What at the time became famous for Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Velazquez and other Baroque artists

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The history of painting has many centuries, as well as styles, forms and directions. However, the most famous and popular of them was and remains the Baroque. Painters and creators of this era amazed with their innovative ideas, created new directions and worked in interesting and unique styles. Who are they, the best representatives of this era in the art world, and what is known about them?

1. Caravaggio

We may never fully learn the secret of the most stunning paintings of the Baroque era, but a look at Caravaggio's history reveals some of its secrets. His life was tragic to the point of impossibility. He was orphaned early, having lost most of his family at the age of ten during a plague epidemic. And after he witnessed the brutal execution of a young noblewoman in 1599, he began to paint vengeful women chopping off men's heads.

Michelangelo became the most famous painter in Rome in 1600 and gave birth to the Baroque style as well as the technique of chiaroscuro. But, when he was not writing, he surrounded himself with thieves, girls of easy virtue, drunkenness, partying and fights.

You don't have to be an expert on the symbols and codes of Renaissance art to notice the violence in Caravaggio's paintings. He may hold the record for the number of severed heads, and his religious work sparked the ire of the Catholic Church because he used the confused as a model for the Virgin Mary.

Caravaggio knew he was an amazing artist and did not hesitate to criticize his rivals. His contemporary Giovanni Baglione said:.

Around 1600 in Rome, the Catholic Church was the most important source of patronage for artists such as Caravaggio. He did not hesitate to push the boundaries of art, even if it offended the feelings of the Church. One of the artist's most controversial moves was the use of models from the poorest sections of the population of Rome, including thieves, vagabonds and prostitutes.

In 1601, Michelangelo lost his order to create the image of the Virgin Mary for the Church of Santa Maria della Scala in Rome due to the fact that he used the famous confused as a model for the image of Our Lady. But the painting, which shocked Catholics in Rome, found favor outside of Italy. Later, it was acquired by the English king Charles I, and then entered the French royal collection.

His bold and outspoken religious paintings were highly desirable, but also significantly different from the earlier styles of depicting saints. He enjoyed the cruelty of martyrdom by painting several different scenes of the crucifixion. Some did not like the way the artist portrayed the saints in natural and human light. Others considered his work to be wicked and vulgar.

And when in 1606 Caravaggio killed a man, he was forced to flee Rome. The Pope imposed a death sentence on his head, and Caravaggio died four years later without receiving a papal pardon.

2. Rembrandt

Rembrandt was the greatest Dutch painter of his time and one of the most important figures in European art. The numerous self-portraits that he painted throughout his life are a kind of visual autobiography.

He was born on July 15, 1606 in Leiden, the son of a mill owner. In 1621 he began his studies with a local artist, and in 1624-1625 he was in Amsterdam, studying with Peter Lastman, who had visited Italy and now introduced the young artist to international trends.

Throughout his life, he searched for himself, each time trying new techniques and styles. His career was rapidly going uphill, then rolled into tartaras, leaving behind a series of problems and troubles, including bankruptcy with confiscation of property. But despite the black streak in life, he continued to receive orders. Rembrandt was interested in drawing and etching, as well as painting, and his prints were world famous during his lifetime.

Throughout his career, he attracted students who also served as his assistants. Their work was sometimes very difficult to distinguish from the work of Rembrandt himself, since they all thoroughly imitated him.

3. Bernini

Bernini dominated the Roman art world of the 17th century, flourishing under the patronage of his cardinals and popes and challenging modern artistic traditions. His sculptural and architectural projects reveal innovative interpretation of plots, the use of forms and the combination of media. Paving the way for future artists, he was instrumental in creating a dramatic and eloquent vocabulary of the Baroque style.

One of his masterpieces, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (made of multicolored marble) is a mystical figure physically shaken by a miraculous vision. Called to France by King Louis XIV to work on the Louvre Palace, Bernini left Rome for a short time. Although his architectural plans were rejected, he nevertheless completed the portrait-bust of Louis XIV (Chateau, Versailles), a majestic depiction of a monarch in a dramatically fluttering costume, and returned home.

Under Pope Urban VIII, Bernini received the first of several commissions for St. Peter's Basilica - a huge marble, bronze and gilded baldacchino that stood above the papal altar. Shortly thereafter, he set about creating a monument to Urban VIII, a work that determined the iconography of future papal funerary monuments.

In the later works of Peter the Great, placed in an apse to surround the ancient Throne believed to have belonged to Saint Peter, natural light is amplified by scattered golden rays, creating a divine setting, and the sacred piece immediately grabs the viewer's attention. Bernini's last work for the Church of St. Peter, begun under Pope Alexander VII, was the project of a gigantic square leading to the church. He himself compared the oval space, outlined by two free-standing colonnades, to a mother church stretching out her arms to embrace believers.

He also demonstrated his ability as an architect in the church of Sant'Andrea Al Quirinale, and his engineering skills helped him create the fountains.

4. Velazquez

Velázquez's work is widely regarded as the most perfect depiction of the Spanish Baroque. Where the emphasis shifts from the Renaissance lines of bright light and a mathematical perspective, the Baroque favors the essence of humanity, showing things as they should be seen. The development of chiaroscuro meant that shadow became just as important as light, in which things can be hidden. or highlighted, contrasted, or flaunted. This effect was often used by Velazquez.

His early training as a pupil of Pacheco gave him a foundation in Italian realism, which became the main feature of his art. As his artistic style became more self-reliant, he leaned more towards a naturalistic view of things, for example, in "Theophany" he recreates this famous scene with members of his own family as opposed to traditional Mary and Jesus. This serves to universalize the scene, making it relevant to every family.

During Velazquez's travels in Italy, he was heavily influenced by the great masters of Venice, and this was especially noticeable in his use of color. The famous "Maids of honor" and "Delivering Delirium" are good examples of this. The latter painting ended up in the throne room of King Philip IV, where his military victories were celebrated. The picture is so touching that Velazquez focused on human feeling, rather than on the bloodshed and aggression of war. Spanish commander Spinola's face brims with compassion as the Dutch Fort finally surrenders after a four-month siege.

He included himself in many of his paintings, especially later ones. This emphasizes the artist's inextricable connection with his work, and also hints that Velazquez saw himself as a rather exalted figure, and not a modest artist.

He worked at the royal court, creating portraits of the king and his family, and his choice to paint court jesters and dwarfs contributed to the further study of the human form. "The Midget Sitting on the Floor" is a good example of how Velazquez proved that everyone is worthy to be drawn.

5. Rubens

Rubens was born in Siegen, Germany, in Westphalia. His father, Jan Rubens, a lawyer and alderman of Antwerp, fled the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium) in 1568 with his wife Maria Pipelinx and four children to avoid religious persecution for his Calvinist beliefs.

After Jan's death in 1587, the family returned to Antwerp, where young Peter Paul, brought up in his mother's Roman Catholic faith, received a classical education. His artistic education began in 1591 with an apprenticeship with Tobias Verhecht, a relative and landscape painter with modest talent. A year later, he moved to the studio of Adam Van North, where he remained for four years until he became an apprentice to Antwerp's leading artist Otto van Veen, dean of the Artists Guild of St. Luke.

Most of Rubens' youthful works have disappeared or remained unidentified. In 1598 Rubens was admitted to the artists' guild in Antwerp. He probably continued to work in Van Veen's workshop before leaving for Italy in May 1600. In Venice, he absorbed the brightness and dramatic expressiveness of the Renaissance masterpieces of Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese. Hired by Vincenzo I Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, Rubens went to Mantua, where his main duty was to make copies of Renaissance paintings, mainly portraits of court beauties.

In October of the same year, Paul accompanied the Duke to Florence to attend the wedding of Gonzaga's sister Maria de Medici to King Henry IV of France, a scene Rubens was to recreate a quarter of a century later for the Queen. By the end of the first year, he had already traveled throughout Italy with a sketchbook in his hands. Copies of Renaissance paintings made by him give a rich overview of the achievements of Italian art in the 16th century.

In August 1601, Rubens arrived in Rome. There, the new Baroque style proclaimed by Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio, Michelangelo and Raphael was quickly adopted by Rubens. His first major Roman work involved three large paintings for the crypt chapel of Saint Helena in the Basilica of Santa Croce.

Rubens complained that he was the busiest and most jaded man in the world, but continued to take on important church assignments. His Adoration of the Magi for the Abbey of St. Michael was crowned with three monumental sculptures of his own design.

In addition, the artist did not neglect private patrons and orders. He masterfully portrayed his doctor and friend Ludovic Nonnius, his future daughter-in-law Suzanne Fourment and his sons Albert and Nicholas. His landscape with Philemon and Bavkid reveals in a poetic vein his heroic and catastrophic view of nature. And the Infanta Isabella ordered from Rubens an extensive cycle of tapestries "The Triumph of the Eucharist", which is an unprecedented manifestation of Baroque illusionism.

What can we say, but art has been, is and will be priceless for centuries. And it is not at all surprising that the world is full of people who are willing to get this or that painting into their collection (most often by illegal means). Someone goes on a crime for the sake of money, and someone simply tries to amuse their pride, takes the pictures from under the noses of the guards, leaving no traces.