HISTORY OF DESIGN

A J O U R N E Y I N T O T H E H I S T O RY O F A R C H I T E C T U R E A N D I N T E R I O R D E S I G N

Baroque and Rococo

Prof. Amal Shah, Faculty of Design, CEPT University

 Baroque
The fundamental
characteristic of Baroque art
is dynamism (a sense of
motion). Strong curves, rich
decoration, and general
complexity are all typical
features of Baroque art.

The full Baroque aesthetic

emerged during the Early
Baroque, and High Baroque;
both periods were led by Italy.

The Baroque age concluded

with the French-born
Rococo style (ca. 1725-
1800), in which the violence
and drama of Baroque was
quieted to a gentle, playful
dynamism. The Late Baroque
and Rococo periods were led
by France
The Baroque is 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 Europe.

The popularity and success of the Baroque

style was encouraged by the Catholic
Church, which had decided at the time of
the Council of Trent, in response to the
Protestant Reformation, that the arts
should communicate religious themes
in direct and emotional involvement.
The aristocracy also saw the dramatic style
of Baroque architecture and art as a means
of impressing visitors and expressing
triumph, power and control. Baroque
palaces are built around an entrance of
courts, grand staircases and reception
rooms of sequentially increasing
opulence. However, "baroque" has
resonance and application that extend
beyond a simple reduction to either style
or period.
Baroque architecture is the
building style of the Baroque
era, begun in late 16th-
BAROQUE ARCHITECTURE
century Italy, that took the
Roman vocabulary of
Renaissance architecture
and used it in a new
rhetorical and theatrical
fashion.
It was characterized by new
explorations of form, light
and shadow, and dramatic
intensity.
The Baroque was, initially
at least, directly linked to
the Counter-Reformation, a
movement within the
Catholic Church to reform
itself in response to the
Protestant Reformation.
Baroque architecture and its
embellishments were on the
one hand more accessible to
the emotions and on the
other hand, a visible Church of Sant’Agnese in
statement of the wealth and Agone, in Piazza Navona,
power of the Church. rebuilt in the Baroque style.
Francesco Borromini and Belfry in Mons, Belgium designed by The most impressive display of
The new style manifested Gianlorenzo Bernini (bitter architect Louis Ledoux Churrigueresque (Spanish Baroque style)
itself in particular in the rivals) worked on the church.
context of the new religious spatial decoration found in the west façade
orders, like the Theatines of the Cathedral of Santiago de
and the Jesuits who aimed to Compostela.
improve popular faith.

Weltenburg Abbey, Bavaria,
Germany
Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc,
Czech Republic
Distinctive features of Baroque
architecture can include:
1. In churches, broader naves and
sometimes given oval forms.
2. Fragmentary or deliberately
incomplete architectural elements.
3. Dramatic use of light; either strong
light-and-shade contrasts as at the
church of Weltenburg Abbey, or
uniform lighting by means of several
windows.
4. Opulent use of colour and
ornaments (putti or figures made of
wood (often gilded), plaster or stucco,
marble or faux finishing).
5. Large-scale ceiling frescoes.
6. An external façade often
characterized by a dramatic central
projection.
7. The interior is a shell for painting,
sculpture and stucco
8. Illusory effects like an art technique
involving extremely realistic imagery
in order to create the optical
illusion that the depicted objects
appear in three dimensions and the
blending of painting and architecture.
9. Pear-shaped domes in the Bavarian,
Czech, Polish and Ukrainian Baroque
10. Marian and Holy Trinity columns
erected in Catholic countries, often in
thanksgiving for ending a plague
The Church of
the Gesù or
Chiesa del
Santissimo
Nome di Gesù
all'Argentina or
Church of the
Most Holy Name
of Jesus at the
"Argentina“.

Its facade is "the

first truly baroque
façade",
introducing the
baroque style into
architecture.
The plan
synthesizes the
central planning of
the High
Renaissance,
expressed by the
grand scale of the
dome and the
prominent piers of
the crossing.

Everywhere inlaid
polychrome
marble
revetments are
relieved by
gilding, frescoed
barrel vaults
enrich the ceiling
and rhetorical
white stucco and
marble sculptures
break out of their
tectonic framing.
 The concave-convex
facade of San Carlo
undulates in a non-
classic way.

Tall Corinthian
columns stand on
plinths and bear the
main entablatures;
these define the main
framework of two
storeys and the
tripartite bay division.
Between the columns,
smaller columns with
their entablatures
weave behind the
main columns and in
turn they frame
niches, windows, a
variety of sculptures
as well as the main
door,

Francesco Borromini was the master of curved-wall architecture. Though he designed many large buildings, Borromini's most
famous and influential work may be the small church of San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane ("Saint Charles at the Four
Fountains").
The three
principal parts can
be identified
vertically as the
lower order at
ground level, the
transition zone of
the pendentives
and the oval
coffered dome
with its oval
lantern.
The pendentives are part of the transition
area where the undulating almost cross-
like form of the lower order is reconciled
with the oval opening to the dome. The
arches which spring from the diagonally
placed columns of the lower wall order
frame the altars and entrance.
The oval entablature to the dome has a
'crown' of foliage and frames a view of
deep set interlocking coffering of
octagons, crosses and hexagons which
diminish in size the higher they rise.
Light floods in from windows in the lower
dome that are hidden by the oval opening
and from windows in the side of the
lantern. In a hierarchical structuring of
light.
The church of
Sant'Andrea al
Quirinale, an
important example of
Roman Baroque
architecture, was
designed by Gian
Lorenzo Bernini
with Giovanni
de'Rossi.

Unlike San Carlo,

Sant’Andrea is set
back from the street
and the space outside
the church is
enclosed by low
curved quadrant
walls.

An oval cylinder
encases the dome,
and large volutes
transfer the lateral
thrust. The main
façade to the street
has a pedimented
frame at the center of
which a semicircular
porch with two Ionic
columns marks the
main entrance.
In contrast to the dark side
chapels, the high altar niche
is well lit from a hidden
source and becomes the
main visual focus of the
lower part of the interior. As
a result, the congregation
effectively become
‘witnesses’ to the theatrical
narrative of St Andrew
which begins in the High
Altar chapel and culminates
in the dome.
(1) Main
entrance,
(2) Chapel of
Saint Francis
Xavier,
(3) Chapel of the
Passion,
(4) Chapel Saint
Stanislas
Kostka,
(5) Chapel of
Saint Ignatius
of Loyola,
(6) Main altar,
(7) Entrance to
novitiate and
access to the
rooms of
Saint
Stanislas
Kostka.
Inside, the main entrance is located on
the short axis of the church and
directly faces the high altar. The oval
form of the main congregational space
of the church is defined by the wall,
pilasters and entablature, which
frame the side chapels, and the golden
dome above. Large paired columns
supporting a curved pediment
differentiate the recessed space of the
high altar from the congregational
space.
Baroque in Residencies and Palaces
The Late Baroque marks the ascent of France as the
heart of Western culture. Baroque art of France tends to
be restrained.
The most distinctive element of French Baroque
architecture is the double-sloped mansard roof.
The most famous Baroque structures of France are
magnificent chateaux (grand country residences),
greatest of which is the Palace of Versailles. The Palace
of Louvre in France and Blenheim Palace in England are
other fine examples.
Vaux-le-Vicomte
The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in
Maincy.
The château was an influential work of architecture in mid-17th-century
Europe. At Vaux-le-Vicomte, the architect Louis Le Vau, the landscape
architect André le Nôtre, and the painter-decorator Charles Le Brun
worked together on a large-scale project for the first time.
Their collaboration marked the beginning of the "Louis XIV style"
combining architecture, interior design and landscape design.
 THE LOUVRE
• The LOUVRE museum is one of the
world's largest museums and a historic
monument in Paris,France on the right
bank of the river Seine. Presently used
as a very famous art museum , design /
textile museum , historic site
transformed from a royal palace . The
building was first made with an
intention of a fortress by Philippe ||
France .

• LOUVRE Begun in 1190 and

constructed of cut stone, the Louvre is a
masterpiece of the French renaissance .
Architect Pierre Lescot was one of the
first to apply pure classical ideas in
France, and his design for a new wing at
the Louvre defined its future
development.
The present-day Louvre Palace is a
vast complex of wings and
pavilions on four main levels
which, although it looks to be
unified, is the result of many
phases of building, modification,
destruction and restoration.
From the
renaissance their
are famous
works of
Michelangelo's
slaves , Leonardo
da Vinci's
Monalisa and
works by
Raphael Botticelli
and titian .
French master
piece include
engrace la ingres
‘la grande
odalisque.’
 Baroque Art:
Borromini
Francesco Borromini, was an
Italian architect who, with his
contemporaries Gian Lorenzo
Bernini was a leading figure in
the emergence of Roman
Baroque architecture.

Borromini developed an
inventive and distinctive, if
somewhat peculiar,
architecture employing
manipulations of Classical
architectural forms,
geometrical rationales in his
plans and symbolic meanings in
his buildings.

He seems to have had a sound

understanding of structures,
His soft lead drawings are
particularly distinctive. He
appears to have been a self-
taught scholar.
 Baroque Art: Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian artist and a
prominent architect who worked principally in Rome. He
was the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating
the Baroque style of sculpture. In addition, he painted,
wrote plays, and designed metalwork and stage sets.

Bernini possessed the

ability to depict dramatic
narratives with characters
showing intense
psychological states, but
also to organize large-scale
sculptural works which
convey a magnificent
grandeur.
His skill in manipulating
marble ensured that he
would be considered a
worthy successor of
Michelangelo.
The Trevi Fountain is a fountain in the Trevi district in Rome, Italy, designed by Italian architect Nicola
Salvi. it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world.
 Baroque Art:
Caravaggio
Caravaggio trained as a painter in
Milan. In his twenties Caravaggio
moved to Rome where there was a
demand for paintings to fill the
many huge new churches and
palazzos being built at the time.

It was also a period when the

Church was searching for a stylistic
alternative to Mannerism in
religious art that was tasked to
counter the threat of Protestantism.

Caravaggio's innovation was a

radical naturalism that combined
close physical observation with a
dramatic, even theatrical, and the
shift from light to dark with little
intermediate value.

Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy

Baroque Art:
Rembrandt
Rembrandt van Rijn was a
Dutch painter and etcher. He
is generally considered one
of the greatest painters and
printmakers in European art
and the most important in
Dutch history.

His contributions to art came

in a period of great wealth
and cultural achievement
that historians call the Dutch
Golden Age although in
many ways antithetical to
the Baroque style that
dominated Europe.

Rembrandt's greatest
creative triumphs are
exemplified especially in his
portraits of his
contemporaries, self-
portraits and illustrations of
scenes from the Bible. His
self-portraits form a unique
and intimate biography, in
which the artist surveyed
himself without vanity and
with the utmost sincerity.
Baroque Art: Johannes, Jan or Johan Vermeer was a Dutch painter who specialized in domestic interior
scenes of middle-class life.
Vermeer Vermeer painted mostly domestic interior scenes. "Almost all his paintings are apparently
set in two smallish rooms in his house in Delft; they show the same furniture and
decorations in various arrangements and they often portray the same people, mostly
women.“

Vermeer's painting techniques have long been a source of debate, given their almost
photorealistic attention to detail, despite Vermeer having had no formal training.
 Rococo
Rococo style, in interior design,
the decorative arts, painting,
architecture, and sculpture that
originated in Paris in the early
18th century but was soon
adopted throughout France and
later in other countries,
principally Germany and
Austria.

It is characterized by lightness,
elegance, and an exuberant use
of curving, natural forms in
ornamentation. The word
Rococo is derived from the
French word rocaille, which
denoted the shell-covered rock
work that was used to decorate
artificial grottoes.
Hall of Mirrors, Versailles
Hall of Mirrors, Louvre
At the outset the Rococo style
represented a reaction against
the ponderous design of Louis
XIV’s Palace of Versailles and
the official Baroque art of his
reign.

Several interior designers,

painters developed a lighter
and more intimate style of
decoration for the new
residences of nobles in Paris.

In the Rococo style, walls,

ceilings, and moldings were
decorated with delicate
interlacings of curves and
counter-curves based on the
fundamental shapes of the “C”
and the “S,” as well as with
shell forms and other natural
shapes.

Asymmetrical design was the

rule. Light pastels, ivory
white, and gold were the
predominant colours, and
Rococo decorators frequently
used mirrors to enhance the
sense of open space.
Nymphenburg Palace in Munich

The Nymphenburg Palace, located in Munich, Bavaria, Germany,

is a decorated palace and also the Bavarian rulers summer
residence. Agostino Barelli, an Italian architect, designed the
Nymphenburg Palace.