Rome Away From Home

Rome is home to some of the world’s oldest and most influential works of art. This past month, in Art/Jesuits in Early Modern Rome, we covered an impressive amount of ground looking at work spanning from the 15th all the way to the 17th centuries. What’s maybe the most impressive, though, is the range of ceiling paintings that spanned these centuries. From the Allegory of Divine Providence by Pietro da Cartona in the Palazzo Barberini, to the Apotheosis of Saint Ignazio by Andrea Pozzo in the Chiesa di Stant’ Ignazio, to the Triumph of the Name of Jesus by Giovanni Battista Gaulli in the Gesù, each painting seemed more grandiose and mind-boggling than the next.  Each painting mentioned above is its own example of quadratura painting in the Baroque era. The Baroque movement in art came after the Renaissance and later Mannerism painting where there was an emphasis on going back to the Classical art and architecture of the Hellenistic period and Classical Rome. The art was very clean

During our time in Rome we have seen many amazing ceiling paintings in many of the Churches we have been able to go to. I remember the first church that I walked into during this trip and looked up just to be amazed by the elaborate art and architecture of the ceiling. One of my ultimate favorite ceiling paintings that we have seen during this month is the ceiling of the church of Sant'Ignazio. Upon walking into this church I was in awe of the architecture and paintings surrounding the churches sides, but after looking up I was amazed. The ceiling painting was completed by Pozzo, and is a fresco entitled, “The Triumph of Sant' Ignazio”. In this church, the marbled columns continue all the way up to the ceiling. This ceiling is amazing because it seems as if the sides of the church go up all the way into Heaven. It is hard to tell where the architecture ends and where the paint begins, done by the artist to form a kind of three dimensional effect. This effect is called quad

In the High Renaissance and Baroque Italy, decoration was everything. Most of the decorations were frescos or mosaics. The most important frescos and mosaics were commissioned by Catholic churches. During the High Renaissance, the decoration was about evoking classical antiquity, balance, and harmony. The Baroque period was more about the grandiose and dramatic. The aspects of both of these time periods can be found in churches all across Rome. The most impressive decorations are found on the ceilings of the churches. One of the most famous High Renaissance ceiling painting is in the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. An example of Baroque ceiling painting is in the church of St. Ignatius by Andrea Pozzo, SJ. Both of these ceiling paintings show the Catholic church’s appreciation of art in the High Renaissance and Baroque periods.  Sistine Chapel ceiling Michelangelo’s ceiling in the Sistine Chapel is one of the best examples of High Renaissance painting. The ceiling is made up o

Throughout this trip, the primary style of art that really sticks out is ceiling paintings. Every single day here in nearly every single building we went into, there were ceiling paintings. Granted, some weren’t exactly as expected, as some depicted religious scenes, such as the Assumption of Mary (which ended up being a surprisingly popular iconography that I never would have expected), or even some of the more medieval pieces that we saw in some of the first churches here, with the hand of god coming down, while Jesus hang nailed to the cross with saints and apostles flanking either sides of the painting. On the other side of things, though, there was an enormous amount of pagan and historical ceiling paintings, such as the Casino dell’Aurora, or the Loves of the Gods at the Palazzo Farnese, all the way to the scenes of Alexander the Great extending from the walls onto the ceiling at the Castel Sant’Angelo. With this in mind, it would be too far a jump to say that the Jesuits used t

             The Jesuits use of art in early modern Rome helped shape, create, invigorate, and redirect devotion of Christians by constructing a personal experience and relationship with God.   Ignatius of Loyola decided to revive and strengthen the religious experience by introducing his theories surrounding our connection to our devotion, called the Spiritual Exercises.   Ignatius was able to communicate how to utilize the Spiritual Exercises in order to incite vivid, emotional, and intimate images of how person prayer and insight may strengthen our relationship with God, leading to further personal discovery.   The Jesuits were able to concretely manifest the Spiritual Exercises and their policies in art through the work of Renaissance artists and the Patronage of Cardinals and Popes.   The fantastic ability to take the experiences of the spiritual exercises and reflect them back into the sculptures, paintings, frescos, ceiling paintings, architecture, and other priceless works ena