1 2 3

The Protestant Reformation (1520-1650)

Coincident with High Renaissance humanism was the religious movement known as the Reformation. Where the Renaissance added innovation and fervor to the side of nature, the Reformation tried to regain on the side of grace. The Reformation, as any religious movement, told men to look beyond the world and to have lasting values. The Reformers taught that life had to be mastered and human worth proved. Opposed to the Renaissance, life was no longer an aesthetic performance but a duty and a task. This idea is portrayed in the stern portraits of that time. An example is seen in the work of Cranach (See Figure 22, of Martin Luther). Being a friend of Martin Luther, Cranach was one of the few painters who advanced the philosophy of the Reformation (B).

Rembrandt was one of the major artists who took to heart the ideas of his times. As the Reformation attempted to give prominence to the individual, Rembrandt reemphasized life-situations and the ordinary. As a result, his paintings show extreme realism, making the individual observer a part of the scene. This is noted, for example, in the painting Christ Drives Out the Money-Changers (Figure 23), in which the anger of Christ and the surprise of the money-changers can be deeply felt by the observer. Also, the fine detail and proportion of the figures gives the appearance of three dimensions, which in turn makes it more real and captivating.

As Rembrandt painted the Descent From The Cross (Figure 24) he expressed other facets of the Reformation, such as its removal of the adoration of Mary. In this painting, Rembrandt casts Mary off to the far side. She also is not the beautiful Madonna that was once portrayed in the Middle Ages.(Mc)

Although Rembrandt made ample expression of the Reformation, he was also influenced by the Renaissance sciences. The Copernican revolution and the discovery of the New World made the universe vast and complicated. After the novelty of discovery wore off, although increasingly autonomous, man saw himself as a small cog in a great machine. Rembrandt captured this feeling in his many paintings of vast landscapes. In Figure 25, Landscape with a Long-Arched Bridge, the human figures can hardly be seen beneath the horizon. This is a dramatic change from the Byzantine era in which the figures had overwhelmed the painting with their tremendous size. Rembrandt's stress on the horizontal dimension shows an unresolved fear of the transcendental and was in direct opposition to the significance of the vertical in the Gothic period (e.g., the high Gothic cathedral). This fear of the unknown was also expressed in the extremely dark background of Rembrandt's art. Figure 26 shows the evangelist Matthew in Matthew and the Angel in the midst of a dark and lonely world (P).

The Baroque Period and the Counter-Reformation (1600-1800)

Although the Reformation seemed to give a refresher course on the reality of life for the individual, the mood of Middle Age art once again found expression by the advances of the Counter-Reformation. The mystical, the abstract, and the dominance of color over form served as an emotional stimulus for the people to reconsider the advantages of Catholicism. For some artists the transition was easy. The Reformation had caused a separation between artist and church, which in turn caused a financial crunch on the already meager living of the typical painter. Others, however, who clung to the Reformation, slowly began to receive support from the rising middle class and centralized monarchies. These new patrons helped salvage what was left of the Reformation spirit in art. Often the privilege was used for anti-papal propaganda in paintings and illustrated books. With the strides of the Counter-Reformation, however, Protestant art began to be confined to certain specific areas of Europe (P).

The spirit of the Counter-Reformation was carried on by one of the major artistic movements, the Baroque (1600-1800). The Renaissance had placed religion on the defensive but the church fought back with art, and won (K). But in reality, the Catholic Baroque fought harder against Protestantism than against the Renaissance. The extravagant and mystical style of the Baroque was a direct revolt against the realism of the Reformation painters. Many of the art forms of the Renaissance were carried over by Catholicism, except that a ban on nude art was administered by various popes.

The word "baroque" comes from the Italian word "barroco," meaning "irregularly rounded." The word was used commonly in Italian burlesque for the strange and bizarre (B). In this loose style, a release from the tightness of Mannerism (1500-1600) was achieved. Mannerism had followed Michelangelo's introduction of freedom from objective reality, but a certain tightness came when Mannerism tried to balance nature and ideal beauty (K). The Baroque had dispensed with trying to find this balance, but continued with the stress on subjectivity and individual judgment from Mannerism. The Manneristic style can be seen in The Conversion of St. Paul (Figure 27).

Baroque art was mainly supported by the Jesuit order. In their quest to reemphasize the medieval doctrines of the church, the Jesuits promoted paintings that portrayed the superiority of Mary, the doctrines of penance and transubstantiation, and the papacy (Mc). Figure 28 shows Bernini's The Chair of St. Peter as done in the extravagant Baroque style. The Jesuits poured huge sums of money into this endeavor. The movement was capped when the Baroque was carried over to Latin America and the Far East by missionaries. But since the strongholds of Protestantism remained in America and England, the Baroque could not penetrate these two countries (K). In Europe, the only merger of Protestantism and the Baroque was in the north and east of Germany, as well as the Slavic countries. Protestant art still stressed simple every day life with only a touch of Baroque. (Bz)

During the Counter-Reformation, several strains of philosophy were competing against one another. The humanism of the Renaissance was still very much alive, while the spirit of the Reformation and the authority of the Bible were slowly dying. They were being replaced by the rapid advances of science. Science became the vehicle for communication because, on the one hand, after the Protestant/Catholic conflict it was thought that no one could adequately understand theology any longer, and, on the other hand, the sciences had verifiable proofs for their propositions. Under the pressure from science, a reintroduction of Aristotelian logic resurrected the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, but with a distinctive flavor of rationalism. The Protestant wanted to hang on to some form of empiricism to fight against the nominalistic tendencies of the Middle Ages, but at the same time, he did not want to be overwhelmed by rationalism and legalism. This tension gave rise to another form of art, Romanticism, which sought an escape from the polarity of rationalism and nominalism.

Baroque art was not only an attempt to fight against the influence of Protestantism, it also tried to appeal to the emotions to calm fears and doubts created by the skepticism resulting from scientific inquiry. The world had become too big and the whims of men uncontrollable. The only way to hold everything together long enough to let the dust settle was to appeal to the sensitivities and emotions of man by the mystical and awe inspiring art of the Baroque. This is seen quite easily in the work of Bernini. His Ecstasy of St. Theresa (Figure 29) shows heaven in direct contact with mankind, overwhelming him with its power and majesty. It makes one forget all the troubles here on earth, as well as seek for the heavenly arms of God in which all is at rest. Baroque picked up where da Vinci left off as a new interest began in the psychology of the soul (K). Yet both the Baroque and da Vinci realized that no one, not even art, could balance the tension between universals and particulars. Da Vinci became despondent, while the Baroque tried to be emotionally optimistic.

During this time the ideas of Leibniz played an influential role in art. His idea of "dynamic energy" led to curved walls, oval shapes and opulent contours in Baroque architecture (K). This can be seen in the cathedral of St. John Nepomuk in Munich, Germany (See Figure 30).

Leibniz's reduction of nature to individual atoms made paintings focus more on the individual. The Reformation had already stressed the significance of the individual, but this was not fully appreciated in the secular world until many years later. Leibniz's ideas, however, did not make the Baroque a scientific endeavor by any means. The Baroque still remained an anti-theoretical and anti-functional art form. In fact, the Baroque was known for depicting actual nature as flawed, following the ideas of Plato, and thus it tried to imitate ideal nature instead (K).

The Classicism Period (1600-1700)

Although the Baroque dominated much of the Counter-Reformation, there were a few movements that ran against it. One of the major opponents was Classicism (1600-1700). Classicism was mainly what the term suggests - a dedication to the imitation of antiquity. Stressing the historic and the heroic from mythology made Classicism an entirely secular movement. Even Christian figures would be placed in backgrounds of ancient Greek and Roman architecture, as noted in The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian. (Figure 31).

Coupling itself with the empirical and the scientific which it borrowed from the Renaissance, Classicism struggled to retain the rationalism that the Counter-Reformation had tried to eliminate with its emphasis on the mystical and emotional (P). Although Classicism still held on to the Baroque concepts of ideal nature and eloquence of expression, it did not allow color to dominate form. It rejected the concepts of the inspired artist, self-expression, and freedom of composition. Yet Classicism not only rejected the flamboyance of the Baroque, it also attacked the realism introduced by the Dutch masters, Rembrandt, Durer, Rubens and Van Dyck. Although the same artistic techniques of the realists were used, Classicism wanted to give the past more reality than the present (P). All in all, Classicism was an attempt to combine the imaginative force of the Baroque with the scientific discipline of the Renaissance and the artistic exactness of Realism. All these qualities can be seen in the painting by Poussin of Moses and the Golden Calf (See Figure 32). Space is plotted with mathematical precision and there is no blending of forms, no extravagance of emotion, but orderliness and control (K).

The Rococo Period (1700-1800)

In reaction to Classical art, a movement very similar to the Baroque began to grow. The Rococo (1700-1800) reemphasized the dominance of color over form, and the mystical over the empirical. The only real difference between the Baroque and the Rococo was that the former was more feudal and rural, since it was dominated by Catholicism, but the Rococo was more sophisticated, urban, and industrialized, coming out of secular France and Germany. Rococo was amoral, intuitive and light-hearted. It was the art of the polite, not public, society (K). We get a glimpse of this in the painting by Nicolas Lancret titled Spring (Figure 33), or The Game of Blind Man's Bluff by Francisco de Goya (Figure 34)

The Neo-Classicism Period (1750-1850)

Not to be outdone, however, Classicism soon developed into Neo-Classicism (1750-1850). It was a reaction to the so-called extravagant and torturous style of the Rococo. More deeply rooted in rationalism than its father, Neo-Classicism took greater advantage of the developing sciences of anthropology and archeology in an effort to unearth more antiquated civilizations (K). Yet Neo-Classicism was also different from Classicism in that it began to promote ideas of pathos and love of nature (P). Actually, to be truly historical, it was expected that the sentimental qualities of antiquity would also seep into the art of this period.

The Romantic Period (1750-1900)

The sentimentality of Neo-Classicism eventually sided with the rise of Romanticism (1750-1900). Rationalism and scientific inquiry were lessened, while a romantic view of life had risen. Yet even though Neo-Classicism and Romanticism had this common bond, Romanticism was as vigorously opposed to the formality of Classical art as it was to the rationalism of the Enlightenment. Not only did it stress the love of nature as Neo-Classicism did, it stressed the mystique of nature as well. By employing picturesque and exotic techniques, Romanticism drew out from the observer the feelings of awe and terror in human emotions (P).

This reassertion of passion and sentiment had come about due to the crisis caused by the age of Enlightenment. Man's better sense told him that there was a deep side to life beyond the intellect and reason, for none of the previous disciplines answered his deepest passions or longings. Often this gave rise to the mysterious, as well as the power of the imagination, unfettered by the constraints of reason. We see some of this feeling in The Soul and the Witch of Endor by Benjamin West (Figure 35).

After the intellectual surge of the Enlightenment, many struggled with how to harness the enlightened conscience. The Protestants came under a semi-scholastic curriculum to help systematize their beliefs, while the Catholics stabilized theirs with a reemphasis on hierarchical structure and authority. The secular world had once again felt the squeeze, similar to the pressure put on its conscience by the Copernican revolution and the discovery of the New World. Now the Newtonian revolution had made the world even more complicated, and this vastness began to penetrate man's soul. Even as Baroque art tried to compensate by an appeal to the emotions, so Romantic art tried to fill the same gap with romantic ideas. In the painting by Delacroix, Liberty Guiding the People (Figure 36) we see the portrayal of this sentiment in the passionate, victorious and cause-worthy. Their emotion drove them to action, both political and physical, which led to such events as the French and American Revolutions. The salient feature of Delacroix's painting is that liberty is depicted as a bare-breasted woman, which is an image of a Roman goddess.

1 2 3