The Baroque

The Baroque erupted onto the European stage with Caravaggio's revolutionary paintings in Rome: stark, dramatic compositions that placed sacred events in the gritty reality of contemporary life. The movement spread rapidly. Rubens brought exuberant energy and sensuous color to Flanders; Velázquez achieved unmatched psychological depth at the Spanish court; and Rembrandt in the Dutch Republic created works of profound humanity.

The Baroque encompasses extraordinary diversity, from the grandeur of Counter-Reformation altarpieces to the intimacy of Dutch genre scenes, from Vermeer's luminous interiors to Bernini's ecstatic sculptures. The Dutch Golden Age produced an unprecedented flowering of painting: landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and genre scenes created for a middle-class market rather than aristocratic or ecclesiastical patrons.