Baroque Rome-Alexandria Johnson


Alexandria Johnson

            On the last day of class the first place we visited to talk about the baroque style was the piazza Bernini to talk about Bernini first free standing fountain of Tritone. There we learned about the details of the fountain and how it was passed off of a poem and how he accurately represented the poem with the fountain. This related to the baroque period because it was very theatrical with the height of the water that shot out the water and how it look like triton was blowing out of the shell.

            Next we went to the church of San Maria della Vittoria which was made after the Catholics victory over the Swedish Protestants hints the name having victory in it. This church was a Carmelite church that had Borromini as it patron. While we were at this church we saw the sculptor of Teresa of Avila done by Bernini which was a very baroque piece, because it featured Teresa depicted in a very dramatic pose laid put on the based with the face of extents with her clothes draping over her. Also on the side they had theater boxes with sculptors of people reading her biography and reacting to the story which goes with the theatrical theme of the baroque period. Her story was that she had a very vivid story of the an angle that was on fire and shot an arrow into her body which filled her with the spirit of god so much so that she had a bossily reaction.

            Our next stop if the day was a church done by Borromini named S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. This church was done completely by Borromini who was giving creative freedom when it came to making the church which was very important because he was very dis liked by his patron because the was difficult in what he wanted to do for them because he went against the norm. When you walk into the church you can see that it has a unique oval shape and tall white arches. You can tell it was baroque because the geometric classism used within the church.        

            After that we went to the Basilica di san Vitale which was a church of the Jesuits that was ancient but redone during baroque period that was dedicated to the martyrs in particular St. Viltale. The fresco on the wall with the stories of the martyrs were not only paining of the martyrs and their stories they had descriptions of who each of them were and what they did to educate the people. Because this was church that the Jesuits had that was more open to the public.

            The last place we went to on our last day of class was the palazzo Farnese which is now the French embassy. It was commissioned by Edwardo Farnese. In of the first works of art we learned about is the Farnese Hercules which was based on the 4th century sculptor and it was discovered by the Farnese family that’s why it is called the Farnese Hercules. The reason why this statue was different because it depicted Hercules as being exhausted by leaning on his club with the skin of the lion resting on top and it you look behind his back he is holding apples which depict his very last trial which his usually never show. Next we learn about a very important artist that relate everything to the baroque period named, Annibale Carracci. He was important because he was seen as someone who was the bridge between renaissance and the baroque period. He also brought back the art of art and sketches to his art which was fading away at a time because of artist such as Caravaggio. We saw a ceiling painting don by his that depicted Bacchus and aria that was painted because of a wedding the happened and it use the style of quadratura which was very important to the baroque period. This means that the painting used painting of architect to give the illusion of the ceiling opening up to the heavens.

            On his last day of class we learned about the baroque period and the very theatrical style that was used during this period it was a great way to end the course!




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