Baroque was a cultural movement and style in European art,
originating around 1600 in Rome. The Council of Trent (1545-63), in
which the Roman Catholic Church answered many questions of internal
reform, addressed the representational arts by demanding that
paintings and sculptures in church contexts should speak to the
illiterate rather than to the well-informed. This turn toward a
populist conception of the function of ecclesiastical art is seen by
many art historians as driving the innovations of Caravaggio and the
Carracci brothers, all of whom were working (and competing for
commissions) in Rome around 1600. The appeal of Baroque style turned
consciously from the witty, intellectual qualities of 16th century
Mannerist art to a visceral appeal aimed at the senses. It employed
an iconography that was direct, simple, obvious, and theatrical.
Baroque art drew on certain broad and heroic tendencies in Annibale
Caracci and his circle, and found inspiration in other artists like
Correggio and Caravaggio and Federico Barocci, nowadays sometimes
termed 'proto-Baroque'. Germinal ideas of the Baroque can also be
found in the work of Michelangelo.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baroque
Today's selected anniversaries:
1852 Count Cavour became the prime minister of
Piedmont-Sardinia, which soon expanded to become Italy.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Camillo_Benso_di_Cavour)
1869 Nature, one of the oldest and most reputable general
purpose scientific journals, was first published.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_%28journal%29)
1956 Soviet troops invaded Hungary to crush the Hungarian
Uprising, killing thousands. Nearly a quarter million fled
the country as refugees.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Hungarian_Revolution)
1979 Iranian radicals seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held
the occupants hostage for 444 days.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis)
1995 Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was mortally wounded
at a peace rally in Tel Aviv by Yigal Amir.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Rabin)
Wikiquote of the day:
"I remain just one thing, and one thing only - and that is a clown.
It places me on a far higher plane than any politician." ~ Charlie
Chaplin
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin)