(jazzy piano intro) - [Voiceover] How can you look
at a painting or sculpture and know that it was
made during the period that we call the Baroque? - [Voiceover] How do you
recognize the Baroque style? Let's start by looking at
this very important sculpture by Bernini of the Biblical story of David, who defeats the giant Goliath. - [Voiceover] I'm standing
in front of this sculpture, and I wanna duck. This man is about to launch a rock. - [Voiceover] He's giving this every ounce of energy he's got. - [Voiceover] Look at his eyebrows, the way they're knit together. Look at the way that he's biting his lips. The artist is observing the human body, understands all of the
naturalistic lessons that had been gained
during the Renaissance, but is putting them towards
an intense emotionalism. - [Voiceover] This is
a position of the body that could only be like
this for a split-second. - [Voiceover] The body itself
has broken with the stability that had been so characteristic
of the Renaissance. Bernini's body is wound up, and is about to release its energy. He's like a spring that's taut. And you're right, his body
could never hold this position for more than a moment. - [Voiceover] We see a diagonal. - [Voiceover] And it's not
just straight diagonals, these are interrelated, arcing diagonals. And so there is this tremendous energy that's not only the result
of the representation of his body, but it's
the very forms and lines that the artist is creating in stone. - [Voiceover] And that's part of the way that the figure involves us. It moves into our space. With Michelangeolo's David,
we maintain a polite distance. Its ideal beauty is there
for us to contemplate. But Baroque art does something different. Instead of appealing to our minds, it appeals to our bodies. - [Voiceover] It appeals to our emotions. - [Voiceover] Michelangelo's
David looks like a god. - [Voiceover] Well, Michelangelo
is largely unwilling to sacrifice the pure, linear
qualities of his figure. Notice the way in which the
line of his body is almost unobstructed, whereas
Bernini is absolutely willing to cross his body with his arms,
with all of those diagonals that energize but also move away from that notion of the ideal. There's another important aspect that the complexity of
Bernini's composition enables, and that is a greater set of contrasts between light and dark. Michelangelo's David,
because he is so planar, the marble is all available to the light, and so you don't get deep shadow. With Bernini, because the
form is crossing itself, you get these contrasts
between highlights and shadows that further activate the sculpture. - [Voiceover] So how do
we see this in painting? - [Voiceover] One of the
great examples is to look at the Italian Baroque painter Caravaggio. - [Voiceover] This is an amazing painting, and incredibly powerful, very
much like Bernini's David. We're confronted with
something very close to us, which here is Saint Peter, who asked to be crucified
upside-down, because he said he wasn't worthy to die
the way that Christ died. So, here we see Peter nailed to the cross. The bottom of the cross almost
feels like it's so close that we could touch it. So the same way that Bernini's
David moved into our space, Caravaggio is using foreshortening. - [Voiceover] But it also
creates an incredible sense of instability. Look at the way that that
cross is just being raised up, and we're not sure that
the massiveness of Peter and of the lumber is too heavy, whether or not he may
fall with a giant thud, that everything feels
contingent and in motion. - [Voiceover] And here we have
the diagonal of the cross, but also another diagonal
formed by the back of the figure who's helping to raise the
cross, and the figure underneath who's raising it with his back. And so we have criss-crossing diagonals, which is also a very common
feature of Baroque art. - [Voiceover] It's interesting
to compare this to Bernini's sculpture, because Bernini
was working in the round. Here, the artist is creating
an illusion of form, of mass, and one of the ways he's able to do that is to create these sharp contrasts
between light and shadow, which, just like the Bernini sculpture, is creating a sense of
vividness and energy. So we've got this dark background, and these brilliantly highlighted figures, creating this sense of veracity that we could reach out and touch them. - [Voiceover] The whole thing
about Renaissance painting was there was an illusion of
space, there was architecture, there was landscape behind the figures, but here, Caravaggio uses
darkness so that everything is pushed to the foreground. - [Voiceover] So it's
emotional, it's intimate, it feels real, it feels immediate. - [Voiceover] And it
gets to us in our bodies. Look at how close Peter's feet
are, and we can see the nails that have been driven through his feet. We can see the nails in his hand. There's an interest in making
us emotionally involved even in the violence, here. - [Voiceover] I'm interested
in the way that the center of gravity has
been shifted, and is being raised up so that there
is this instability. - [Voiceover] A way to drive
this point home is just to compare this to a painting by Raphael from the High Renaissance, where we have an emphasis on stability and balance. The figures in this painting by Raphael are in the shape of a pyramid, which is the most stable of forms. There's a clear light on the figures, they're situated within this
three-dimensional space. We can move from foreground, to middle-ground, to deep background. - [Voiceover] And Raphael
is enjoying the opportunity to give us as much information as he can, not only about the three
figures in the foreground, but about the natural world beyond them, whereas Caravaggio is
being much more careful about what we're going to focus on. - [Voiceover] Look at that
beautiful face of the Madonna. She's not a particular person, she is the divine mother of God. - [Voiceover] But Peter
is an actual individual that we're seeing. This is a particular man, at a particular point in his life. - [Voiceover] And there's dirt, and clothes that are disheveled. This is much more the real world than we ever see in the High Renaissance. - [Voiceover] So all of the art that we've looked at has been Italian. Can we see these same characteristics in art that's being
produced north of the Alps? - [Voiceover] We can certainly
see it in the art of Rubens. if we looked at Rubens'
raising of the cross, we would see a diagonal,
we would see dramatic contrast of light and dark. - [Voiceover] What if we
were looking at artists who lived in a Protestant context? - [Voiceover] A lot of the characteristics we've been describing,
these are characteristics that we associate with
Catholic Baroque art, that sought to energize believers. In Holland, we're looking at paintings that are very different
than the altarpieces from Catholic Europe, and that's because we're in a Protestant
country, where artists are no longer commissioned to paint
altarpieces for the Church. So let's take something
that seems like the opposite of the Baroque art that
we've been talking about. Let's take Vermeer's Woman
With A Water Pitcher. - [Voiceover] Instead of
seeing a Biblical scene, we're seeing a common domestic scene. A wealthy woman in her home,
in the North of Europe. - [Voiceover] So what makes this Baroque? - [Voiceover] Everything
in this painting is quiet. The light has a subtlety to it. It is very different from
the drama and violence of the light that we saw in Caravaggio. Instead, the artist seems to be in love with the very subtle modulation of light, the very subtle gradations of tone. Look especially at the way that the light filters through her headdress. - [Voiceover] Or under her right arm, as she opens that window. - [Voiceover] We see a woman surrounded by rectilinear forms. The rectangle of the window, of the map on the upper right, the rectangle of the
table to the lower right. She inhabits that space between. But she's moving and resisting
the stability and geometry that is set up by the
environment around her. - [Voiceover] She's picking up
or putting down the pitcher, opening the window, this
caught moment in-between. And even the light has a
sense of being in-between, of the light coming in from the outside, of the light in the interior. And that interest in light
is key to Baroque art, whether it's Caravaggio's drama or the subtlety of light in Vermeer. - [Voiceover] This is a
painting that is about subtle transition, and whether or not it's the subtle transition of the light, or the subtle transition of her attention from the basin and pitcher to the window. - [Voiceover] We are close to her, we feel as though we could reach out and feel that rug that covers the table. So that closeness that we saw in Caravaggio and Bernini is still here. - [Voiceover] Let's move
through all of these different types of paintings, how do
we recognize the Baroque in 17th century Dutch landscape? - [Voiceover] Here's
Ruisdael's beautiful painting of the Bleaching Grounds. But notice it's not an ideal landscape. This is the landscape of
Ruisdael's hometown of Haarlem. - [Voiceover] We call this a landscape, but this is really about those clouds. Look at those huge, voluminous forms that are moving across that sky. I can see them forming and
unforming before my very eyes. This is still about
transition, and look at the way that those clouds cast
shadows that create these alternating fields across the land below. - [Voiceover] So, Baroque
art is about time, it's about effects of light,
whether that's dramatic or more subtle, it's about
involving the viewer, of moving into our space, of breaking down the barrier between us
and the work of art. It's about the use of the diagonal, of a sense of energy and drama, sometimes subtle drama, but still drama. - [Voiceover] And for
me, it's always about a sense of direct
relationship with the subject. (jazzy piano outro)
Baroque - when you're out of Monet
very interesting! I wonder how those characteristics of baroque painting/sculpture can be related to that of the music scene during the same period.
The overview in the video: http://i.imgur.com/jFhhgeS.jpg
A conversation with Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris about how to recognize Baroque art.
This was fascinating. Was kinda weird how they were both whispering the whole time though...