It
is constructed on the main axis of Les Invalides, with an oval
sanctuary added to a central plan. It is topped by a dome inspired
by Michelangelo's cupola of St Peter's in Rome, although this French
version is considerably taller. The windows of the lower drum,
separated by pairs of columns, illuminate the interior, while also
supporting the first masonry ceiling. The windows of the second drum
light the space between the first dome and a second one. visible
through the wide central aperture of the spheroidal vault beneath
it. A third, lead-covered dome forms the outer shell and is topped
by a lantern ending in a pinnacle inspired by the Gothic tradition.
Mansart's plans also included two quarter-circle wings, adapted from Bernini's designs for St Peter's Square, but these were never built.
Construction of Les Invalides coincided with almost the entire
period of Louis XIV's military campaigns (1667—1714) through which
he sought to dominate Europe.
Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Church of the Invalides, Paris,
1680-1706.
The French architect interpreted the themes of the Baroque
church with
a majestic classicism.
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THE MODERN "APPARTEMENT"
In the 17th century, convenience and comfort became increasingly
important in French private residences and especially in the hotels
particuliers. This led to the introduction of rooms of various sizes
for specific uses: the antichambre, a waiting room and, at times,
dining room; chambre de parade, a reception room; chambre a coucher,
a bedroom; the cabinet, a study for work and receiving business
visitors; and the garderobe, or privy. Grander houses would also
have had a salon and sometimes a gallery, An earlier arrangement of
interconnecting rooms en enfilade was generally abandoned in favour
of appartements doubles. In royal residences, the king would often
receive state visitors in his bedchamber, which was fittingly
decorated with sumptuous stuccowork, gilding, and painting. The
royal bed was placed in an alcove, separated from the rest of the
room by a low balustrade. Later on, doors were installed behind the
alcove, leading to the most private boudoir, or dressing room.
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