Baroque

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Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the era, starting in the late sixteenth century in Italy, that took the humanist Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and the absolutist state. It was characterized by new explorations of form, light and shadow and dramatic intensity.

Whereas the Renaissance drew on the wealth and power of the Italian courts and was a blend of secular and religious forces, 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. [2] Baroque architecture and its embellishments were on the one hand more accessible to the emotions and on the other hand, a visible statement of the wealth and power of the Church. The new style manifested itself in particular in the context of the new religious orders, like the Theatines and the Jesuits who aimed to improve popular piety

It was Wren who presided over the genesis of the English Baroque manner, which differed from the continental models by clarity of design and subtle taste for classicism. Following the Great Fire of London, Wren rebuilt fifty three churches, where Baroque aesthetics are apparent primarily in dynamic structure and multiple changing views. His most ambitious work was St Paul's Cathedral (1675-1711), which bears comparison with the most effulgent domed churches of Italy and France. In this majestically proportioned edifice, the Palladian tradition of Inigo Jones is fused with contemporary continental sensibilities in masterly equilibrium. Less influential were straightforward attempts to engraft the Berniniesque vision onto British church architecture (e.g., by Thomas Archer in St. John's, Smith Square, 1728).

Seaton Delaval Hall: Sir John Vanbrugh, 1718.Although Wren was also active in secular architecture, the first truly baroque country house in England was built to a design by William Talman at Chatsworth, starting in 1687. The culmination of Baroque architectural forms comes with Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Each was capable of a fully developed architectural statement, yet they preferred to work in tandem, most notably at Castle Howard (1699) and Blenheim Palace (1705).



Commentary

Eccentric or Eclectic

When I look at some of Hawksmoor’s churches I am getting the sense of eclecticism where he using Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance and subtle Baroque influences to create his own personal vision of his buildings. I am struck how he emphasizes verticality. I would agree that Christ’s Church seems to be amalgam of Gothic and Classical features with a nod to early Renaissance focus on clean lines and geometric proportioning. The height gives the building drama but it somehow looks like it has been shoehorned in to its location and the white façade lend it a starkness and coldness that looks out of character with its surroundings.

Christs church.jpg

St Georges Bloomsbury (year) there is a different feel. There is a very confident Classical Portico and the tower has four oversized mythical creatures fighting over the crown of England. It’s interesting that this depiction was too overstated for Victorian tastes and they had the beasts removed. It too suffers from looking a little hemmed in by its surroundings.

St Georges.jpg


The chief characteristic of note with regard to Wren’s ‘Great Model, is that – unlike the cathedral as built, which consists essentially of an orthodox Gothic cruciform groundplan, overlaid with a neo-Baroque exterior cladding – the ‘Great Model’ is a ‘Greek Cross’ design, with each of the four extensions form the central crossing being of equal length. Had this design been followed, the central space under the dome would have dominated the entire design to a much more forceful extent – very much in line with the Italian Baroque interiors of Bernini and Borromini.

This is very much a matter of personal taste: my own view is that, whereas both Vanbrugh and Hawksmoor utilise ornament and the play of architectural volume to create a sense of drama; Vanbrugh does this in a more controlled and subtle manner than Hawksmoor (especially so at Castle Howard).


The phrase ‘eccentric solidity’ seems most readily applicable to the work of Hawksmoor. If one looks, for example, at his London churches – Christ Church, Spitalfields (page 220 in Sutton); St. George-in-the-East; St. Mary Woolnoth (see the Great Buildings Online website: http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Nicholas_Hawksmoor.html ); and St. George’s Bloomsbury (see: http://www.stgeorgesbloomsbury.org.uk/ ) – one sees all of the stylistic eccentricity and formal innovation associated with European Baroque, yet combined with a massiveness and forthright solidity which is pure Hawksmoor (and pure English Baroque. On a perhaps more subtle level, one might compare the images of Vanbrugh’s Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace (page 221) with the various examples of European Baroque shown on pages 192 to 197. The essential rigidity and formality of Vanbrugh’s work does mark a contrast with the fluidity and decorative extravagance of the European examples – yet this is a contrast of degree only


It is certainly the case that, with the advent of the Baroque, the rectangular symmetries and regularities of early Renaissance neo-Classicism give way to a style which is much more fluid and mobile: walls bend and sway sinuously, columns and capitals cluster and gather according to an almost musical choreography… The overall effect of this stylistic transition is to make architecture itself far more expressive and emotional: the generation of Borromini and Bernini use the basic structural and stylistic framework of Renaissance neo-Classicism as a template upon which they construct harmonies and crescendos of individual ingenuity, imagination and expression, such that architecture approaches the condition of sculpture (we should of course remember that Bernini was at least as fine a sculptor as he was an architect, and indeed that in his mature architecture sculpture comes to be used as an integral element within an aesthetic whole).

Which I suppose raises the question of how Wren’s work relates to this stylistic mainstream of European Baroque. The first thing to point out is that Wren’s architectural instinct was indeed to gravitate toward European Baroque models and exemplars. Had Wren had his way, St. Paul’s cathedral would have taken shape along much more emphatically Italianate lines: his earliest proposals for that project were for a centrally planned Baroque basilica, dominated by a monumental drum-and-dome. His central point of reference was undoubtedly Michelangelo’s basilica of St. Peter’s, in Rome. Had Wren had his way, the whole post-Great Fire redevelopment of the City of London would have been carried out on grandiose, pre-planned, Baroque lines, complete with spacious boulevards, elaborate architectural set-pieces, and grand Italianate piazzas…

St peters.jpg

Of course, that is not how things turned out. In the event, the forces of architectural conservatism (clerical, in the case of St. Paul’s; financial, in the case of the City) largely held sway – and so Wren was forced to compromise his architectural and stylistic ideals. Nonetheless, he was able to introduce an element of Baroque flair and exuberance into the post-Fire London skyline, with the delightful forest of spires which topped the new City churches. And, of course, he was able to retain the powerfully realised neo-Classical styling of St. Paul’s (complete with the quintessentially Baroque feature of drum-and-dome – albeit surmounting the cruciform crossing) at St. Paul’s.

Does this mean that he was guilty of architectural ‘deception’, as has sometimes been claimed? I would say not: rather, as most architects do, he cleverly and subtly adapted his own stylistic instincts to accommodate the particular (highly fraught!) circumstances of his commissions.

Meanwhile there have been some trenchant criticisms of Hawksmoor’s work – along with some extremely perceptive, and persuasive, defences of his work (particularly with respect to the sometimes dazzling way in which he juxtaposes individual architectural elements and motifs with – as I’ve tried to argue - an almost Mannerist flair and flexibility).

A particular feature of Hawksmoor’s work which does, I think, have to be acknowledged – even by his staunchest defenders – is what one person described as, “a reduced continuity of the vertical line” evident in may of his works, such that his, “…buildings seem to go up in segments, in irregular and unexpected ways”. I think that it is this feature of his work that gives rise to the impression of ruggedness (or ‘chunkiness’!), and of idiosyncrasy, in his architecture: Hawksmoor is unafraid to push the boundaries of orthodox scale and proportion in his work – not for him the ‘softer’, more ‘romantic’, more ‘proper’, approach of Wren. Now, on the negative side, this highly idiosyncratic handling of mass and proportion can indeed make his buildings appear unsettling or inharmonious; on the positive side, however, this approach to architecture does give his buildings an unmistakable power and presence. One has only to stand outside and gaze up at one of Hawksmoor’s London churches to feel the almost overwhelming visual impact which his architecture possesses.

And we should, of course, remember that this is no coincidence: Hawksmoor’s London churches were expressly designed to convey the message of the Church to the new London suburbs which were being constructed at the time. The ecclesiastical authorities of the day genuinely feared that the communities which populated these often poor, chaotic and violent new areas of the metropolis, were in imminent danger of moral and spiritual destitution – hence the building of these imposing new churches, and hence the visual power which Hawksmoor gives them. They are, in effect, the architectural counterparts of bright neon signs, advertising the presence of the Church: loud, bold, and unmistakable.

As we start to examine the revival of purist neo-Classical architecture, which swept through Europe as the seventeenth century gave way to the eighteenth. I would say that the chief points to bear in mind are: (a) the implicit comparison between the formal and stylistic exuberance of the Baroque, and the relative sobriety of the new neo-Classicism; and (b) the broader issue of the cultural and political factors driving this transition – i.e. what values are being embodied and expressed by these two contrasting architectural ethics?

Emotion

Renaissance looked to antiquity and geometry and humanism, Baroque evoked emotion. Looking at Bernini he did not have the seriousness of Michelangelo, but he was able to export Baroque to the rest Europe unlike Renaissance had been able to achieve. With the power and competition between the powerful families in Rome like the Borghese's that there was an element of visual over exuberance. Did the human emotion of Baroque tilt towards the inhuman. (Kenneth Clarke, Civilisation)

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