Friday, April 13, 2018

The baroque foretold modernity


The common impression about the baroque is that it is an irregular, obsolete, exaggerated, and necessarily royal, affiliated with the inquisition, aligned with slavery and colonialism. And here I would like to reflect a bit. Somewhere in the late Renaissance, in the occidental world, begins the democratization of art, and the Baroque, paradoxically, made a contribution to this. Resulting from the reactional intention to reaffirm the power of the church and the monarchy, Baroque concepts seek to communicate with popular taste, using gold, illusion, sculpture and decoration. Hence it brought to a maximum scale and impact all forms of art, from architecture to music, in order to convence with the magnificence of the celestial kingdom but ended up confirming the beauty and pleasure of earthly existence, finishing at once and for all with the remnants of Gothic asceticism. Aiming to convey to an illiterate population, the Baroque spread knowledge and enlightenment; inspired by the science and discovery of the world, the baroque foretold modernity.

This is an excerpt from the text of the catalog by:
Madina Zingashina, curator of the project ART-MAP Braga 2017

No comments: