Baroques
by Giovanni Careri
A review by Georgie Lewis
In the film La Dolce Vita, Anita Ekberg's character wades into the Trevi
fountain in Rome: a decadent act performed by a voluptuous star in a particularly
Baroque setting. The Trevi fountain (1732-1751, Rome, Italy) appears too large
for the relatively small square in which it sits. It resembles a theatre stage
backed by Corinthian-columned arches, the central niche housing Neptune, whose
horse-driven chariot is being guided through the water by tritons. Water rushes
around the two horses (the Italians refer to them each as "placid" and "agitated")
and tritons emerge from behind and under an organic rock setting, overseen by
the majestic Neptune, god of the sea. The fountain is spectacle: a combination
of sculpture and architecture, and a superb example of the excesses and beauty
of the Baroque.
The term Baroque, coined in eighteenth-century France, has been weighted ever
since with the negative connotations of overindulgence, folly and exaggeration.
What Giovanni Careri, Professor of History and Art Theory of Art at Ecole de
Beaux Artes, Lyon, is at pains to express in this marvelous book is that the
Baroque period is an important turning point for art and culture. A time which
Bernini, one of the leading lights of the Baroque — and original designer of
the Trevi fountain — insisted proudly was the "first attempt to unite
architecture, sculpture and painting in such a manner that they make a beautiful
whole (un bel composto)."
Following the elevated and serene refinement of High Renaissance art, the art
of the Baroque represents a virtually inevitable period of excess, most markedly
in the style made famous by the reign of Louis XIV. But to dismiss the period
as fickle and affected, and therefore frivolous, is to miss what is most gorgeous
about the work. The art of this period is sumptuous, reliant on drama and interested
in human emotion and human reaction. Baroque painters such as Caravaggio and
Velasquez manipulated techniques that had been refined during the Renaissance,
such as perspective and chiaroscuro (light and dark), for dramatic effect. Tonal
values became more important, and light took on an added function of expressing
spiritual transcendence.
The Baroque is drama: angels swoop, saints swoon and warriors writhe, and no
period can lay claim to so many ecstasies! Careri's fascinating and informative
text explains that the work of the Baroque is "simultaneously utterly carnal
and possessed by divine grace, eternally torn between matter and spirit, rise
and fall." And while Careri convinces us with his words, it is
the stunning photographs by Ferrante Ferranti that really win the reader over. This
book is so lushly put together, the photographs so breathtaking in their scope
and quality, that one cannot help but become mesmerized by the Baroque vision.
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