Baroque

Baroque is an artistic language of the late sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century, built on the pathos of movement, contrast and the emotional captivation of the viewer. In contrast to the balanced calm of the Renaissance, the Baroque strives to astonish, stir and draw the beholder into action, so its works are filled with dramatic tension and theatricality. Its hallmarks are a dynamic diagonal composition, sharp oppositions of light and shadow (the techniques of chiaroscuro and tenebroso), a wealth of textures, saturated color and an almost sculptural plasticity of form. Baroque masters loved expansive multi-figure scenes, illusionistic ceiling paintings that seem to open the sky, sumptuous draperies and the depiction of a moment of highest emotional intensity. In painting the style is represented by Caravaggio with his stark light, Peter Paul Rubens with his turbulent corporeality, Diego Velázquez and Rembrandt, who brought the play of light to psychological depth. In Ukraine a distinctive "Cossack Baroque" developed, blending Western European forms with local tradition: the architecture of the age of Hetman Ivan Mazepa, icon painting, engraving and the celebrated illustrated early printed books of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. The Ukrainian portrait-parsuna and the many-tiered carved iconostases also belong to this era. Baroque became a style in which visual splendor served spiritual exaltation and affirmation, and its expressive means still nourish our notion of solemnity and drama in art.