Essay on Compare and Contrast Caravaggio and Gentileschi

After the idealism of the Renaissance (c.1400-1530), Baroque art above all reflected the religious tensions of the age - notably the desire of the Catholic Church in Rome (as annunciated at the Council of Trent, 1545-63) to reassert itself in the wake of the Protestant Reformation. Thus it is almost synonymous with Catholic Counter-Reformation Art of the period. This period is often thought of as a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, theater, and music. The style began around 1600 in Rome, Italy, and spread to most of

Baroquer artists used the Baroque style to hallmark the rich impasto particularly used in the paint texture and also the light and shade strongly used in the painting.

The Bronze David by Donatello of the Early Renaissance shows a subtle transition through style and form to the High Renaissance when compared to the marble David by Michelangelo. Yet a similar Renaissance interpretation of the character of David is seen in both pieces. Donatello’s David embodies the humanism and classicism of the Italian Renaissance, and pioneers styles that would influence a generation. The perfection of David by Michelangelo creates a similar allusion to humanism and classical form while indicating Donatello’s lasting influence and inserting neoplatonic ideas of the High Renaissance.

The Baroque period stretched across half of European history. It began shortly before 1600 and ended with the death of Bach in 1750. During this time, there were change and

Caravaggio also known as Michelangelo Merisi, was an Italian painter. He was born in Italy around 1571 who was an orphan at age 11 and apprenticed with a painter in Milan. He then moved to Rome, where he became well known and popular for the tenebrism technique he used. Which used shadows to emphasize light areas.

•The creation of the baroque style—an art style full of emotion, flamboyancy, symbolism, vigor, and subtlety—largely as a product of the Catholic Church patronage of the arts

There is little concession to perspective, and the vibrantly colored style is antithetical to the tenebrism of Caravaggio's followers ; Caravaggio paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on Baroque

Gioachino Rossini, like many great composers, was born in the right place at the right time. The musical firmament was still mourning the loss of Wolfgang Mozart in 1792 when Rossini was born. His parents were both gifted musicians, and young Gioachino was in a music conservatory by the age of 14. Rossini composed ten operas within the following seven years and had established himself as a gifted composer in the opera buffa style. This genre of comic opera was strikingly different from the rigorous opera seria, but it still managed to acquire some noticeable traits. Primarily, the arias in opera buffe shirk the da capo style of the seria mold. The subject matter deals frequently

A point the video made that struck me as odd was the fact that Caravaggio never drew his composition or subjects before he painted. I found this hard to believe considering that many great renaissance artists would do studies and preliminary drawing before they even touched the canvas. The conventional method was to make a cartoon of the piece before painting. Even Vasari had heavily critiqued on the forgoing of preliminary drawings. After searching for information on his painting process, I found that he typically did not draw before painting, rather he worked directly from the model and would outline the composition with a darker paint.

People used to describe the Baroque period as grand, joyful, exuberant and dynamic. The term 'Baroque' originally represented an irregular, oddly-shaped pearl in Italian. The Baroque took the design of the Renaissance and transformed it into its own interior style. As with the Renaissance, the Baroque was born in Rome, date from the late 16th century. While in some parts of the world, especially Germany and colonial South America, certain culminating achievements of Baroque did not appear until the 18th century.

The Baroque era began in the year 1600, at the end of the Renaissance period (Kamien 99). The word Baroque has had several different meanings. Back in its time, the word Baroque has meant: Bizarre, Flamboyant, and Elaborately ornamented. Historians, however, used this word to indicate the particular style in all different forms of art that fills space; which includes canvas, stone, or sound (Kamien 99). The Baroque Period is also known as “the age of absolutism” because so many different rulers of the time used and abused their royal power to control their subjects. For example, in Germany, the duke of Weimar imprisoned the famous Johann Sebastian Bach into prison for a month just because Bach asked to leave his job as the Duke’s musician (Kamien 99). This era in time was also home to scientific discoveries by Newton and Galileo. The Baroque era has shaped the world, as they knew it, to what the people of the twenty-first century all know and love.

The Baroque Period (1600-1750) was mainly a period of newly discovered ideas. From major new innovations in science, to vivid changes in geography, people were exploring more of the world around them. The music of the baroque period was just as extreme as the new changes. Newly recognized composers such as Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, and Monteverdi were writing entirely new musical ideas and giving a chance for new voices to be heard that were normally not thought of sounds. Their musical legacy is still recognized today, and is a treasured discovery of outstanding compositions being reiterated with every performance of them.

Judith with the Head of Holofernes and La Sultana Rossa represent examples of Italian Baroque period painting which spanned the 16th to the early 18th century (Corrigan). Though the two paintings Judith with the Head of Holofernes and La Sultana Rossa are considered from differing centuries, they are both utilize specific and indicative Italian techniques true to the period of time in which they were created.

The era known as the Baroque period includes the seventeenth and most of the eighteenth centuries in Europe. The Baroque style was a style in which the art and artists of the time focused upon details and intricate designs. Their art often appeals to the mind by way of the heart. During this time the portraits began to portray modern life, and artists turned their backs on classical tradition. Much of the art shows great energy and feeling, and a dramatic use of light, scale, and balance (Preble 302). Buildings were more elaborate and ornately decorated. These works of art created history and altered the progress of Western Civilization. Architecture such as the palace of Versailles, and artists like

It is hard to believe that what began during the Renaissance would be followed by what we refer to as the Baroque period beginning in the 1600’s and later the Rococo. The term Baroque was first used in the eighteenth-century by critics in a negative way. “To the eyes of these critics, who favored the restraint and order of Neoclassicism, the works of Bernini, Borromini, and Pietro da Cortona appeared bizarre, absurd, even diseased—in other words, misshapen, like an imperfect pearl” (Camara, E., n.d. para. 12). Stylistic style differs in the Baroque period with the use of interrupted contours, dynamism, and instability. In addition, artists were moving toward a more realistic subject matter and not the idealized portrayals we saw in the Renaissance period.