Hello, and welcome to Chapter 4: The Baroque.
It's me again, Jennifer Klein. Here to lead you through
this very interesting era in art history.
The Baroque period is characterized by
the Counter-Reformation, absolutist monarchs,
in Southern Europe, Protestantism and Capitalism
in Northern Europe, and scientific advances.
All of these things are a part of it.
The Baroque is an era that begins with the Counter-Reformation.
So after Martin Luther 
nailed his grievances to a church door
that the Pope is the Antichrist
and the church is the Whore of Babylon in his
99 Thesis, he said 
that all of the arrangement of the church
was false. Nowhere in the Bible did it list this many Cardinals, this many
Bishops, all of this liturgical arrangement is 
completely man-made. Martin Luther said: All you need to do is read
The Bible in your own language, and you will get the direct word of God.
So unfortunately, along with that direct word
is the words saying "No false idols."
And so, throughout Northern Europe because Martin Luther was a German
monk, 
there is a wave of iconoclasm, the destruction of icons.
The climbing up and tearing down of wooden saints
Tympanum sculpture, all sorts of things.
So how does the Catholic Church respond?
Well, they say: This is a battle for souls.
And if you don't come to
church and listen to the word (even if it's in Latin), you're
damned. And so the hammer of the Catholic Church comes down hard.
So let's look at the Baroque, 
Chapter 4. So part of what the Catholic Church
decides to do is to hire the best and the most brilliant
artists that they could find to
give the people the message of the power of Biblical stories.
And that's what they did. They found the best artists
of the time to do the most dramatic artwork
to bring people back to what they considered the true faith.
Which is NOT Protestantism, it's the Catholic Church. So the 
Empire Strikes Back, and they strike hard. So as you can see in this
map, all of these yellow areas are Roman Catholic,
Lutheran, Martin Luther, remember? He really
takes hold in the North, as does John Calvin, Calvinism
which is very much the same thing (as Lutheranism). Reject the church, 
its sale of indulgences, it's all corruption and get back to the word
which includes no more overblown Biblical scenes in art.
Their art becomes very austere and quiet
and thoughtful, OK? And then, my goodness, what is
Anglican? See here, Anglican? This is 
Church of England. So when Henry XIII wants to divorce Catherine of Aragon
he denounces
The Pope and says we're our own thing now.
And so they've broken away as well, so this is a crisis for the church.
So
they're having a lot of crisis, because the Baroque is also a time of
science. And the Council of Trent
and the Birth of Galileo
occur, and
here's a problem.
So Protestantism is on the rise, 
so the Italian South tries
to appeal to your senses: return to the church.
French philosopher Rene Descartes famously
declares: "I think, therefore I am."
So what he's doing is that he is splitting the mind from the body.
So it's no longer Humanism,
So in the Renaissance there's Humanism. If Michelangelo's David
is beautiful on the outside, it's because he's beautiful on the inside, because he knows
poetry, and philosophy, and he's a learned person and it all reflects
on the outside. So we're moving from the Medieval where your body is
bad and a disgusting vessel, to the Renaissance
Humanism, where the more you develop the inside the better
you look outside, to Baroque
separation of the body and mind. Intellectual pursuits on their own
is reward enough.
And so during the Renaissance
Nicolaus Copernicus writes that the earth and planets revolve around the
sun. During the Baroque, Kepler reasserts
those theories. He agrees.
Galileo supports Copernicus' theory
because he looks at the surface of the moon with telescopes.
With new lens technology, also developed during this period.
And this is an ideological conflict, because the church
says: What's the center of the universe? The Earth.
Right? Because God creates the Earth, how can it be so otherwise?
So Galileo is brought to Rome,
forced to read a false retraction, and remains under house arrest
until his death. But what's funny is Galileo was Catholic.
He saw no conflict in 
science versus God. He didn't think there was
an issue, but the church was so worried about
continuing people to have faith in the ultimate word of
the church, that they didn't want anyone questioning.
This is also a time of revolutions.
So there's the American Revolution
which went on for a number of years, and we often say 1776
because of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
This is Leutze's Washington Crossing the Delaware
which is gorgeous. So this would be, instead of being
a French history painting, which is usual Biblical history or
Greco-Roman history, this is of a recent historical thing...
"recent" as 100 years away, but at least they're not talking about 2000
years away. There's another revolution inspired
by the American Revolution, which is this:
So this is Jacques Louis David's portrait of 
Marie Antoinette, it's a little sketch when she was on her
way to the guillotine. And it's so sad.
She's only in her 30s, and she looks so worn, and she's
had everything taken away, and she's in the back of a wagon and she goes
very dignified to her death. But can you imagine? It's terrible.
But inspired by the Enlightenment (The French Revolution).
This is an Enlightenment period of the Baroque. Scientific and political
revolutions, all of this emphasis on thought.
You can no longer support blind allegiance to monarchy.
You couldn't do it any more, you couldn't rationalize it in your head.
In 1545, in the German city of Trent,
the Catholic Church comes together
as like a hammer to fight Protestantism.
The Protestantism of Martin Luther, right? And the root word there is "protest."
So always remember: Protestant Reformation,
and then the Catholic Counter-Reformation, or what they countered
this Protestantism with.
So they codified Catholic doctrines,
Catholic mass is standardized,
Church discipline and administration were reformed,
the role of the Pope as absolute authority is firmly legitimized,
They created the Malleus Malleficarum, or the Witch Hammer
so that you could find witches. And they also
released in 1564 an index of prohibited images
and books that continued until the 1970s.
And here are some of them listed. Major works
which were considered too subversive.
And there were also art no-nos.
Nudity, eroticism, anything that
was to diminish or distract from the improving or uplifting image is
no longer acceptable.
So. You're going to go
on to your links, and you're going to watch The Power of Art:
Caravaggio, before you watch this part, because it's really
edifying. 
Caravaggio's biggest triumph in painting
is in 1600, and by 1615 he's dead on a beach.
You have to remember that. So he exploded onto the scene
he's incredibly powerful, and then he's
gone very quickly. He was everything
that the Catholic Counter-Reformation wanted. They wanted scenes that
were visceral, that strike you in your guts, right? Your viscera.
Drama and theatricality
and bringing Biblical stories to the time that you
were actually living in. So when you  people acting out Biblical stories
but they're wearing what looks like Italian garb from the 1500s
It's because they were trying to grab the viewer and say: If you believe,
this can happen to YOU, but only if you believe.
And people like Caravaggio took
this to heart. And look at this power. This is not...
he's using chiaroscuro, which is that old Italian technique
to mold light and dark to make a 2-D surface
of the canvas look 3-D, but this 
here is tenebroso.
This is extreme light and dark. So do you see how it pulls
the subject way up in front of the canvas so that there's no
depth. You're not looking at the mountains, or a crumbling little castle
back on a hillside. All you can see is what he wants you to see.
And Caravaggio wants you to see here David
with the severed head of Goliath. Most people forget that in the story of
David and Goliath, he not only strikes him in the head with a rock, but he decapitates
him. And here the head of
Goliath is actually a self portrait of Caravaggio.
So this is the artist. And in the video you'll see why he was
asking for forgiveness. And here, because technology
Is so much fun: Usually in the Northern Renaissance
they like to hide reflections in things. Little portraits
in the reflection in a pearl, or in glass, and this
Caravaggio, Boy With Fruit and Flowers was being cleaned
and in this ...what would you call it?
A little wine cistern...not cistern...
anyway. Is a little tiny reflected portrait of Caravaggio.
Inside, which is just fabulous.
So Caravaggio
Killed a young man in 1606. So you know when we're talking about
artistic temperament and artists being difficult?
He's an actual killer. This guy got in a fight
and runs a guy through. And he's on a run for his life.
So he's so complicated. He's working for the Catholic Church,
so talented, but he also uses prostitutes and street people
as models. As, like, the Virgin Mary.
So here we have Caravaggio's Deposition From The Cross.
A Deposition is when you remove Christ from the cross.
But it's also partially an Entombment, because not only is he being removed
and lowered, but he's also dropping down into this dark space
here, almost like it's his tomb.
And this is incredibly emotional. You have the three Marys,
So Mary, Mother of God, 
and then you have Mary Magdalene, so beautiful, and you have
Mary of Cleophas, wife of Cleophas who is almost always
present at the Deposition.
And here you have Jesus. And this is Caravaggio using
tenebroso. Extremely dark in the background, there's no place
for your eyes to go. And you're looking down at the dead Christ.
And imagine walking up to this, your eye level would be about
here. so you have no choice but to either look up
at Christ, his limp, dead body, or down
into the darkness of the tomb he'll be lowered in to.
And although the Entombment is ultimately a happy story, he returns in
three days, this is a terrible moment. His mother
has seen her baby be tortured and die.
And he is so lifeless and so pale and so dead
and look at his little blue lips, and his closed eyes and slack mouth.
This is terrible. This is very sad
And see this...this is what the Catholic Church wanted, this
theatricality, this stage-like lighting, this spotlight
lighting the scene, and this emotion.
And the darkness. And everybody is pressed up against
you. But here, in a very Caravaggio way, you have
dirty feet right where your eyes would be. It's very gritty.
It's very "of the street."
And this. This earthquake of a painting. This is
Conversion on the Way to Damascus. Damascus
Is actually one of the longest-inhabited cities in the world, it's
modern-day Syria. And so this is painted
in 1601, and
this is also amazing because
You're looking at...what does it look like what this man does for a living?
Down here? OK. So...
He is
Saul, soon to be the Apostle Paul.
And he is a Roman soldier. And he is clip-clopping
along on his horse, and he's just going about his business.
And the groom is walking alongside them.
And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he hears the Lord
booming in his ears. "I am Jesus, whom you persecute.
Arise and go into the city."
And so...you're minding your own business
and all of a sudden, something happens to you.
And he slides off his horse, and he's receiving 
...he's having an ecstasy. He's receiving a supernatural
moment that only he can experience. And so
the horse doesn't know what's going on, the groom
Is only concerned with the horse, but this is a
monumental, life-changing moment that you get to witness
because you believe, right? Because you're not a Protestant.
You're Catholic. And that all of these stories
are starting to gather, and the Catholic Church is saying: "See? This is very important that you believe
because there things can happen." And you can't have an ecstasy
if you're Protestant. And so this is also very Caravaggio
remember, this guy is kind of
off-kilter, a little bit rude, a guy of the streets.
And not only again are we seeing dirty dirty feet,
but we get the horses' rump, which takes up a good
one-third of the canvas. So it's remarkable, for many things.
And it's powerful. And look how you can't escape.
You can't look anywhere but here. And he's just
receiving...he's having a moment, and we get to witness it. Incredible.
Can you imagine them looming out into the darkness?
And then there's this one.
The Crucifixion of Saint Peter. So Saint Peter
is an apostle, and they're gonna crucify him, too.
And what happens with him? He said: "Don't crucify me
in the manner of our Lord, I'm not good enough." So they crucify him upside-down.
And this is the moment that they're
capturing. So the Baroque is all about the moment, where
iIf the Renaissance is about stoicism, and think about Michelangelo's
giant sculpture of David, and the moment that they're showing where he just kind of
is looking off thoughtfully into the distance. The Baroque is where David
is actually swinging his weapon, and his
face is contorted. So the Baroque is interested in showing you the moment
of the most drama. And so this is what we're seeing here.
We're not seeing after he's crucified, or as he's ascending to heaven.
We're seeing this old man being pulled up on this
Crucifix that's upside-down, his hands have already been nailed,
and here are these average, everyday Joes
with dirty...look at these dirty feet, that's so Caravaggio
faceless, everyday guys in what would have then been contemporary Italian garb,
lifting this man up to die a horrible death.
And here you have a stone in the middle, but it's not just any stone,
Right? It's the stone that tries to remind you
Of the Golgotha, or the skull mountain
where Jesus was also crucified. So here's this
dirty feet and straining muscles, and it's another day's work.
They're gonna get this guy up, and he's gonna die. And there's 
nowhere for you to go. It's all dark, and then this spotlight
oOn the most dramatic, horrible moment. Sex and violence
and torture and bloodshed. Emotional.
This is what the Baroque is all about, is raw emotion, designed
to try and pull you back.
The Doubting of Thomas, also by Caravaggio. Look at this.
So this is when Christ has returned, and Thomas
says: "No, this isn't you." And Christ just very neutrally 
says: "Sure, you wanna see the wound?" And look at this.
Thomas isn't just probing gently, tentatively with the
tip of his finger...look, that's like, almost to the first knuckle into the
bloodless, supernatural
body. It doesn't hurt him. And there's no sparing
of the scene. You can't go anywhere, you just get to see
these people kind of hunched over and looking at this
fabulous, fascinating, terrible moment of
faith. It's remarkable. It's incredible.
There's nothing like it. And there are other Doubting Thomas scenes, but I don't know if the finger
is ever jammed in that much.
Related to this is Artemesia Gentileschi.
The daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, a very famous painter.
And often times, if you see a woman painter it's because
her father was also in the trade, and decided to teach her
if she had skill, and she did, and she made a career out of it.
But what she was 16 she had
a tutor named Renaldo Tassi who
raped her. And when she complained that she was raped,
at the court she was put into finger screws
to see if she was telling the truth. And they tortured her
and screwed her fingers down, and she maintained "Yes, he did," and so she was given
the lovely option to marry him (Tassi), and she said "No, thank you."
And so all of her work
knowing her biography, is tainted with this violence
and this Baroque drama at the same time. So this is her
Susanna and the Elders.
So...often times
Like in the Rubens Susanna and the Elders
Susanna is shown as a sweet little coquette
kind of off in the bushes, and Susanna
Is a respectable woman, and the Elders in her
village spy on her and try to assault her while she's bathing.
And when she comes back and tells the truth they deny, deny that they did it.
So this painting...
You know how we've seen a lot of art historical nudes?
We've seen a lot of nude women in art history? She's not nude, she's naked.
Do you see the difference? Where it's kind of creepy and
She's sort of trying to cover up, and these two are like two
big black crows behind her, taking up the entire upper third
of the composition.
So it's not tenebroso, although 
Artemesia Gentileschi is technically a "Caravaggisti," she follows
Caravaggio's groundbreaking use of tenebrous. So later you'll
see her work get very dark. But you see this scene that's handled
so interestingly? Both Caravaggio
and Artemesia Gentileschi do the subject of
Judith Slaying Holofernes.
So there's a Jewish woman
and an Assyrian general, Holofernes. And Judith...
Holofernes smashes her city, and he has
got all of his tents set up on the top of a hill, and she is a very beautiful woman.
So she goes to the tents and she entertains him for the evening,
and gets him very drunk. And she and her maidservant
cut off his head while he's in a drunken sleep
spirit it away in a basket, sneak out of
the tent, they can't be caught by the guys at the door,
or they'll be murdered. She goes back to her people and hold up his head
And gives them hope. And they come and they overtake the Assyrians.
So this is so Baroque. This is the moment that
they are trying to saw his head off, and he has come awake.
And he's gonna start struggling and fighting.
And so in this version, and in this game you'll have to decide whether this is Artemesia
Gentileschi, who has been assaulted before, or Caravaggio
who is a murderer. And so here we have
Judith sawing into Holofernes' neck.
Look at this arterial spray pumping out, and this sickening
blood coming out here and rolling across these silk sheets.
And then the maidservant, who is young and strong
She's jamming him down, holding him down before he can cry out
and have everybody killed. And here's another version.
And often times in Baroque paintings you'll see this
curtain drawn back, it's a symbol of the Baroque. This kind of, like...
you're looking at theater. And so here is...
this is a very famous face, and she's often on the cover of Baroque
books.  And she's awaiting the head.
And here is Judith. And she's made some amazing progress
and he's in a scream but she's already cut off his
voice box and his larynx. It's amazing.
So...which one? Which is Caravaggio,
the actual murderer? Is it this one, with the arterial spray?
Or this one? Surprisingly,
this one is Caravaggio,
the less realistic of the two. Does this look like she's even at an angle
to saw off a very big man's head?
Does this woman look like she's helping at all?
It's amazing, beautiful and fantastic...but this lady's gonna get the job done.
Artemesia's Judith.
And whats amazing is that Artemesia Gentileschi does this subject
of Judith and Holofernes over and over and over.
She paints it multiple times, at different times of the story.
So here she is using that very Caravaggio tenebroso, darkness,
and here's that Baroque curtain. And look, she's
putting her hand over the candle, she's heard a noise, and her maidservant is stuffing
the head into that bag so that she can take it back to the village.
And here's another moment where they're looking over their shoulder, they've heard another noise
and here's the head in a basket. And look at the blood oozing
Out of the basket. It's incredible.
So interesting, right? And she does it again
and again, and again. So here's this one
very similar to what we saw, and here's another one, and this is later because
look, the sheets are more detailed, and his eyes are already
filming over with that white film of death.
So...it's like a close up, even. Amazing, amazing,
fascinating.
Bernini. The King of Flesh. So there's 
painting, and then there's sculpture. And Bernini is the King of
sculptors. He completely
believes in the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
He is a very devout Catholic. He attends mass every day,
and takes communion twice a week. He loved opera,
the Baroque is really a fusion
of the arts, of music and theater and spectacle.
And so this man is perfect as a hammer of the Church.
To put forward, again, the message of the Catholic Church:
Counter-Reformation, countering the Protestant Reformation.
Come back to the church. And look at this. And I want to show you this
As an aside: Apollo and Daphne.
So Apollo is chasing the wood nymph Daphne. And he has barely got his
hands on her, and she transforms into a laurel tree to escape
him and keep her modesty. And here she is in mid-transformation.
Remember, this is marble. And look at her, her little fingers
are turning into leaves, and here's the
bark of the tree trunk. He's just got his
hand around her, and she's transforming. OK?
That's Bernini. And here's another one, Pluto and Persephone.
So he's gonna take her down to Hades.
This is marble. Look at his fingers pressing into
her flesh. Look at this.
Look at the veins and the tendons
on his hands. Look at his fingernails. Look at the
quality of the skin. Look at the musculature. So when you 
say "virtuoso," or somebody is a virtuoso,
Ii's "as good as I gets?" That's Bernini.
It's as good as it gets.
This is Bernini's David. So we always talk about Michelangelo's
David. Michelangelo's David, if you remember, is
perfect for the Renaissance: Humanism. Body beautiful outside,
body beautiful inside, right? But here
this is so Baroque.
It's about that psychological moment of importance.
And the explosive energy, and the moment of
the most excitement, because it's the most engaging.
And it's whats going to bring you back to the Catholic Church, right?
Which is why Michelangelo's David is perfect
and emblematic of the Renaissance, the Renaissance celebrating
the "rebirth," that's what it means, of Greco-Roman philosophy and thought
and art styles. And so when you see the fully nude
Michelangelo's David standing there looking
Intellectual, it's because it's all inside, all of
his learning and philosophical knowledge is being reflected into his beautiful
outer self, which is like a giant Apollo figure, not really a young 
shepherd boy at all. And here, we have not really 
a young shepherd boy at all but a full-grown man, but it's 
in the interest of the church, and so he has a modesty covering here.
Here he is in this moment of explosive action. He's twisting backwards
and he's gonna whip that stone forward, right into the center of Goliath's head
and kill him with one strike. And he's cast off his
armor, because he doesn't  need armor. Because he had the power of God
on his side. He doesn't need it.
And it's amazing. And look at his toes curling over the edge of the base,
kind of grasping for purchase because he needs all of
that energy to whip that stone. So this is Caravaggio
in stone. This is shallow space,
explosive movement, theatricality. It's fantastic.
And then we have the Ecstasy of St. Theresa.
Also by Bernini.
This is amazing, because the Ecstasy of St. Theresa
was an incredibly popular reading
of the time. And she had recounted
experiences in the early 1500s of hearing voices
and seeing visions. And
she's a Carmelite nun. And so she writes about
encountering an angel who appears to her.
And he's beautiful, and its face
is aflame. And the quote is actually very
sexual. She talks about that he
takes a long golden spear with a point of fire, pierces her
heart several times and draws it in and out, which is, she said
not painful, but wonderful. And she moans
"Not a bodily pain, but spiritual."
It's an orgasmic experience, and ecstasy.
This is incredible because Bernini has made a giant theatrical
experience of it, he has designed all of this. There is 
an oculus above which lets light in to these bronze
shafts of light which looks like light looking down on the scene.
There are people in balconies, watching.
Here are the balcony observers with shallow relief
sculpture in the background to make it look like there's a depth of space.
And here you have...you have to remember, this is all marble.
So this is marble. This is clouds. Look at her little
Foot trailing off, this is flesh. Her
heavy Carmelite woolen robes that this angel is
gently using his fingers to pull off of her chest and expose
her chest so he can start piercing her with this arrow.
And look at...there's a heavenly wind coming this way,
and it's ruffling his gossamer clothing.
And, to a small degree, the finer feathers on his wings.
And even her rough robes are slightly moving.
It's incredible, and dramatic
and sensual and powerful. And look,
her eyes are rolled back in her head, and her mouth is open.
You know. This is incredible.
Moving away from
the best sculptor ever, we can get to
Diego Velasquez, born in Seville, Spain. And he is
The court painter to Spain's King Phillip IV.
And this large painting, very large
painting is all about the Baroque interest in optics,
and reflections, and representations, and who is looking at whom?
And so we have a light source here, and what seems
to be the center of the painting is the Infanta Margherita
the daughter of Isabella and Philip, standing here in the
center, and her retinue of courtiers, so these are little
friends and followers and a little person, and whoever this rotten kid
is, with his foot on a dog. Here's her duenna
and her religious instructor, and here is
Diego Velasquez himself, painting an incredibly large
canvas, he's in the middle of painting, and this itself is a very large canvas.
And he's looking at us, and this man
who's kind of interrupted is looking at us, and everyone else' attention
is on us. Why? Because
in this reflection, this is the King and Queen of Spain.
And if that reflection is correct, then they're standing exactly where we are
looking into the painting. So are we the King and Queen of Spain?
Are we standing next to them? Are we not even there?
Is this a rarified look inside of the life
of the incredibly rich and powerful? What the heck's going on?
And you even have these old masterworks, identifiable
in the background in this large room here. You can see
that Baroque curtain drawn back, and there's the King and Queen,
And here's the steady Velasquez, just waiting to see what happens.
And of course Picasso wouldn't
be Picasso without being hilarious and wonderful. And here's
the Infanta Margherita and her retinue, and here's that rotten kid
standing on the doggie, and here's that man, the King and Queen of Spain,
but look at this: Velasquez, bigger than everyone else.
Because artists are giants. And it is he
who created this entire scene, so he's bigger than all
of the wealthy and powerful people in this room, because he
controls it all, he's like a puppet master, it's fantastic. And look,
over time, the paintings have been sold off and gone, just the hooks remain.
Here we have the memory of what occurred in this room.
Incredible. And if you want
to talk about power, let's talk about Louis XIV, The Sun King
of France. It is he who established the French Royal 
Academy of Painting and Sculpture. So when we say the word "Academic art,"
we're talking about the French Royal Academy which spawned so many others, the British
Academy, the American Academy. And they set the standard for
painting. It should be propaganda for the
State, and that it should be mostly history paintings,
understandable, no visible brush strokes,
Oil on canvas, perfect focus,
like looking through a window, right? He sets all
of this up. And here's that Baroque curtain again, drawn back.
And here we are looking at all of his symbols of power,
the scepter and the sword
and the crown. And his giant ermine
cloak, the fur of Kings and Queens. Even the
royal crowns you see, you'll see this dotted fur, ermine crown.
His long, beautiful legs, he liked to be a ballet dancer
in his spare time, so he was very proud of his legs, even though he's about 60
here. And his shoes, this is actually called a Louis heel,
when your heel is exposed.
These red-heeled shoes. And so if you
were in his private clique, part of his court,
a favorite of his, you would be allowed to paint your heels red and that would tell everyone
else that you were in this little club. And it would
give you a certain kind of power, and other people would know who you were, just by looking at your
shoes. And now we have Louboutin heels,
which are shoes that you can buy today for about
$800 to $1000 that have red soles
that show all the other ladies that you're very wealthy, and
sort of an important person, isn't that interesting? So it's all related.
So I hope that this trip through the Baroque was helpful
And that we of course learned how to look for tenebroso
and that pesky curtain that's drawn back, and 
I'll see you guys next time. Of course that's Mr. Spock, who else
would it be?
