Baroque appeared in Italy, and later was spread all over the Northern Europe. The Baroque period embraces roughly the time from 1600 to 1750. The word ‘Baroque’ denotes “incorrectly shaped pearl” in Portuguese, and in this meaning it best describes the different styles that are united under the Baroque heading. Caravaggio, Italian Baroque artist, is one of the most brilliant representatives of naturalism painting in the 17th century. His religious compositions address to the Counter Reformation liking for realism, austerity, and piety in art. Equally significant is his dramatic application of chiaroscuro - contrasting spaces of light and dark.
Caravaggio's influence on the art of his century is significant. He was fated to turn a great part of European art away from the idealistic viewpoint of the Renaissance to the notion that everyday reality was of primary significance. He was one of the first to depict people as ordinary looking. Caravaggio’s main subjects are religious ones which he embodies with real courage as vitally proved. Caravaggio has a strong plastic modeling of form; he puts the oil-paint over the canvas with big, wide dabs applying strong contrasts of light and shadow that enhance the dramatic effects of many of his paintings. Sometimes Caravaggio’s works reached such a realistic force that clients refused from them not seeing the proper piety and ideality in the images.
“The Crucifixion of Saint Peter” is one of Caravaggio’s masterpieces. Three dishonest characters, their faces are concealed or turned away, are drawing, dragging and thrusting the cross to which Peter is nailed by the feet with his head put down. Caravaggio's Saint Peter cannot be called a heroic martyr, nor a Herculean hero relatively to Michelangelo, he is an old man suffering from pang and in fear of death. The scene that takes place on some stony field is dismal. The obscure, impermeable background attracts the viewer’s gaze back again to the keenly illuminated people who remind us, through the banal deformity of their actions and motions - note the yellow back and filthy feet of the lower man - that the death of the apostle did not look like a heroic drama, but a hapless and humiliating execution.
Rembrandt was a portrait painter. He applies the Baroque device of spotlighting the parts that are most significant in his self-portraits. The golden tinges of his subtly lit canvas make a series of individual portraits. His method of using paint in touches of heavy-laden brushes is named impasto and sometimes adds an almost sculptural measurement to his work. Rembrandt is also famous for his religious paintings. He was one of few artists that created religious paintings in Protestant Holland.
His famous painting “The Return of the Prodigal Son” (about 1668-1669) is considered to be an epilogue of Rembrandt’s works in which ethical height and picturesque skill of the artist have been shown up. The plot of the biblical parable about a prodigal son who has returned home after long wanderings attracted Rembrandt earlier. One of his earliest etchings and some drawings prove it. In the figures of a ragged youth who has knelt down and of an aged man who has put his hands on the youth’s clean-shaven head is seen the utmost intensity of feelings, the mental convulsion, the happiness of return, the bottomless parental love as well as bitter taste of disillusions, losses, humiliations, shame and penitence. This humaneness makes the scene understandable for people of all times and makes it eternal. The unity of colours especially astounds here. From orange-red tinges of the background – everything is a single picturesque current that is perceived as an expression of one feeling.
The two representatives of Baroque style brought great changes into the art of their epoch. “The Crucifixion of St Peter” of Caravaggio is full of vital energy, realistic tinges and motion. The artist uses the notion of time, dramatic application of light, and a fervent theatricality in his painting. Caravaggio dresses his heroes in modern clothes, places them into a simple, familiar setting and in this way he gets the more cogency. The whole scene is so realistic that it seems as if the heroes are alive. On the contrary, Rembrandt’s “The Return of the Prodigal Son” is full of vivid colours though they are obscure and soft. His painting shows us the reality of the intensity of feelings but in an opposite way. Rembrandt applies the dramatic effect of black light contrast to intensify the emotion influence on the audience that is certainly seen here.
Related Articles
Factotum by Charles Bukowski
By: Olivia Hunt | 07/05/2007 | Writing
‘Factotum’ is a novel by Charles Bukowski with the main character Henry Chinaski who is considered to be Bukowski's alter ego. The author of the novel ‘Factotum’ is the excellent writer who has the ability to create a vivid picture of the event in order to describe everything in great detail and to make the reader see the entire picture. Bukowski masterly illustrates Chinaski’s utter degradation and unwillingness to move on.
Child Rearing
By: Olivia Hunt | 07/05/2007 | News & Society
In today’s society which is growing in multiculturalism and diversity, health, social and personal services have to be able to consider the influence of these issues in practice. An understanding of these key issues is critical in creating sensitive and timely services that in turn are important in promoting personal well-being and social progress.
School and Workplace Violence
By: Olivia Hunt | 07/05/2007 | News & Society
During the last years the problem of school violence has become the object of rapt attention. There are several reasons of this increasing interest to the problem. First and the main reason is the growing rate of school violence.
Rights of the Child: the Victim
By: Olivia Hunt | 08/05/2007 | News & Society
Several years ago a number of states changed their juvenile justice laws in order to guarantee children the rights stated in the convention and in other international documents. The reforms are the first positive steps in the recognition of the human rights of children.
Evaluation of Porter’s Five Forces Theory
By: Olivia Hunt | 06/07/2007 | Strategic Planning
The main strategy of a competition that is the basis of competitive behaviour of a company in a market and that describes the scheme of ensuring advantages over competitors is the central moment in a company’s strategic orientation.
Classical View of Passion in Hippolytus: Part Three
By: Olivia Hunt | 06/07/2007 | College & University
Phaedre’s feelings seem to her eternal and limitless, unbounded. It is our nature that we are sure in our feelings and emotions ‘of our own ego’ (Freud 12). This ego is Phaedre’s autonomous part, however, such statement is not right as the ego is a part of a person and it continues ‘inwards, into an unconscious mental entity’.
Leading and Leadership: Soichiro Honda
By: Olivia Hunt | 06/07/2007 | Corporate
Almost anyone can use power, but it takes skill to use leadership. Leadership skills are much more than the use of force. It means the ability to influence others and inspire them to truly wish to achieve a goal.
The Internet Culture in Virtual Reality by Castells
By: Olivia Hunt | 06/07/2007 | Internet
As a tool of communication and technology sharing, the Internet has become a powerful force that is difficult to control.
Latest Art Articles
Films Posters Will Make You Know More About Films
By: Patrick Arden | 22/11/2008
The given below article tells that buying online films posters is the best option and sticking these posters on walls is a good way to stay happy.
What It’s Like to Get a Tattoo
By: Ashley Ford | 20/11/2008
I have already addressed the age old question of does getting a tattoo hurt. In case you missed that post and want to know. Yes, getting a tattoo hurts. Of course some places are more sensitive than others. So I thought I might go into a little more detail about what getting a tattoo feels like and what to expect.
First of all you should know that it will hurt and it more than likely will be a little uncomfortable. As I have mentioned before getting a tattoo in my opinion feels like you are g
One Sheet Posters and Its Relation With Movies
By: Patrick Arden | 20/11/2008
Every individual should try his best to reflect his most unique personality as it glitters among the thousand minds. What kind of one sheet posters of movies you buy would definitely reflect your inner feelings. Nurture this hobby with great passion. To know more on these posters, have an observation of the following lines.
Calendars – Start Your New Year With a Dash
By: Patrick Arden | 20/11/2008
Calendars are available in the market in plenty. This means that you can use one that suits your needs. Read on to understand more.
Pottery Art With a Long History III – History of Ceramic Pottery in the World (down)
By: Krista QQ(www.123giftfactory.com) | 20/11/2008
Viewed from the marked changes of the pottery production in these regions, for the development of the whole Maya’s pottery, a large number of excavations in other areas are very essential, and due to the widely comparability between different areas, and timely amendment in individual areas based on the Maya chronology, all these have shown us with an overall chart of the Maya development.
Online Roulette Systems
By: Gen Wright | 20/11/2008
Roulette has been called the "King of Casino Games". This could be because of its long history of being a game of elegance and civilized players.
Birthday Cards
By: dgreetings | 20/11/2008
Birthday cards are the wonderful ways to celebrate an anniversary of the day on which a person was born. There are numerous options to celebrate birthdays and among them the birthday cards have their own significance on that particular day.
The Career and Music of Rihanna
By: Gen Wright | 19/11/2008
Rihanna, born in 1988, is a singer from Bardados. She shot to fame in 1995, with her hit album, Music of the Sun.
More from Olivia Hunt
Sources of Happiness
By: Olivia Hunt | 08/07/2007 | News & Society
Subjective notion of happiness has been studied in many disciplines over centuries. People spend all the life searching for happiness and peace. They try to reach frivolous dreams in a hope to find happiness.
Dieting Experience
By: Olivia Hunt | 08/07/2007 | Nutrition
The phenomenon known as ‘yo-yo’ dieting is very dangerous for health. Only imagine what is going on in your stomach when you start eating chocolate, sweets, pizza and etc.
A Mixed Method Design
By: Olivia Hunt | 08/07/2007 | Education
This article is devoted to a mixed method research design. In the article special attention is paid to quantitative and qualitative approach for the design of a research as essential components of a mixed research paradigm.
Dieting: Friend or Foe
By: Olivia Hunt | 08/07/2007 | Nutrition
In our society when abnormally thin models have become an icon, fat people sometime become ‘laughing-stocks’. They suppose that if they become slim, their life will cardinally change.
Causes of Scientific Revolution
By: Olivia Hunt | 08/07/2007 | College & University
The Scientific Revolution became a real break in the development of science. It influenced the development of philosophical and religious thought being the major contradiction and innovation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and had a great influence on the life of educated people of the Western World.
The Scientific Revolution in the Western Civilization
By: Olivia Hunt | 08/07/2007 | College & University
Despite of the Eastern Europe where the scientific thought did not exist as a notion and the notion of science was replaced by a notion of phylosophy, in the Western Europe the power of religion existed controlling all the spheres of state.
Analysis of the Film Cinema Paradiso
By: Olivia Hunt | 08/07/2007 | Movies
The article analyzes the film critically making allowance for its setting, color and sound, editing and effects, plot features, screening, design, camera work, acting and directing. At present, cinema is widely recognized for its power as a way of cultural production.
The Italian Film Industry
By: Olivia Hunt | 08/07/2007 | Movies
This article gives the analysis of the Italian film industry in general and then goes on to the film “Cinema Paradiso". In 1942 there was screened “Four Steps in the Clouds” directed by Blasetti.
Art & Entertainment 
