Western Civilization_ Volume B_ 1300 to 1815 - Jackson J. Spielvogel [207]
Peter Paul Rubens, The Landing of Marie de’ Medici at Marseilles. Peter Paul Rubens played a key role in spreading the Baroque style from Italy to other parts of Europe. In The Landing of Marie de’ Medici at Marseilles, Rubens made dramatic use of light and color, bodies in motion, and luxurious nudes to heighten the emotional intensity of the scene. This was one of a cycle of twenty-one paintings dedicated to the queen mother of France.
Louvre, Paris//© R_eunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY
Less well known than the male artists who dominated the art world of seventeenth-century Italy but prominent in her own right was Artemisia Gentileschi (ar-tuh-MEE-zhuh jen-tuh-LESS-kee) (1593–1653). Born in Rome, she studied painting under her father’s direction. In 1616, she moved to Florence and began a successful career as a painter. At the age of twenty-three, she became the first woman to be elected to the Florentine Academy of Design. Although she was known internationally in her day as a portrait painter, her fame now rests on a series of pictures of heroines from the Old Testament. Most famous is Judith Beheading Holofernes, a dramatic rendering of the biblical scene in which Judith slays the Assyrian general Holofernes to save her besieged town from the Assyrian army.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Theresa. One of the great artists of the Baroque period was the Italian sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, created for the Cornaro Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome, was one of Bernini’s most famous sculptures. Bernini sought to convey visually Theresa’s mystical experience when, according to her description, an angel pierced her heart repeatedly with a golden arrow.
S. Maria della Vittoria, Rome//© Scala/Art Resource, NY
FRENCH CLASSICISM In the second half of the seventeenth century, France replaced Italy as the cultural leader of Europe. Rejecting the Baroque style as overly showy and impassioned, the French remained committed to the Classical values of the High Renaissance. French late Classicism, with its emphasis on clarity, simplicity, balance, and harmony of design, was, however, a rather austere version of the High Renaissance style. Its triumph reflected the shift in seventeenth-century French society from chaos to order. Though it rejected the emotionalism and high drama of the Baroque, French Classicism continued the Baroque’s conception of grandeur in the portrayal of noble subjects, especially those from Classical antiquity. Nicolas Poussin (NEE-koh-lah poo-SANH) (1594–1665) exemplified these principles in his paintings. His choice of scenes from Classical mythology, the orderliness of his landscapes, the postures of his figures copied from the sculptures of antiquity, and his use of brown tones all reflect French Classicism of the late seventeenth century.
DUTCH REALISM The supremacy of Dutch commerce in the seventeenth century was paralleled by a brilliant flowering of Dutch painting. Wealthy patricians and burghers of Dutch urban society commissioned works of art for their guild halls, town halls, and private dwellings. The interests of this burgher society were reflected in the subject matter of many Dutch paintings: portraits of themselves, group portraits of their military companies and guilds, landscapes, seascapes, genre scenes, still lifes, and the interiors of their residences. Neither classical nor Baroque, Dutch painters were primarily interested in the realistic portrayal of secular everyday life.
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes. Artemisia Gentileschi painted a series of pictures portraying scenes from the lives