The Baroque Period - Book Report/Review Example

The Baroque Period During the baroque period of the seventeenth century, artists adopted the strategy of creating dramatic pieces of art that were pompous, elaborate, and with special effects. These strategies were deployed by the catholic popes and priests who aimed at restoring the glory of the Catholic Church, which had been lost in the sixteenth century (Carl and Charles 37). The use of light and drama facilitated the mission of the Catholic Church because these factors helped to inculcate spiritual emotions in individuals.

Drama helped to show how the martyrs and Christ had suffered to save the people from their sins. The Catholic Church also used contrasting lights on the images to arouse the emotions of individuals; for example, dark light aroused the emotions of pity, forgiveness, and repentance (Carl and Charles 43). These factors also helped to capture the attention of individuals so that they would come back to the Catholic Church. The northern and southern regions of Europe differed in how they used the baroque.

The north that had more Protestants than the south opposed the use of spiritual images which were common in the south. The north favored arts that used contrasting lights instead of dramatic images (Carl and Charles 45). The culture of being religious and politically peaceful supported Ruben and Rembrandt’s pieces of art. These artists used religious images and political figures such as Queen Anne to inculcate peace in Italy and Spain. The tradition of still life and landscape painting flourished at that time because of the development of the human intellect.

Human beings were starting to become more curious about geography and science; therefore, they did it by using landscape and still images of flowers, fish, and the sea (Carl and Charles 60). Work Cited Carl, Klaus H, and Victoria Charles. Baroque Art. New York: Parkstone International, 2012.