WHY DO WE CARE ABOUT THE BAROQUE?

Abstract

Despite the demands of the Council of Trent, the Baroque sought not so much to teach (docere) but to inspire (movere) and to allure (delectare). Owing to the predominance of this aesthetic principle, the Baroque preserved human integrity in a period when the Renaissance worldview utterly collapsed, when professional disciplines became compartmentalized, when the infinitely small and great worlds revealed themselves through the microscope and the telescope, and when anatomists and physiologists went inside the human body. Only in its sensual aspect is Baroque art seemingly opposed to the rationality of philosophic and scientific thought. The creative practices of the coryphaei of the Baroque were carried out under the rubric of ratio. The apotheosis of rationalism in the arts was the opera house with all of its constituent parts: from the libretto, the music and vocal techniques to the financial arrangements of the impresarios, the tiered seating and the wonders of scenography. Leaving behind adherence to the Renaissance ideal of intellectual and creative excellence, the Baroque encouraged going beyond what had been known and accomplished, and its message is still heard today. From the beginning of European history to the Napoleonic Wars, the Baroque stands out for its extreme bellicosity. However, the Baroque is surprisingly optimistic despite the great number of terrible events. From this era on, a European perceived death not as an impersonal fatal blow, but as a private event whose likelihood at every point was partly dependent on one’s own actions. Baroque monuments in Asia and in the Americas show that globalization first manifested itself in the spread of the Baroque style. But the landing of the Pilgrim founding fathers on the shore of Cape Cod and the Mayflower Compact they signed were phenomena of global significance that had nothing in common with the way colonization of distant territories had been carried out by Europeans before the age of the Baroque.