Baroque Room

1601 to 1700

In 1400 Florence provided the birth place for the Italian Renaissance. Florence and the Medici were where the action in art was centered. Two hundred years later the action had moved to Rome which provided the birth place for the Baroque.

Baroque means distorted or gotesque. It was used by later art historians to discount or slander the art which dominated the seventeenth century. However it came into widespread use and more or less lost it negative connotations.

In many ways instead of distortion the Baroque became a return from the idealistic distortions and the set pieces of the Mannerist era to a naturalism and realism of representation that was almost photographic. Caravaggio led in this direction while artists like Velasquez retained a more mannered approach.

The Baroque was primarily associated with Catholic (as opposed to Protestant) art. But as the century progressed the style made inroads into the Protestant countries, although it tended to be used in a more secular way in the North. The Baroque Room is organized into walls which contain national varients of art. Each of these gallerys presents different aspects of the Baroque.

To get a feeling for Baroque and Rococo Art here are a series of thumbnail pictures from the museum.

Click on a thumbnail to visit the museum gallery with pictures from that period. Then, just for fun, see if you can find the picture you clicked on.