The Baroque Era

In Baroque era, art showed a diversity of contemporary society, and also a form of expance of Renaissance.

Michelangelo da Caravaggio
Benini

Michelangelo da Caravaggio

With Caravaggio, a new type of artist appeared on the European scene. In his early works the essentials of his revolutionary style are already clear--the realism of his characters, the sharply defined, rich and vivid colors, especially of stuffs, and his compositions, for all heir earthiness and detail.

St John the Baptist, 1597-98

Caravaggio often used famous works as models in his series of such youths. As in other early works, the highly contrived lighting effects give the painting the air of virtuoso performance.

The Supper at Emmaus, c. 1596-1600	The Supper at Emmaus, c. 1605-06

The restrained, implosive tension of Caravaggio's later treatment contrasts with the drama of the first version. The light picks out a few details with a greater calculation.

Comparing two pictures, we can easily notice the different handling of light, which is improving from the first sharp pale light to a more balanced warm light.

The death of the , 1605-06

The softened light lingers, suspending the mourners in a cold, grieving dawn.

The conversion of St Paul, 1600-01

The conversion of St Paul could represent a man tripped over backwards in a stable, but even before the viewer recognize the subject he is aware of the electric potency of a supernatural event in this mundane image. Caravaggio has chosen the moment when Saul was flung to the ground blinded, as if by lightning, and accused by God: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" The bucketing steed has become a rather heavy hack, and the agitated crowd is replaced by one solitary baffled groom, and old peasant with a varicose vein; these two have heard nothing. The source of light is not shown; but the violent, even awkward foreshortening of the figure hurled down expresses an impact of huge energy, and the outflung arms embroil the whole in the vortex of a blinding miracle.

Bernini: The Cornaro Chapel

Vision of the ecstasy of St Theresa, 1647-52

The Cornaro Chapel, in S. Maria della Vittoria in Rome, is the fullest expression of the diverse talent of which Bernini's extraordinary genius was composed. Commissioned by the Venetian Cardinal Federigo Cornaro, it occupied some of the energies of Benini and his collaborators in the seven years between 1645 and 1652.

The focus of light on St Theresa--real light, from a concealed window above, shafted down simulated light-rays of bronze behind --kindles her being in the moment of supreme ecstasy, expressed physically with such conviction that it seems almost sexual.