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What role has religion played in art
Martin Luther's influence on the church
Martin Luther's influence on the church
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The Baroque period began in the 17th century, right after the Reformation period. The definition for Baroque in Italian is another word for “barocco,” or an irregular shaped pearl, as jeweler would define it. There were many important artists throughout this period, but before the Baroque period began, it all started with Martin Luther and his movement.
Conflicts between the Catholics and the Protestants began when Martin Luther attached the 95 Theses in 1517. He protested when the Catholic Church corrupted and so the Protestant Reformation was created. Although, the Catholic Church started with Baroque when it launched “its own internal reformation to both clean up corruption and clearly define its doctrines and theology” (McKay). The church thought that the reformation was to help the people understand more about their faith and educate them, although, “The Council of Trent declared that art should be used to explain the profound dogmas of the faith to everyone, not just the educated” (McKay). What the Council of Trent said and thought that the work of art should inspire others by making them feel what was going on, not just make the viewer think about the work, and this became to be known as the Baroque period. They thought that by expressing everything through art, this corruption that was going on would get cleaned up or fix it itself. The Baroque art and sculptures had expressed many dramatic and emotions that was related to the bible. The sculptures and paintings in this period were balanced, referenced the ancient Greece and Rome, dramatic and emotional. The contrast and the colors were either dark to light or light to dark (chiaroscuro). There were many artists during the seventeenth century; many of them included famo...
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...Artemisia kept painting, following Caravaggio’s techniques painting “Judith and her Maidservant and with the Head of Holoferness,” “Minerva”, “Cleopatra,” “Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting,” and many more. Although, Artemisia went through a lot she became a famous painter gaining many friends in high places, she also interpreted her relations to her paintings from her own struggle she went through “claiming her rightful place in an art world dominated by overpowering men” (Stokstad &Cothren 726).
During the 17th century many artists joined the Baroque art period, painting vivid and emotional paintings referring to the bible. Whether the artists such Artemisia had a horrible story behind her paintings or like Caravaggio who was a wonderful painter who started as a man with no money and ended up being a famous Baroque painter that many artists looked after.
The tendencies of Baroque translated differently in parts of Europe. In Italy, it reflected the return of intense piety through dense church ornamentations, complex architecture, and dynamic painting. Calabrese’s work exhibits the combined artistic stimuli of the 17th century and culminates in the acquired Caravagesque style that alters how paintings were composed from then on. Executed at the height of Calabrese’s most creative phase, St. John the Baptist Preaching is indicates the monumentality of change in urbanization as well as the return of Catholic permanence in the 1600’s. Aside from the Baroque power of the artwork, Calabrese’s St. John is a piece worth gravitating to and stands as reminder of the grandiose excesses of Baroque art.
The Baroque era was born out of the Roman Catholic Church’s Counter Reformation, during which the church made considerable efforts to strengthen the relationship between the secular world and the religious order. In an effort to engage the common people and create piety, the Catholic Church wanted art to appeal to human emotions. Gentileschi successfully accomplishes this in her painting, Judith Slaying Holofernes. By infusing the Apocryphal tale of Judith with dramatic techniques such as chiaroscuro and foreshortening, she created a deeply moving and realistic piece of art that engages the viewer physically and emotionally, which is quintessential to the Baroque style.
RODERICK CONWAY MORRIS, “Artemisia: Her Passion Was Painting Above All Else”, New York Times, Published November 18, 2011
Artemisia was born on July 8 of 1652 in Naples, Italy. She has been credited as one of the most famous female artists of the Baroque period. Her father, Orazio Gentileschi, helped her develop her skills as he was an artist as well. In her early life, she lost her mother at the age of twelve years of age, which may have led to her style of artwork. Another possible contributing factor is that she was raped by one of her father’s colleagues named Agastino Tassi. She married a Florence painter named Pietro Antonio di Vicenzo Stiattesi, and moved to Florence with him. Together, they had one female child. She befriended many artists, thinkers, and writers during her time, which included Galileo the astronomer. She was a female artist in a male dominated art world of her time, and succeeded at standing out.
The Catholic Church was slow to respond to the ideals and publicity innovations of Luther and the other reformers. The Council of Trent which met off and on from 1545 through 1563. The Church’s answer to the problems that triggered the Reformation and to the reformers themselves.
This book by John Rupert Martin is a good introductory book in the understanding of Baroque artists and their tremendous variety. Martin defines the Baroque characteristics, but only very broadly leaving a significant amount of room for the reader to make his own deductions. In general, Martin believes that the typical definitions of the Baroque are "too restrictive and hence likely to create more problems of classification and interpretation than it solves." Even the time of the Baroque is left open to the reader when Martin says the Baroque is roughly comprehended by the seventeenth century. It is important to note at the outset that this is only a convenient approximation; for epoch as a whole can certainly not be fitted into such a strait-jacket." This helps to define the Baroque much more generally as a gradual change which can much easily be noticed from the present than the past.
Baroque has been called a theatrical style, one that deals with spectacle, grandeur, and dramatic contrast. Test these concepts in an essay that discusses the baroque as an expression of the Catholic Reformation, Protestant devotionalism, the Scientific Revolution, and the Age of Absolutism. Define your general statements with specific examples. The following essay will discuss the Baroque period and how the Catholic Reformation, Protestant devotionalism, and the Scientific Revolution influenced it. The Baroque period generally refers to the years 1600 to 1750.
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1652), daughter of a well-known Roman artist, was one of the first women to become recognized in her time for her work.. She was noted for being a genius in the world of art. But because she was displaying a talent thought to be exclusively for men, she was frowned upon. However by the time she turned seventeen she had created one of her best works. One of her more famous paintings was her stunning interpretation of Susanna and the Elders. This was all because of her father. He was an artist himself and he had trained her and introduced her to working artists of Rome, including Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. 1. In an era when women artists were limited to painting portraits, she was the first to paint major historical and religious scenes. After her death, people seemed to forget about her. Her works of art were often mistaken for those of her fathers. An art historian on Artemisia, Mary D. Garrard notes that Artemisia “has suffered a scholarly neglect that is unthinkable for an artist of her caliber.” Renewed and long overdue interest in Artemisia recently has helped to recognize her as a talented renaissance painter and one of the world’s greatest female artists. She played a very important role in the renaissance.
Baroque era covers the period between 1600 and 1750 beginning with Monte Verdi (birth of opera) and ended with deaths of Bach and Handel. The term baroque music is borrowed from the art history. It follows the Renaissance era (1400-1600). It was initially considered to be a corrupt way of Renaissance by conservatives. The dominant trends in Baroque music correspond to those in Baroque art and literature. Some features of Baroque art included a sense of movement, energy, and tension (whether real or implied). Strong contrasts of light and shadow enhance the effects of paintings and sculptures. Opera is one of the types of music in the Baroque era. It represented melodic freedom. Baroque era was usually referred to as the thorough-bass period. In early Baroque era no tonal direction existed, but experiments in pre-tonal harmony led to the creation of tonality. [1] Baroque genre included instrumental suite, ritornello, Concerto grosso and chant. There were important composers of the Baroque period such as Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Antonio Vivaldi William Byrd Henry Purcell and George Phillip Telemann. Starting in northern Italy, the hierarchical state -- led by either the urban bourgeoisie or despotic nobles -- replaced the fluid and chaotic feudal system of the middle Ages. [2] For this reason, some historians refer to the Renaissance as the Early Modern Era. Sculptors, building on the techniques of artists such as Giovanni Bernini (1598-1680), found ways to create the illusion of energetic and even violent movement in their works. Painters created larger and more crowded canvases. Virtuosity was used in all the arts. The arts became an important measure of learning and culture. Music moved from the science of number to an expressive art viewed as an equal to rhetoric.
...ic landscapes. The baroque marked the time in which painters considered using subjects other than scenes from the Bible and from classical traditions. The baroque period also was the period in which artists painted portraits, and everyday life scenes. Baroque artist broke away from trying to make the calm balance known to the renaissance artists. Artists from the baroque era were interested in no longer tried in the extreme. They wanted to paint subjects possessing strong emotions; they wanted to capture those emotions and feelings in their work. Instead of just extremes of feeling sometimes, these strong emotions were personal. More often artists tried to portray intense religious emotions. Baroque art attempted to explain how and why their subjects fit as strongly as they did by representing their emotional states as vividly and analytically as possible.
1. Viladesau, Richard. "Counter-Reformation Theology And Art: The Example Of Rubens's Paintings Of The Passion*." Toronto Journal Of Theology 28.1 (2012): 29-42. Academic Search Complete. Web. 9 Apr. 2014.
The period of the Protestant Reformation was a troubling time for the Catholic Church. During this time the church was one of the most formidable organization throughout the land. The church had power, land, and was aligned with several influential people and governments. Any type of major change was difficult for the church to embrace. This is one reason why much of the doctrine and formalities remained the same for many years (west civ book). However, there were several men that had tried to change some of the principles throughout the church. The Reformation was not the work of a single person, but the work of many who over time disagreed with certain ideas that were either doctrine or beliefs that the church held. This made the Catholic church
The Protestant Reformation: What it was, why it happened and why it was necessary. The Protestant Reformation has been called "the most momentous upheaval in the history of Christianity." It was a parting of the ways for two large groups of Christians who differed in their approach to the worship of Christ. At the time, the Protestant reformers saw the church- the Catholic church, or the "universal church- " as lacking in its ways. The church was corrupt then, all the way up to the pope, and had lost touch with the people of Europe. The leaders of the Reformation sought to reform the church and its teachings according to the Scriptures and the writings of the Apostles. They sought to simplify the church by returning to its roots, roots long lost by the Catholic church at the time, or so the reformers believed. After the fall of the Roman Empire, life in Europe declined rapidly into the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages were a time of misery and darkness. There were only two socioeconomic classes: the very rich nobility or the very poor peasants. Small kingdoms popped up everywhere, and were constantly at war with one another. Whole libraries were destroyed, and the only people who remained literate were the clergy of the Christian church. Life became such a struggle to survive that, for a period of five hundred years, very little artwork or literature was produced by the whole of Europe. Eventually, around the year 1000, the conditions in Europe began to get better. This marked the beginning of the Middle Ages. The Crusades began as an effort to revitalize the spirits of the people. However, things still weren't very good. Plagues ravaged the land, carried by rodents and destroying whole villages. With th...
The renaissance and the reformation were two of the most significant changes in history that has shaped our world today. Both of these great time periods are strikingly similar in some ways and totally different in others. This is because the renaissance was a change from religion to humanism whether it is in art or literature; it is where the individual began to matter. However, the reformation was,” in a nutshell,” a way to reform the church and even more so to form the way our society is today. The first half of this paper will view the drop in faith, the economic powers, and the artistic and literary changes during the renaissance, while the second half will view the progresses and changes the church makes during the reformation.
Throughout the 17th century and the Baroque period, the Catholic Church was launching a Counter-Reformation in retaliation of the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic Church received a setback in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia recognizing religious freedoms and seemingly validating Protestant beliefs. They continued to be staunch supporters of the arts, perhaps even more so than before, in order to restore the validity and supreme authority of the Catholic Church. In the mid 17th century, Gianlorenzo Bernini r...