Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Some wear to dustcover edges. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> The visual arts of the baroque – above all its architec- ture-were instruments in a production on the world’s great stage. The play’s first act taking place around 1600 was set in Rome and it was from here that this style spread across the rest of Europe. The popes the chief patrons of baroque art were concerned not only with celebrating their personal status but also with the glorification of God and propagation of the Catholic faith during the Counter-Reformation. Beyond this the theatrical presentation of godlike power and splendor at the court of the “Sun King” Louis XIV was a symbolically exaggerated demon- stration of a highly centralized ideal of order. The “court of courts” strove to assign an appropriate status to the other regions of France and to other countries and to convey to them a sense of order-and of sub- ordination. Versailles became the unsurpassed model and pattern for many of the European courts that were centers of power and culture from the second half of the seventeenth through the eighteenth centu- ry. Significantly the language spoken at these courts was French. It is true that the Catholic states and regions in the grasp of the Counter-Reformation as well as the European courts were the true bastions of the baroque style. At the same time this volume illus trates the Protestant bourgeoisie’s role as a patron of culture. Dutch painting in the seventeenth century which mirrors the way of life of its culturesd patrons exemplifies how religious aspects became neinterpreted into moral and practical guidelines for everyday life. (OS)