During the Baroque period (c. 1600–1750), architecture, painting,
and sculpture were integrated into decorative ensembles.
Architecture and sculpture became pictorial, and painting became
illusionistic. Baroque art was essentially concerned with the
dramatic and the illusory, with vivid colours, hidden light sources,
luxurious materials, and elaborate, contrasting surface textures,
used to heighten immediacy and sensual delight. Ceilings of Baroque
churches, dissolved in painted scenes, presented vivid views of the
infinite to the worshiper and directed him through his senses toward
heavenly concerns. Seventeenth-century Baroque architects made
architecture a means of propagating faith in the church and in the
state. Baroque palaces expanded to command the infinite and to
display the power and order of the state. Baroque space, with
directionality, movement, and positive molding, contrasted markedly
with the static, stable, and defined space of the High Renaissance
and with the frustrating conflict of unbalanced spaces of the
preceding Mannerist period. Baroque space invited participation and
provided multiple changing views. Renaissance space was passive and
invited contemplation of its precise symmetry. While a Renaissance
statue was meant to be seen in the round, a Baroque statue either
had a principal view with a preferred angle or was definitely
enclosed by a niche or frame. A Renaissance building was to be seen
equally from all sides, while a Baroque building had a main axis or
viewpoint as well as subsidiary viewpoints. Attention was focused on
the entrance axis or on the central pavilion, and its symmetry was
emphasized by the central culmination. A Baroque building expanded
in its effect to include the square facing it, and often the
ensemble included all the buildings on the square as well as the
approaching streets and the surrounding landscape. Baroque buildings
dominated their environment; Renaissance buildings separated
themselves from it.
The Baroque rapidly developed into two separate forms: the strongly
Roman Catholic countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Flanders, Bohemia,
southern Germany, Austria, and Poland) tended toward freer and more
active architectural forms and surfaces; in Protestant regions
(England, the Netherlands, and the remainder of northern Europe)
architecture was more restrained and developed a sober, quiet
monumentality impressive in its refinement. In the Protestant
countries and France, which sought the spirit through the mind,
architecture was more geometric, formal, and precise—an appeal to
the intellect. In the Roman Catholic south, buildings were more
complex, freer, and donewith greater artistic license—an appeal to
the spirit made through the senses.
Treatises on the orders and on civil and military architecture
provided a theoretical basis for Baroque architects. While many
16th-century architects published treatises on architecture or
prepared them for publication, major 17th-century architects
published very little. Two fragmentary volumes by Francesco
Borromini appeared years after his death, and Guarino Guarini's
major contribution (though he brought out two volumes on
architecture before he died) did not appear until well into the 18th
century. Other Italian publications tended to be repetitions of
earlier ideas with the exception of a tardily published manuscript
of Teofilo Gallaccini, whose treatise on the errors of Mannerist and
early Baroque architects became a point of departure for later
theoreticians.
In France, François Blondel and Augustin d'Aviler published notes
for lectures given at the Academy of Architecture, but the most
important publications were those of Fréart de Chambray and Claude
Perrault. Perrault attacked established Italian theory. Other
notable French works included writings by René Ouvard, André
Félibien, Pierre Le Muet, and Julien Mauclerc. In England, Sir Henry
Wotton's book was an adaptation of Vitruvius, and Balthazar
Gerbier's was a compendium of advice for builders. Among the
notable17th-century German publications were books by Georg Boeckler,
Josef Furttenbach, and Joachim von Sandrart.
During the period of the Enlightenment (about 1700 to 1780),various
currents of post-Baroque art and architecture evolved. A principal
current, generally known as Rococo, refined the robust architecture
of the 17th century to suit elegant 18th-century tastes. Vivid
colours were replaced by pastel shades; diffuse light flooded the
building volume; andviolent surface relief was replaced by smooth
flowing masses with emphasis only at isolated points. Churches and
palaces still exhibited an integration of the three arts, but the
building structure was lightened to render interiors graceful and
ethereal. Interior and exterior space retained none of the bravado
and dominance of the Baroque but entertained and captured the
imagination by intricacy and subtlety.
In Rococo architecture, decorative sculpture and paintingare
inseparable from the structure. Simple dramatic spatial sequences or
the complex interweaving of spaces of 17th-century churches gave way
to a new spatial concept. Byprogressively modifying the
Renaissance-Baroque horizontal separation into discrete parts,
Rococo architects obtained unified spaces, emphasized structural
elements, created continuous decorative schemes, and reduced column
sizes to a minimum. In churches, the ceilings of side aisles were
raised to the height of the nave ceiling to unify the space from
wall to wall (Church of the Carmine, Turin, Italy, 1732, by Filippo
Juvarra; Pilgrimage Church, Steinhausen, near Biberach, Ger., 1728,
by Dominikus Zimmermann; Saint-Jacques, Luneville, Fr., 1730, by
GermainBoffrand). To obtain a vertical unification of structure and
space, the vertical line of a supporting column might be carried up
from the floor to the dome (e.g., church of San Luis, Seville,
Spain, begun 1699, by Leonardo de Figueroa). The entire building was
often lighted by numerous windows placed to give dramatic effect (Schloss
Brühl, near Cologne, Balthasar Neumann, 1740) or to flood the space
with a cool diffuse light (Pilgrimage Church, Wies, Ger.,
Zimmermann, 1745).
Origins and development in Rome
The work of Carlo Maderno in Rome represented the first pure
statement of the principles that became the basis of most of the
architecture of the Western world in the 17th century. A northern
Italian, Maderno worked most of his life in Rome where, about 1597,
he designed the revolutionary facade of the church of Santa Susanna
(). Roman church facades in the late 16th century tended to be
either precise, elegant, and papery thin or disjointed, equivocal,
and awkwardly massive. Maderno's Santa Susanna facade is an
integrated design in which each element contributes to the central
culminating feature. Precision and elegance were relinquished to
gain vitality and movement. Disjointed and ambiguous features were
suppressed to achieve unity and harmony. A towering massiveness
obtained by an increased surface relief and quickened rhythm of
architectural members toward the centre replaced the papery-thin
walls and hesitant massiveness of the 16th century. Vertical
unification was achieved by breaking the entablature at similar
places on both stories and by repeating pilasters and columns at
both levels. Maderno also conceived the facade as part of an
integrated unit, including the two-story church and one-story
associated areas to either side, and thereby gave form to the
Baroque desire to associate buildings, street facades, and squares
in a continuous whole.
The basic premises of the early Baroque as reaffirmed by Maderno in
the facade and nave of St. Peter's, Rome (1607), were: (1)
subordination of the parts to the whole to achieve unity and
directionality; (2) progressive alteration of pilasterrhythm and
wall relief to emphasize massiveness, movement, axiality, and
activity; and (3) directional emphasis in interiors through diagonal
views and culminating light and spatial sequences.
Carlo Maderno
born 1556, Bissone, Milan
died Jan. 30, 1629, Rome
leading Roman architect of the early 17th century, who
determined the style of early Baroque architecture.
Maderno began his architectural career in Rome assisting
his uncle Domenico Fontana. His first major Roman
commission, the facade of Santa Susanna (1597–1603), led
to his appointment in 1603 as the chief architect for
Saint Peter's. In 1607 he designed the nave and a new
facade for Saint Peter's and was made architect to Pope
Paul V. Maderno's additions to Saint Peter's were
consonant with thespirit of the Counter-Reformation; by
adding the nave he transformed Michelangelo's
Greek-cross plan into a longitudinal one, thus reverting
to the scheme of early Christian and Medieval
cathedrals. His facade has been both criticized for
impairing the effect of Michelangelo's dome and admired
for its forceful grouping of huge engaged columns. The
only building completely designed by Maderno is Santa
Maria della Vittoria (1608–20); all his other projects,
such as San Andrea della Valle and the Palazzo Barberini
(1625), were either works he only began or other
architects' works he finished. The Palazzo Barberini,
which Maderno designed for the family of Pope Urban
VIII, was completed byFrancesco Borromini and Gian
Lorenzo Bernini, whose works were influenced by Maderno.
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The three great masters of the Baroque in Rome were
Gianlorenzo Bernini, Francesco Borromini, and Pietro da Cortona.
Bernini, also a brilliant sculptor, designed both the baldachin(an
ornamental canopy-like structure) with bronze spiral columns over
the grave of St. Peter (1624–33) and the vast enclosing colonnade
(begun 1656) that forms the piazza of St Peter's. He was responsible
also for the facade of the Palazzo Chigi-Odescalchi (1664), a model
for later urban palaces, and the exquisite oval church of
Sant'Andrea al Quirinale (1658–70), the epitome of richly coloured
marble-encrusted church interiors.
Gian
Lorenzo Bernini
born Dec. 7, 1598, Naples, Kingdom of Naples [Italy]
died Nov. 28, 1680, Rome, Papal States
Italian artist who was perhaps the greatest sculptor of
the 17th century and an outstanding architect as well.
Bernini created the Baroque style of sculpture and
developed it to such an extent that other artists are of
only minor importance in a discussion of that style.
Early years.
Bernini's career began under his father, Pietro Bernini,
a Florentine sculptor of some talent who ultimately
moved to Rome. The young prodigy worked so diligently
that he earned the praise of the painter Annibale
Carracci and the patronage of Pope Paul V and soon
established himself as a wholly independent sculptor. He
was strongly influenced by his close study of the
antique Greek and Roman marbles in the Vatican, and he
also had an intimate knowledge of High Renaissance
painting of the early 16th century. His study of
Michelangelo is revealed in the “St. Sebastian” (c.
1617), carved for Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who was
later Pope Urban VIII and Bernini's greatest patron.
Bernini's early works attracted the attention of
Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a member of the reigning
papal family. Under his patronage, Bernini carved his
first important life-size sculptural groups. The series
shows Bernini's progression from the almost haphazard
single view of “Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius Fleeing
Troy” (1619; Borghese Gallery, Rome) to strong
frontality in “Pluto and Proserpina” (1621–22; Borghese
Gallery) and then to the hallucinatory vision of “Apollo
and Daphne” (1622–24; Borghese Gallery), which was
intended to be viewed from one spot as if it were a
relief. In his “David” (1623–24; Borghese Gallery),
Bernini depicts the figure casting a stone at an unseen
adversary. Several portrait busts that Bernini executed
during this period, including that of Cardinal
RobertBellarmine (1623–24), show a new awareness of the
relationship between head and body and display an
ability todepict fleeting facial expressions with acute
realism. These marble works show an unparalleled
virtuosity in carving that obdurate material to achieve
the delicate effects usually found only in bronze
sculptures. Bernini's sensual awarenessof the surface
textures of skin and hair and his novel sense of shading
broke with the tradition of Michelangelo and marked the
emergence of a new period in the history of Western
sculpture.
Patronage of Urban VIII.
With the pontificate of Urban VIII (1623–44), Bernini
entered a period of enormous productivity and artistic
development. Urban VIII urged his protégé to paint and
to practice architecture. His first architectural work
was the remodeled Church of Santa Bibiana in Rome. At
the same time, Bernini was commissioned to build a
symbolic structure over the tomb of St. Peter in St.
Peter's Basilica in Rome. The result is the famous
immense gilt-bronze baldachin executed between 1624 and
1633. Its twisted columns derive from the early
Christian columns that had been used in the altar screen
of Old St. Peter's. Bernini's most original contribution
to the final work is the upper framework of crowning
volutes flanked by four angels that supports the orb and
cross. The baldachin is perfectly proportioned to its
setting, and one hardly realizes that it is as tall as a
four-story building. Its lively outline moving upward to
the triumphant crown, its dark colour heightened with
burning gold, give it the character of a living
organism. An unprecedented fusion of sculpture and
architecture, the baldachin is the first truly Baroque
monument. It ultimately formed the centre of a
programmatic decoration designed by Bernini for the
interior of St. Peter's.
Bernini next supervised the decoration of the four piers
supporting the dome of St. Peter's with colossal
statues, though only one of the latter, “St. Longinus,”
was designed by him. He also made a series of portrait
busts of Urban VIII, but the first bust to achieve the
quality of his earlier portraits is that of his great
patron, Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1632; Borghese
Gallery). The cardinal is shown in the act of speaking
and moving, and the action is caught at a moment that
seems to reveal all the characteristic qualities of the
subject.
Bernini's architectural duties increased after the death
of Carlo Maderno in 1629, when Bernini became architect
of St. Peter's and of the Palazzo Barberini. By this
time he was not only executing works himself but also
having to rely on assistance from others as the number
of his commissions grew. He was successful in organizing
his studio and planning his work so that sculptures and
ornamentations produced by a team actually seem to be
all of a piece. Bernini's work, then and always, was
also shaped by his fervent Roman Catholicism (he
attended mass every day and took communion twice a
week). He would agree with the formulations of the
Council of Trent (1545–63) that the purpose of religious
art was to teach and inspire the faithful and to serve
as propaganda for the Roman Catholic church. Religious
art should always be intelligible and realistic, and,
above all, it should serve as an emotional stimulus to
piety. The development of Bernini's religious art was
largely determined by his conscientious efforts to
conform to those principles.
Under Urban VIII Bernini began to produce new and
different kinds of monuments—tombs and fountains. The
tomb of Urban VIII (1628–47; St. Peter's, Rome) shows
the pope seated with his arm raised in a commanding
gesture, while below him are two white marble figures
representing the Virtues. Bernini also designed a
revolutionary series of smalltomb memorials, of which
the most impressive is that of Maria Raggi (1643). But
his fountains are his most obvious contribution to the
city of Rome. The Triton Fountain in the Piazza
Barberini (1642–43) is a dramatic transformation of a
Roman architectonic fountain—the superposed basins of
thetraditional geometric piazza fountain appearing to
have come alive. Four dolphins raise a huge shell
supporting the sea god, who blows water upward out of a
conch.
Bernini's early architectural projects, however, were
not invariably successful. In 1637 he began to erect
campaniles, or bell towers, over the facade of St.
Peter's. But, in 1646, when their weight began to crack
the building, they were pulled down, and Bernini was
temporarily disgraced.
Later years.
Bernini's late works in sculpture are inevitably
overshadowed by his grandiose projects for St. Peter's,
but a few of them are of outstanding interest. For the
Chigi Chapel in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in
Rome, he carved two groups, “Daniel in the Lions' Den”
and “Habakkuk and the Angel” (1655–61). These works show
the beginnings of his late style: elongation of the
body, expressive gesture, and simplified yet emphatic
emotional expression. The same characteristics are
already found in the figures supporting the Throne of
St. Peter and culminate in the moving “Angels” for the
Sant'Angelo Bridge in Rome, which Bernini redecorated
with the help of assistants between 1667 and 1671. Pope
Clement IX (1667–69) so prized the “Angels” carved by
Bernini that they were never set up on the bridge and
are now in the church of Sant'Andrea delle Fratte in
Rome.
The redecorated Sant'Angelo Bridge leading across the
Tiberforms an introduction to the Vatican, and Bernini's
other works—the piazza, Scala Regia, and the baldachin
and cathedra within St. Peter's—form progressively more
powerful expressions of papal power to support and
inspire Roman Catholic pilgrims to the site. Bernini
completed one more decoration in St. Peter's in his last
years: the altar of the Santissimo Sacramento Chapel
(1673–74). The pliant, human adoration of the angels
contrasts with the timeless architecture of the bronze
tabernacle that they flank and typifies Bernini's late
style. In his last years he seems to have found the
inexorable laws of architecture a consolingantithesis to
the transitory human state.
Bernini's greatest late work is the simple Altieri
Chapel in San Francesco a Ripa (c. 1674) in Rome. The
relatively deep space above the altar reveals a statue
representing the death of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni.
Bernini consciouslyseparated architecture, sculpture,
and painting for different roles, reversing the process
that culminated in the Cornaro Chapel. In that sense,
the Altieri Chapel is more traditional, a variation on
his church interiors of the preceding years. Instead of
filling the arched opening, the sculpted figure of
Ludovica lies at the bottom of a large volume of space,
and is illuminated by a heavenly light that plays on the
drapery gathered over her recumbent figure. Her hands
weakly clutching her breast make explicit her painful
death.
Bernini died at the age of 81, after having served eight
popes, and when he died he was widely considered not
only Europe's greatest artist but also one of its
greatest men. He was the last of Italy's remarkable
series of universal geniuses, and the Baroque style he
helped create was the last Italian style to become an
international standard. His death marked the end of
Italy's artistic hegemony in Europe. The style he
evolved was carried on for two more generations in
various parts of Europe by the architects Mattia de'
Rossi and Carlo Fontana in Rome, J.B. Fischer von Erlach
in Austria, and the brothers Cosmas and Egid Quirin Asam
in Bavaria, among others.
Howard Hibbard
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In contrast to Bernini, Borromini preferred monochromatic
interiors. The buildings of Borromini, who came from northern Italy,
are characterized by their inventive transformations of the
established vocabulary of space, light, and architectural elements
in order to increase the content of their work. Borromini's works,
composed of fluid and active concave and convex masses and surfaces
(San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, 1634–41), contain spaces that
areintricate, geometrically derived irregular ovals, octagons, or
hexagons (Sant'Ivo della Sapienza, 1642–60). His late palacefacade
for the College of the Propagation of the Faith (1646–67) was a bold
and vigorous essay that became a major source for Rococo architects
in the early years of the 18th century.
Francesco Borromini
born Sept. 25, 1599, Bissone, Duchy of Lombardy
died Aug. 2, 1667, Rome
original name Francesco Castelli Italian architect who
was a chief formulator of Baroque architectural style.
Borromini (who changed his name in about 1627) secured a
reputation throughout Europe with his striking design
for a small church, S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome.
He differed from Gian Lorenzo Bernini and other
contemporaries in basing hisdesigns on geometric figures
(modules) rather than on the proportions of the human
body.
Youth and education.
Born to Giovanni Domenico Castelli and Anastasia Garogo,
Borromini was introduced to the craft specialities of
architecture when his father sent him to Milan (1608 or
1614) to learn stonecutting. After several years
training in the skills and technology of both
architecture and sculpture, he collected a debt owed to
his father and, without informing his parents, fled to
Rome in 1620. There he became a draftsman and stonemason
in the office of his kinsman, Carlo Maderno, who had
established himself as the major practicing architect in
Italy.
Celibate and irascible, Borromini dedicated himself to
the discipline of architecture. Maderno quickly
recognized Borromini's potential. The aging master and
his young pupil worked together closely on various
problems at St. Peter's, whose fundamental plan was
revised by Maderno. For the Palazzo Barberini, Maderno
determined a basic concept, thenentrusted Borromini with
the realization of specifics. A convergence of both
talents produced the facade design of S. Andrea della
Valle, and Borromini was permitted to undertake the
lantern of the church's dome himself. Borromini's
personality is apparent in these projects, though
Maderno's style dominates them. A facade to be attached
to the late 16th-century oval church of S. Anna dei
Palafrenieri was Borromini's personal project. His
attempt to integrate a five-bay front and two towers
with the existing oval dome prefigured his S. Agnese in
Agone (in Piazza Navona) in its placement of plastic
volumes in space. Equally significant was his
transformation of Maderno's plan for S. Ignazio. Through
his use of pairs of free-standing columns, he suggested
an articulation of space, a major characteristic of his
style. Space in his structures is not merely a void but
rather something corporeal, an element in itself, molded
by the surrounding shell of the building. Later he would
develop this concept by replacing the enclosing wall
with an extensively penetrated framework, as in the Re
Magi chapel.
Maderno died in January 1629, three months after
construction had begun at the Palazzo Barberini. The
famousGian Lorenzo Bernini was put in charge of this
project, though his architectural abilities were
underdeveloped. Borromini continued in a key position,
working out the specifics of Maderno's plan and
collaborating successfully with Bernini. The patron,
however, began to draw heavily on the advice of a third
designer, Pietro da Cortona, and eventually abandoned
Maderno's project for the east facade of the palace.
Unable to work with Cortona and despairing of these
changes, Borromini left the project in 1631. Together
with Bernini he dedicated himself entirely to the task
of designing the baldachin in St. Peter's, which was
conceived as a monumental canopy raised over the tomb of
St. Peter, recalling the canopy that is traditionally
supported over the pope when he is carried in state
through the church. The enormous bronze baldachin was
realized through the closestcooperation between
Borromini and Bernini; the huge, S-shaped volutes that
crown four corkscrew columns are their most important
common creation. Bernini was in command of all
enterprises at St. Peter's, but he paid Borromini a
substantial sum from 1631 to 1633 for this work,
indicating the great importance of his contribution.
An independent architect.
The baldachin was completed in 1633. The year before, on
the commendation of Bernini and Cardinal Francesco
Barberini, Borromini was awarded the office of
university architect. With his new position as support,
he began to seek patronage as an independent architect.
His first independent commission represented an
extraordinary challenge to tradition; it was the Roman
church and monastery of S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane,
begun in 1638. No larger inside than the dimensions of a
single pier at St. Peter's, the small church electrified
Rome, and its reputation spread like wildfire through
Europe. Borromini began by stacking together three
distinct units that normally would have been employed
only in separate buildings: a curious, undulating lower
zone; a middle one suggesting the standard Greek-cross
plan; and an oval dome, a relatively new and still
little-used form. This audacious combination of
precedent and novelty is integrated by complex,
interweaving rhythms. Bold, illusionistic effects,
achieved bycalculated lighting, intensify the space. The
dome appears tobe floating above the interior of the
church like a hallucinatory vision because its springing
point and light sources are concealed by the zone below.
Borromini established contacts with the eminent Spada
family and was also sponsored by Pope Innocent X for a
decade, but his relations with patrons were frequently
stormy and at times reached an impasse because of his
intransigent, defiant attitude. Though bitterly
resentful of what he felt to be a lack of just
recognition, he was indifferent toward wealth and
rejected the fashions of normal dress. Intractable and
melancholic, he was infamous for his fits of rage. On
one of his building sites he was infuriated to discover
a man damaging some materials and had him so violently
beaten that he died.
Given Borromini's gloomy disposition, it is not
surprising thata conflict developed with the famous and
popular Bernini. While they were working together, the
relationship between the two artistic giants had been
mutually profitable: Borromini's style was injected with
a new vitality under Bernini's influence, and Bernini
was strongly impressed by Borromini's novel formulations
of architectural detail. Later, however, a bitter
conflict arose between them. Perhaps Borromini's
subordinate position at St. Peter's sufficiently rankled
him to provoke his departure. He definitely felt this
way later in life, claiming that Bernini had begged him
not to abandon him on the work at St. Peter's and had
promised to recognize his many labours with a worthy
reward. Borromini said that after he had carried out the
work, Bernini withheld the remunerations and rewards and
never gave him anythingexcept good words and grand
promises.
Divergent characters, disparate backgrounds, and
different attitudes toward life presumably provoked the
antagonism. Bernini worked easily with the aristocratic
and powerful; immensely successful as a sculptor and
painter as well as anarchitect, he was outgoing,
charming, and witty. Borromini, on the other hand, was a
lonely, withdrawn man; he prided himself on his highly
specialized training, and he resented his modest degree
of recognition. Conflict between the two became public
in 1645 over the decision to eliminate the towers
Maderno had designed for the facade of St. Peter's.
Maderno left them as substructures, and in 1636 Bernini
submitted a proposal for completing them. After one was
erected, however, technical deficiencies halted further
construction in 1641, and four years later a commission
decided on its removal. Borromini emerged as Bernini's
mosteffective and destructive critic, accusing him of
incompetence. Bernini seldom indulged in professional
envy, however, but, during his Paris visit of 1665, he
accusedBorromini of abandoning the anthropometric basis
of architecture. Because the body of Adam was modelled
notonly by God but also in his image and likeness, it
was argued,the proportions of buildings should be
derived from those of the body of man and woman.
Borromini, however, based his buildings on geometric
configurations in an essentially medieval manner that he
probably learned in Lombardy, where medieval building
procedures had been handed down from generation to
generation. Borromini's approach consisted of
establishing a geometric figure for a building or room,
then articulating this figure by means of geometric
subunits. He thus stood accused of denying the basis of
goodarchitecture. He never divorced himself completely
from the anthropometric basis of design, however; he
insisted, at least once, that his architecture contained
human references. The concave facade of St. Philip Neri
representedto him the welcoming gesture of outstretched
arms: the central unit stood for the chest, the two-part
wings for arm and forearm.
The bizarre quality of Borromini's designs was as
unsettling as his departure from anthropomorphism. Even
his supporters felt uneasy with his novel creations.
Presumably his license departed too far from orthodox
interpretations of antiquity, which were accepted at
this time as the fundamental standards of form for
architecture. This seems paradoxical because he was an
avid student of the ancient world: his drawings of
antique fragments demonstrate a critical contact with
Roman architecture, and his evocations of classical
thought on the project for the Villa Pamphili at San
Pancrazio are recorded with philological exactness.
Nevertheless, the notion was in the air that it was
possible to use and then progress beyond the
achievements of antiquity, and Borromini strongly
identified with this attitude. He said that he certainly
would never havegiven himself to architecture with the
idea of being merelya “copyist,” and he invoked the
example of Michelangelo, who said that he who follows
others never goes ahead. Borromini declared antiquity
and nature to be his points of departure (although he
included the work of Michelangelo aswell), but he
actually spurned the regular and orthodox compositional
motifs of the ancient world. Instead he turned to novel,
curious, and marvelous interpretations, such as could be
found in Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, and to Roman
structural achievements, such as their brickwork and
their use of bevelled corners for vault supports.
Just as Borromini's attitude toward antiquity was
uncommon,so too were his historical roots in medieval
architecture in an era that had rejected medieval
culture as corrupt. Yet his tendency toward the
annulment of the wall, his use of structural ribwork to
strengthen vaults, his designs derived from geometric
configurations, his use of decorative motifs, and
perhaps even his awareness that light can be given major
compositional importance, all represent ideas that
originated in the medieval experience. Closer to his own
time, Borromini investigated certain formal qualities
found in both Florentine architecture of the 15th
century and Mannerist architecture of the 16th century,
especially in that of Michelangelo, whose architecture
was of decisive importance and suggested Borromini's
still more radical experiments. The manner in which
space seemed to expand and contract in a number of
Michelangelo's designs indicated to Borromini the
dynamic potential of this medium.Responding to the past
with greater freedom than his contemporaries, Borromini
employed those elements that suited his purposes.
This broad selection of styles was complemented by his
understanding of structures and materials. The artisan
tradition of Lombardy stressed technical excellence,
which provided Borromini with the knowledge to approach
a full range of structural problems. It gave him a firm
base for his technical virtuosity, which is demonstrated
by a long list of achievements. Among these achievements
are: the careful balancing of his towers for the facade
of St. Peter's; the supporting metal cage for a barrel
vault in the Palazzo Pamphili in Piazza Navona; the
precise brickwork of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri; and
his inventive domes and vaults, such as those of S. Ivo
della Sapienza or the Re Magi chapel. He used the
building yard as an extension of his drafting table and
as a place where he could experiment and improvise to
generate a fruitful exchange between design and
execution. At S. Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, for
example, the three-dimensional curve of the arches
opening to the chapel vaults, as well as other features,
could not have been realized without Borromini's
personal guidance of the stonecutters on the site.
Borromini's urban sensibilities were also highly
developed, as one of his unexecuted schemes
demonstrates. He wished to create a dynamic setting for
the facade of S. Giovanni in Laterano by means of a
piazza. The street passing through this space was to be
surrounded by 24 uniform building fronts, establishing a
large-scale, tightly organized arrangement of spaces.
Always alert in his commissions to contextual
interpretations, he displayed a deep sensitivity to the
relationship of his buildings to the surrounding urban
fabric. The bell-tower facade of St. Philip Neri, for
example, iscomposed to conclude and monumentalize the
street running up to it.
Later years and influence.
Even late in his life, Borromini's innovations continued
to be as energetic and radical as ever. For the Re Magi
chapel in the Collegio di Propaganda Fide, on which he
worked until hisdeath, he designed six pairs of colossal
pilasters to define a generally rectangular space with
bevelled corners.
In the 1660s, Borromini's fortunes tragically declined.
He was increasingly frustrated by the fame and success
of his rival, Bernini. His only disciple, Francesco
Righi, and his mostsympathetic patron, Padre Virgilio
Spada, both died early in the decade. His major
commission of S. Agnese in Agone, in Piazza Navona, was
taken from him; work on another of his projects, S.
Andrea delle Fratte, came to a halt; and his facade of
St. Philip Neri was disfigured by lateral
extensions.Suffering severe melancholia, he travelled to
Lombardy, but when he returned to Rome his melancholy
returned to him, and he spent whole weeks without ever
leaving his house. Borromini burned all of his drawings
in his possession. Takenill, his condition was made
worse by hypochondriac hallucinations and, when he
suffered fits, it was decided that he should be denied
all activity so that he might sleep. On a hot summer's
night, unable to rest and forbidden to work, he arose in
a fury, found a sword, and fell upon it. Borromini
recovered a lucid mind after mortally wounding himself,
repented, received the last sacraments of the church,
and wrote his will before he died. At his own request,
he was buried anonymously in the grave of his teacher
and friend, Maderno. It has been suggested that
Borromini's suicide was the result of an increasing
schizophrenia and that this pathological process is
reflected in his architecture, but this contention is
impossible to demonstrate. His career appears to have
been successful until the disillusionments of the last
years.
In denying the restrictive, enclosing qualities of wall
in order to treat space and light as architectonic
components, Borromini confronted his architectural
inheritance with its most complete and compelling
challenge. Scores of designers would capitalize upon
this revolutionary legacy. Borromini's works from the
first had created an uproar in Rome, and his influence
proved highly suggestive for design in northern Italy
and in central Europe over the course of the next
century. Later, as Neoclassical attitudes gained force,
he was increasingly despised. Largely forgotten during
most of the 19th century, Borromini's architecture has
again been recognized in the 20th century as the
creation of genius.
Christian F. Otto
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Pietro da Cortona's early design for the Villa del Pigneto,
near Rome (before 1630), was derived from the ancient Roman temple
complex at Palestrina, Italy, and decisively altered villa design;
his San Luca e Santa Martina, Rome (1635), was the first church to
exhibit fully developed high Baroque characteristics in which the
movement toward plasticity, continuity, and dramatic emphasis, begun
by Maderno, achieved fruition. Pietro's reworking of a small square
in Rome to include his facade of Santa Maria della Pace (1656–59) as
an almost theatrical element is a cogent example of the Baroque
insistence on the participation of a work in its environment.
Pietro da Cortona
born Nov. 1, 1596, Cortona, Tuscany [Italy]
died May 16, 1669, Rome, Papal States
French Pierre de Cortone, original name Pietro
Berrettini Italian architect, painter, and decorator, an
outstanding exponent of Baroque style.
Pietro studied in Rome from about 1612 under the minor
Florentine painters Andrea Commodi and Baccio Ciarpi and
was influenced by antique sculpture and the work of
Raphael. Themost important of his earliest paintings
were three frescoes (1624–26) in Santa Bibiana, Rome. In
the 1620s he designed the Villa del Pigneto near Rome
and possibly another villa at Castel Fusano, both for
his patrons, the Sacchetti family.
His fame reached its climax in the 1630s with the design
of the Church of SS. Luca e Martina, Rome (1635–50), and
the ceiling fresco “Allegory of Divine Providence”
(1633–39) in the Barberini Palace there. The design of
SS. Luca e Martina derives more from Florentine than
Roman sources, resulting in a different type of Baroque
architecture from that of either Bernini or Borromini.
The ceiling of the Great Hall in the Barberini Palace,
now the National Gallery, was conceived as a painted
glorification of the Barberini pope, Urban VIII, and is
treated illusionistically. Its strong colour and steep
perspective recall Veronese, whose work Cortona may have
seen in Venice in 1637.
Also in 1637 Pietro visited Florence, where he began
paintingthe frescoes representing the “Four Ages of Man”
for Grand Duke Ferdinand II of Tuscany in the Pitti
Palace. In 1640 he returned to finish these and paint
the ceilings of a suite of apartments in the palace
named after the planets. He treated the entire surface
as a single spatial unit, adding a wealth of real stucco
decoration, partly gilt, in the carvings. He returned to
Rome in 1647, where he painted the vault frescoes of
Santa Maria in Vallicella and the ceiling of the long
gallery of the Pamphili Palace in Piazza Navona
(1651–54) for Pope Innocent X. His chief architectural
works of this period were the facades of Santa Maria
della Pace (1656–57)—perhaps his most ingenious
conception—and Santa Maria in Via Lata in Rome
(1658–62). He also produceddesigns for the modernization
of the Pitti Palace and the eastfront of the Louvre in
Paris (1664). He painted religious and mythological
easel pictures throughout his life. From 1634 to1638 he
was head of the Academy of St. Luke in Rome. Despite a
correspondence in feeling between his architecture and
his painting, there is little physical connection
between them, and he never decorated one of hisown
churches.
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In the early years of the 18th century in Rome, parallel to the
development of Rococo in France, renewed interest in the work of
Borromini was shown by Alessandro Specchi in his Ripetta Gate
(1704), and by Filippo Juvarra, a gifted, if unorthodox, pupil of
Carlo Fontana, in his early architectural projects and scene
designs. Italian Rococo developed out ofthis new interest in
Borromini. In Rome the Rococo developed further with the so-called
Spanish Steps (1723) byFrancesco de Sanctis; the facade of Santa
Maria della Quercia (begun 1727) and Piazza Sant'Ignazio (1727) by
Filippo Raguzzini; and, in Piedmont, Santa Caterina, Casale
Monferrato (1718) by Giovanni Battista Scapitta.
National and regional variations
Italy
Architects in northern Italy, notably
Guarino Guarini,
Filippo Juvarra, and Bernardo Vittone, developed a Baroque style of
great structural audacity. Guarini's San Lorenzo (1668–80) and
Palazzo Carignano (1679), both in Turin, have swelling curvilinear
forms, terra-cotta construction, exposed structural members, and
intricate spatial compositions that show his relation to Borromini
and also represent significant developments in the relationship
between structure and light. Juvarra's Palazzo Madama, Turin
(1718–21), has one of the most spectacular of all Baroque
staircases, but the true heir to Guarini was Vittone. To increase
the vertical effect and the unification of space in churches such as
Santa Chiara, Brà (1742), Vittone raised the main arches, eliminated
the drum, and designed a double dome in which one could look through
spherical openings puncturing the inner dome and see the outer shell
painted with images of saints and angels: a glimpse of heaven.
Guarino Guarini
born Jan. 17, 1624, Modena, Duchy of Modena
died March 6, 1683, Milan
also called Camillo Guarini Italian architect, priest,
mathematician, and theologian whose designs and books on
architecture made him a major source for later Baroque
architects in Central Europe and North Italy.
Guarini was in Rome during 1639–47 when Francesco
Borromini was most active. Later he taught in Modena,
Messina, and Paris and finally, in 1666, went to Turin,
where he stayed for the greater part of the remainder of
his life.
While in Turin in the service of the dukes of Savoy,
Guarini built (or furnished designs for) at least six
churches and chapels, five palaces, and a city gate;
published six books, two on architecture and four on
mathematics and astronomy; and sent palace designs to
the Duke of Bavaria and the Margrave of Baden. In San
Lorenzo (1668–87) and Santa Sindone (1667–90) in Turin,
Guarini, working on a centralized plan, converted domes
to an open lacework of interwoven masonry arches. Santa
Sindone was damaged byfire in 1997. Guarini's
longitudinal churches—of which the most spectacular was
Santa Maria della Divina Providenza, in Lisbon,
destroyed by earthquake in 1755—with their veiled light
sources and interwoven spaces served as models for much
of the church development in Central Europe. The Palazzo
Carignano, Turin (1679), is Guarini's masterpiece of
palace design. With its billowing facade, its
magnificent curved double stair, and its astonishing
double dome in the main salon, it well deserves to be
acclaimed the finest urban palace of the second half of
the 17th century in Italy. Guarini's principal
architectural treatise, Architettura Civile, was
published posthumously in Turin in 1737.
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Spain
Spanish Baroque was similar to Italian Baroque but with a greater
emphasis on surface decorations. Alonso Cano, in hisfacade of
the Granada cathedral (1667), and Eufrasio Lopez de Rojas, with the
facade of the cathedral of Jaén (1667), show Spain's absorption of
the concepts of the Baroque at the same time that it maintained a
local tradition. The greatest of the Spanish masters was José Benito
Churriguera, whose work shows most fully the Spanish Baroque
interest in surface texture and decorative detail. His lush
ornamentation attracted many followers, and Spanish architecture of
the late 17th century and early 18th century has been labeled
Churrigueresque. Narciso and Diego Tomé, in the University of
Valladolid (1715), and Pedrode Ribera, in the facade of the San
Fernando Hospital (now the Municipal Museum) in Madrid (1722),
proved themselves to be the chief inheritors of Churriguera.
Alonso Cano
born March 19, 1601, Granada, Spain
died September 3, 1667, Granada
painter, sculptor, and architect, often called the
Spanish Michelangelo for his diversity of talents.
Although he led a remarkably tempestuous life, he
produced religious works of elegance and ease.
Moving to Sevilla (Seville) in 1614, he studied
sculpture under Juan Martínez Montanes and painting
under Francisco Pacheco. Forced to leave Sevilla in 1637
because of a duel with the painter Llano y Valdés, he
fled to Madrid and obtained the favour of the court. His
activities as court painter ended in 1644, when,
suspected of the murder of his wife, he had to escape to
Valencia. He then returned to King Philip IV and
successfully solicited a position as canon in the
cathedral in Granada in 1652, but hewas expelled for
misbehaviour in 1656. Returning to Madrid, he took holy
orders and was appointed chief architect of the Granada
cathedral, a position he held until his death.
Cano painted extensively in Sevilla, Madrid, and
Granada. The Sevilla paintings, among them Via Crucis
and St. Francis Borgia, are influenced by Zurbarán,
monumental and bold, with strong tenebroso (emphasis on
darkness). The Madrid paintings, including St. Isidore's
Miracle of the Well (1645–46), are more impressionistic,
foreshadowing the workof Velázquez. Finally, the last
paintings, from his stay in Granada, especially the
Mysteries of the Virgin in the Cathedral, are
harmonious, with a classic balance and symmetry.
No sculpture from his Seville period has survived, but
many of his polychromed wood statues exist from his time
in Granada. His finest work of sculpture, San Diego de
Alcalá (1653–57), is characteristic in its simplicity of
design and its expressive eloquence.
Cano is most famous for his paintings and sculpture, but
his facade for the cathedral at Granada is considered
one of the most original works of Spanish architecture,
bearing Cano's unique personal stamp and executed with
remarkableexpressive unity.
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The outstanding figure of 18th-century Spanish architecture was
Ventura Rodríguez, who, in his designs for the Chapel of Our Lady of
Pilar in the cathedral of Saragossa (1750), showed himself to be a
master of the developed Rococo in its altered Spanish form; but it
was a Fleming, Jaime Borty Miliá, who brought Rococo to Spain when
he built the west front of the cathedral of Murcia in 1733.
Flanders
Roman Catholicism, political opposition to Spain, and the painter
Peter Paul Rubens were all responsible for the astonishing
full-bodied character of Flemish Baroque. Rubens' friends Jacques
Francart and Pieter Huyssens created an influential northern centre
for vigorous expansive Baroque architecture to which France,
England, and Germany turned. Francart's Béguinage Church (1629) at
Mechelen (Malines) and Huyssens' St. Charles Borromeo (1615) at
Antwerp set the stage for the more fully developed Baroque at St.
Michel (1650) at Louvain, by Willem Hesius, aswell as at the Abbey
of Averbode (1664), by Jan van den Eynde.
Holland
Seventeenth-century architecture in Holland, in contrast, is marked
by sobriety and restraint. Pieter Post, noted for the Huis
ten Bosch (1645) at The Hague and the Town Hall of Maastricht (c.
1658), and Jacob van Campen, who built the Amsterdam Old Town
Hall (1648; now the Royal Palace), were the principal Dutch
architects of the 17th century. After the middle of the century,
Dutch architecture exerted influence on architecture in France and
England. Dutch colonial architecture was especially evident in the
17th and 18th centuries in the Hudson River Valley of North America
and the Dutch West Indies (notably Willemstad on the island of
Curaçao).
Pieter Post
born 1608, Haarlem, Holland
died 1669, The Hague
architect who, along with Jacob van Campen, created the
sober, characteristically Dutch Baroque style.
By 1633, in collaboration with van Campen, he designed
the exquisite Mauritshuis at The Hague, showing in it
his mastery of the Dutch Baroque style. In 1645 he
became architect to the stadholder Frederick Henry. With
van Campen he designed the House in the Wood (Huis ten
Bosch) at The Hague (1645–47) and, independently,
Swanenburg House (1645), Nieuwkoop almshouses at The
Hague (1658), and theweighhouse in Leiden (1658). Post's
town hall at Maastricht (1656) is one of the outstanding
buildings of the 17th centuryin the Netherlands. Like
van Campen, Post is notable for anticipating some of the
architectural refinements of 18th-century France and for
the influence he exerted on English architecture.
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Jacob van Campen
born Feb. 2, 1595, Haarlem, Holland [The Netherlands]
died Sept. 13, 1657, Huis Randenbroek, near Amersfoort
Dutch architect, one of the leaders of agroup of
architects who created a restrained architectural style
that was suited to the social and political climate of
the Netherlands.
Van Campen began his career as a painter. He studied the
work of Andrea Palladio and others in Italy and
introduced a Dutch Classical style to the Netherlands.
His domestic style was quiet and unpretentious, and it
had considerable influence, especially in England. His
masterpiece is considered to be the Mauritshuis
(1633–44; now the Royal Picture Gallery) in The Hague,
where, with Pieter Post, he also designed the royal
palace, Huis ten Bosch (1645). His other important works
include the Town Hall (now Royal Palace), Amsterdam
(1648–55), and the Baroque Nieuwe Kerk (New Church, or
St. Anne's Church), Haarlem (1645–49).
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France
Salomon de Brosse's Luxembourg Palace (1615) in Paris and
Château de Blérancourt (1614), northeast of Paris between Coucy and
Noyon, were the bases from which Francois Mansart and Louis
Le Vau developed their succession of superb country houses.
Salomon de Brosse
born 1571, Verneuil-sur-Oise, Fr.
died Dec. 9, 1626, Paris
most influential French architect of theearly 17th
century, whose works facilitated the development of the
classical châteaus designed by the generation that
followed him.
De Brosse was born into a family of Protestant
architects. He trained underhis father and then quickly
achieved success on his own. As architect to the queen
regent, Marie de Médicis, from 1608, he prepared designs
for the Palais du Luxembourg (built c. 1614–30), which
featured a rusticated facade influenced by those of
Italian Renaissance palazzi. This work and three
châteaus—Coulommiers (1613), Montceaux (completed 1615),
and especially Blérancourt (completed prior to
1619)—strongly influenced later architects, particularly
François Mansart, who worked under de Brosse at
Coulommiers.
His two most important public works were the renovation
of the hall of the Palais de Justice at Paris and
construction of the Palais du Parlement of Brittany at
Rennes. In 1623 he rebuilt the Protestant temple at
Charenton, but his most influential church design is the
novel facade for Saint-Gervais (begun 1616), which
combines a lofty Gothic nave with a classical facade.
De Brosse's importance as a designer lay in his bold and
simple treatments of elevations, facades, and ground
plans. A detailed understanding of his achievements is
impossible because of the destruction or heavy
alteration of virtually allhis major buildings.
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Mansart was the more accomplished of the two architects, and
his Orléans wing of the Chateau de Blois (1635) in the Loire Valley
and Maisons-Laffitte, near Paris (1642), are renowned for their high
degree of refinement, subtlety, and elegance. Mansart's church of
Val-de-Grace (1645) in Paris and his designs for the Bourbon
mausoleum (1665) established the full Baroque in France; it was a
rich, subtle Baroque that was quiet in its strength and restrained
in its vigour.
Francois Mansart
born January 1598, Paris
died September 1666
Mansart also spelled Mansard architect important for
establishing classicism in Baroque architecture in
mid-17th-century France. His buildings are notable for
their subtlety, elegance, and harmony. His most complete
surviving work is the château of Maisons.
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Le Vau was Mansart's only serious competitor, and in 1657, with his
Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, near Paris, he fired the imagination of
Louis XIV and of his finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Vaux,
though exhibiting certain Dutch influences, is noted for its
integration of Le Vau's architecture with the decorative ensembles
of the painter and designer Charles Le Brun and the garden designs
of landscape architect Andre Le Notre. By serving as a model
for Louis XIV's Palace of Versailles, the complex at Vaux was
perhaps the most important mid-century European palace. Le Vau
showed a sensitivity to Italian Baroque architecture that was
unusual in a French architect, and his College of Four Nations
(1662; now the Institute of France) in Paris owes much to the Roman
churches of Santa Maria della Pace by Pietro da Cortona and
Sant'Agnese in Agone (1652–55) in the Piazza Navona by Borromini and
Carlo Rainaldi. Le Vau, Le Nôtre, and Le Brun began working at
Versailles within a few years of their success at Vaux, but the
major expansion of the palace did not occur until after the end of
the Queen's War (1668). At Versailles, Le Vau showed his ability to
deal with a building of imposing size. The simplicity of his forms
and the rich, yet restrained, articulation of the garden facade mark
Versailles as his mostaccomplished building. Le Nôtre's inventive
disposition of ground, plant, and water forms created a wide range
of vistas, terraces, gardens, and wooded areas that integrated
palace and landscape into an environment emphasizing the delights of
continuity and separation, of the infinite and the intimate. Upon Le
Vau's death, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, grandnephew of François,
succeeded him and proved himselfequal to Louis XIV's desires by more
than trebling the size of the palace (1678–1708). Versailles became
the palatial idealand model throughout Europe and the Americas until
the endof the 18th century. A succession of grand palaces was built,
including the following: Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace (see ) by
Sir John Vanbrugh in England; the Residenz of Würzburg, Ger. (1719),
by Neumann; the Zwinger in Dresden, Ger. (1711), by Matthäus Daniel
Pöppelmann; the Belvedere,Vienna (1714), by Johann Lukas von
Hildebrandt; the Royal Palace at Caserta, Italy (1752), by Luigi
Vanvitelli; and the Royal Palace (National Palace) at Madrid (1736),
by GiovanniBattista Sacchetti.
Andre Le Notre
born March 12, 1613, Paris, Fr.
died Sept. 15, 1700, Paris
one of the greatest French landscape architects, his
masterpiece being the gardens of Versailles.
Le Nôtre grew up in an atmosphere of technical
expertise;his father, Jean Le Nôtre, was the master
gardener of King Louis XIII at theTuileries. At the
studio of painter François Vouet he studied the laws of
perspective and optics,which he meticulously followed in
his plans, and from François Mansart, uncle of Jules
Hardouin-Mansart, the principal architect of Versailles,
he learned the principles of architecture. Succeeding
his father (1637), Le Nôtre redesigned the Tuileries
gardens, revealing his genius for expansive vistas. He
continued the main avenue, later calledthe Champs-Élysées,
as far as the eye could see.
Le Nôtre was subsequently named to a succession of
official posts. For finance minister Nicolas Fouquet he
designed the château grounds of Vaux-le-Vicomte, near
Melun (1656–61), suiting his layout to the relief of the
ground. He extended from the parterres great blocks of
trees, contracting progressively to accentuate the
perspective, and related them to fountains, waterworks,
and statuary, obtaining the maximum reflection by
attention to water levels. So delighted with the result
was Louis that he charged Le Nôtre with planning the
gardens at Versailles, where the grounds covered more
than 15,000 acres (6,000 hectares). Transforming a muddy
swamp into a park of magnificent vistas, he extended and
enhanced the architecture of the palace, and his
monumental style reflected and heightened the splendour
of Louis XIV's court.
Le Nôtre's other designs include the gardens of the
Trianon, Saint-Cloud, and Chantilly and the parks of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Fontainebleau. His genius was
indemand throughout the capitals of Europe. He visited
London (1662), where he is believed to have been
responsible for St. James's Park, and Italy (1679). His
students and collaborators, working in Germany, Austria,
andSpain, spread his style of landscape planning and
garden design across the European continent. A century
later Pierre-Charles L'Enfant's plan for the U.S.
capital at Washington, D.C., was influenced by Le
Nôtre's design for thegrounds of Versailles.
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Jules Hardouin-Mansart
born , c. April 16, 1646 Paris, Fr.
died May 11, 1708, Marly-le-Roi
French architect and city planner to King Louis XIVwho
completed the design of Versailles.
Mansart in 1668 adopted the surname of his granduncle by
marriage, the distinguished architect François Mansart.
By 1674, when he was commissioned to rebuild the château
of Clagny for Louis XIV's mistress Madame de Montespan,
he was already launched on a brilliant career. Among his
earlier achievements were many private houses, including
his own, the Hôtel de Lorges, later the Hôtel de Conti.
In 1675 Mansart became official architect to the king
and from 1678 was occupied with redesigning and
enlarging the palace of Versailles. He directed a legion
of collaborators and protégés, many of whom became the
leading architects of the following age. Starting from
plans of architect Louis LeVau, Mansart built the new
Hall of Mirrors, the Orangerie, the Grand Trianon, and
the north and south wings. At the time of his death he
was working on the chapel. The vast complex, with an
exquisite expanse of gardens designed by André Le Nôtre,
was a harmonious expression of French Baroque classicism
and a model that other courts of Europe sought to
emulate.
Although occupied with this enormous project for much of
hislife, Mansart built many other public buildings,
churches, and sumptuous houses. Thought to be most
reflective of his individual ability to combine
classical and Baroque architectural design is the chapel
of Les Invalides, Paris. Admirable contributions to city
planning include his Place deVendôme and Place des
Victoires, Paris.
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Hardouin-Mansart's Dôme des Invalides, Paris (c. 1675), is generally
agreed to be the finest church of the last half of the 17th century
in France (). The correctness and precision of its form, the harmony
and balance of its spaces, and the soaring vigour of its dome make
it a landmark not only of the Paris skyline but also of European
Baroque architecture.
After Nicolas Pineau returned to France from Russia, he, with
Gilles-Marie Oppenordt and Juste-Aurele Meissonier, with
their increasing concern for asymmetry, created the full Rococo.
Meissonier and Oppenordt should be noted too for their exquisite,
imaginative architectural designs, unfortunately never built (e.g.,
facade of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, 1726, by Meissonier).
Nicolas Pineau
born Oct. 8, 1684, Paris
died April 24, 1754, Paris
French wood-carver and interior designer, a leader inthe
development of interior decorating in the light,
asymmetric, lavishly decorated Rococo style.
After study with the architects François Mansart and
Germain Boffrand, Pineau began his career as a carver of
woodwork. His father, Jean-Baptiste Pineau, was a
sculptor in wood, and his son, Dominique (1718–86), also
became a wood sculptor.
One of a group of French artisans who were visiting the
newly established city of St. Petersburg in 1716 at the
invitation of Peter the Great, Pineau remained in Russia
until about 1728, carving the tsar's cabinet in the
Peterhof palace and also serving as an architect and
interior designer. Returning to Paris, he became an
important designer, launching the vogue for Rococo rooms
in private dwellings.
Pineau's works are characterized by shallow recesses
with rounded corners and ornamentation employing shell
motifs, leafy scrolls, and classical busts in
medallions. Later interior designers and architects were
influenced by his engravings.
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Juste-Aurele Meissonier
born 1693/95, Turin, Savoy
died July 31, 1750, Paris
French goldsmith, interior decorator, and architect,
often considered the leading originator of the
influential, though short-lived, Rococo style in the
decorative arts.
Early in his career Meissonier migrated to Paris,
receiving his warrant as master goldsmith from King
Louis XV in 1724 and his appointment as designer for the
King's bedchamber and cabinet in 1726. He had a powerful
and fertile imagination; his fantastic grottoes and
swirling, animated, asymmetrical metalwork designs
combined contrasting and original motifs.As a goldsmith,
he was remarkable for the boldness of his conceptions
for such objects as snuffboxes, watch cases, sword
hilts, and tureens. He prepared three fine sets of
sketches for interior decoration, furniture, and
goldsmith designs. He also developed a plan for the
facade of the church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, in 1726,
but few of his architectural ideas were realized.
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The early years of the 18th century saw the artistic centre of
Europe shift from Rome to Paris. Pierre Lepautre, working under
Hardouin-Mansart on the interiors of the Château de Marly (1679),
invented new decorative ideas that became the Rococo. Lepautre
changed the typical late 17th-century flat arabesque, which filled a
geometrically constructed panel, to a linear pattern in relief,
which was enclosed by a frame that determined its own shape.
White-and gold-painted 17th-century interiors (the central salon of
the palace at Versailles) were replaced by varnished natural-wood
surfaces (Château de Meudon, Cabinet à la Capucine) or by painted
pale greens, blues, and creams (Cabinet Vert, Versailles, 1735). The
resulting delicate asymmetry in relief and elegant freedom
revolutionized interior decoration and within a generation exerted a
profound effect on architecture. Architects rejected the massive
heavy relief of the Baroque in favour of a light and delicate, but
still active, surface. Strong, active, and robust interior spaces
gave way to intricate, elegant but restrained spatial sequences.
England
The late designs of Inigo Jones for Whitehall Palace (1638)
and Queen's Chapel (1623) in London introduced English patrons to
the prevailing architectural ideas of northern Italyin the late 16th
century. Although he was influenced heavily by 16th-century
architects such as Palladio, Serlio, and Vincenzo Scamozzi, Jones
approached the Baroque spirit in his late works by unifying them
with a refined compositional vigour.
Sir Christopher Wren
presented English Baroque in itscharacteristic restrained but
intricate form in St. Stephen's, Walbrook, London (1672), with its
multiple changing views and spatial and structural complexity.
Wren's greatest achievement, St. Paul's Cathedral, London
(1675–1711), owes much to French and Italian examples of the Baroque
period; but the plan shows a remarkable adaptation of the
traditional English cathedral plan to Baroque spatial uses. Wren is
notable for his large building complexes (Hampton Court Palace,
1689, and Greenwich Hospital, 1696), which, in continuing the
tradition of Inigo Jones, paved the way for the future successes of
Sir John Vanbrugh. Vanbrugh's Castle Howard in Yorkshire
(1699) and Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire (1705; see ) mark the
culmination of the Baroque style in England.
Inigo Jones
born July 15, 1573, Smithfield, London, Eng.
died June 21, 1652, London
British painter, architect, and designer who founded the
English classical tradition of architecture. The Queen's
House (1616–19) at Greenwich, London, his first major
work, became a part of the National Maritime Museum
in1937. His greatest achievement is the Banqueting House
(1619–22) at Whitehall (see photograph). Jones's only
other surviving royal building is the Queen's Chapel
(1623–27) at St. James's Palace.
Jones was the son of a cloth worker also called Inigo.
Of the architect's early life little is recorded, but he
was probably apprenticed to a joiner. By 1603 he had
visited Italy long enough to acquire skill in painting
and design and to attract the patronage of King
Christian IV of Denmark and Norway, at whose court he
was employed for a time before returning to England.
There he is next heard of as a “picture maker” (easel
painter). Christian IV's sister, Anne, was the queen of
James I of England, a fact that may have led to Jones's
employment by her in 1605 to design the scenes and
costumes of a masque, the first of a long series he
designed for her and later for the king. The words to
these masques were often supplied by Ben Jonson, the
scenery, costumes, and effects nearly always by Jones.
More than 450 drawings by him, representing work on 25
masques, a pastoral, and two plays ranging in date
between 1605 and 1641, survive at Chatsworth House,
Derbyshire.
From 1605 until 1610 Jones probably regarded himself as
primarily under the queen's protection, but he was
patronized also by Robert Cecil, 1st earl of Salisbury,
for whom he produced his earliest known architectural
work, a design for the New Exchange in the Strand (c.
1608; demolished in the 18th century). Though a somewhat
immature design, the work was more sophisticated than
anything being done in England at the time. Some designs
(later superseded) for the restoration and improvement
of Old St. Paul's Cathedral also date from this period,
and in 1610 Jones was given an appointment that
confirmed the direction of his future career. He became
surveyor of works to the heir to the throne, Henry,
prince of Wales.
This appointment, with all its promise, was short-lived,
and Jones did little or nothing for the prince before
the latter's death in 1612. In 1613, however, he was
compensated by the guarantee of still higher office on
the death of the king's surveyor of works, Simon Basil.
To this office Jones succeeded in 1615, in the meantime
having taken the opportunity offered him by Thomas
Howard, 2nd earl of Arundel, to revisit Italy. Arundel
and his party, including Jones, left England in April
1613 and proceeded to Italy, spending the winter of
1613–14 in Rome. In the course of the visit Jones had
ample opportunity to study works by modern masters as
well as antique ruins. Of the masters, the one to whom
he attached the greatest importance was Andrea Palladio,
the Italian architect who had gained wide influence
through his The Four Books of Architecture (1570; I
quattrolibri dell'architettura), which Jones took with
him on his tour. Returning to England in the autumn of
1614, Jones had completed his self-education as a
classical architect.
Jones's career as surveyor of works to James I and
Charles I lasted from 1615 to 1643. During most of those
28 years he was continuously employed in the building,
rebuilding, or improvement of royal houses. His first
important undertaking was the Queen's House at
Greenwich, based to some extent on the Medici villa at
Poggio a Caiano, near Florence, but detailed in a style
closer to Palladio or Vincenzo Scamozzi (1552–1616).
Work there was suspended on the death of Queen Anne in
1619 and completed only in 1635 for Charles's queen,
Henrietta Maria. The building, considerably altered, now
houses part of the National Maritime Museum.
In 1619 the Banqueting House at Whitehall was destroyed
by fire; and between that year and 1622 Jones replaced
it with what has always been regarded as his greatest
achievement. The Banqueting House consists of one great
chamber, raisedon a vaulted basement. It was conceived
internally as a basilica on the Vitruvian model but
without aisles, the superimposed columns being set
against the walls, which support a flat, beamed ceiling.
For the main panels of this ceiling, allegorical
paintings by Peter Paul Rubens were commissioned by
Charles I and set in place in 1635. The exterior echoes
the arrangement of the interior, with pilasters and
regular columns set against rusticated walling.
The Banqueting House has only two complete facades. The
ends were never completed, and this has given rise to
the supposition that the building was intended to form
part of a larger whole. This may have been so, and it is
certain that Charles I, nearly 20 years after the
Banqueting House was built, instructed Jones to prepare
designs for rebuilding the whole of Whitehall Palace.
These designs exist (at WorcesterCollege, Oxford, and at
Chatsworth House) and are among Jones's most interesting
creations. They owe something to the palace of El
Escorial near Madrid but are worked out in terms
deriving partly from Palladio and Scamozzi and partly
from Jones's own studies of the antique.
Jones's work was not confined to royal palaces. He was
muchinvolved in the regulation of new buildings in
London, and out of this activity emerged the project
that he planned in 1630 for the 4th earl of Bedford on
his land at Covent Garden. This comprised a large open
space bounded on the north and east by arcaded houses,
on the south by the earl's garden wall, and on the west
by a church with flanking gateways connecting to two
single houses. The design probably derives partly from
the piazza in Livorno, Italy, and partly from the Place
Royale (now the Place des Vosges) in Paris. None of the
original houses survive, but the church of St. Paul
still stands, though much altered. Its portico is an
instance, unique in Europe at its date of construction,
of the use of the primitive Tuscan order of
architecture.
With Covent Garden, Jones introduced formal town
planning to London—it is the first London “square.” He
was probably instrumental, from 1638, in creating
another square by planning the layout of the houses in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, one of the houses (Lindsey House,
still existing at No. 59 and 60) being attributed to
him.
The most important undertaking of Jones's later years in
office was the restoration of Old St. Paul's Cathedral
in 1633–42. This included not only the repair of the
14th-century choir but the entire recasing, in
rusticated masonry, of the Romanesque nave and transepts
and the building of a new west front with a portico (56
feet [17 metres] high) of 10 columns. This portico,
among Jones's most ambitious and subtly calculated
works, tragically vanished with the rebuilding of the
cathedral after the Great Fire of London in 1666. (In
1997 more than 70 carved stones from the portico were
excavated from the building's foundations.) Jones's work
at St. Paul's considerably influenced Sir Christopher
Wren and is reflected in some of his city churches as
well as in his early designs for rebuildingthe
cathedral.
At the outbreak of the English Civil Wars in 1642, Jones
was compelled to relinquish his office as surveyor of
works and left London. He was captured at the siege of
Basing House in 1645. His estate was temporarily
confiscated, and he was heavily fined. In the following
year, however, his pardon was confirmed by the House of
Lords and his estate restored. In the year of Charles
I's execution, 1649, he was doing work at Wilton for the
earl of Pembroke, but the great double-cube room there
is probably mostly the work of his pupil John Webb, who
survived to reestablish something of the Jones tradition
after the Restoration in 1660. Jones was buried withhis
parents in the church of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf, in
London.
Sir John Summerson
|
Sir Christopher Wren
born Oct. 20, 1632, East Knoyle, Wiltshire, Eng.
died Feb. 25, 1723, London
designer, astronomer, geometrician, and the greatest
Englisharchitect of his time.Wren designed 53 London
churches, including St. Paul's Cathedral, as well as
many secular buildings of note. Hewas a founder of
theRoyal Society (president 1680–82), and his scientific
work was highly regarded by Sir Isaac Newton and Blaise
Pascal. He was knighted in 1673.
Early academic career and scientific pursuits
Wren, the son of a rector, was the youngest child, the
only boy, and delicate in health. Before Christopher was
three, hisfather was appointed dean of Windsor, and the
Wren family moved into the precincts of the court. It
was among the intellectuals around King Charles I that
the boy first developed his mathematical interests. The
life at Windsor was rudely disturbed by the outbreak of
the English Civil Wars in 1642. The deanery was pillaged
and the dean forced to retire, first to Bristol and then
to the country home of a son-in-law, William Holder, in
Oxfordshire. Wren was sent to school at Westminster but
spent much time under Holder's tuition, experimenting in
astronomy. He translated William Oughtred's work on
sundials into Latin and constructed various astronomical
and meteorological devices. If the general direction of
his studies was toward astronomy, however, there was an
important turn toward physiology in 1647 when he met the
anatomist Charles Scarburgh. Wren prepared experiments
for Scarburgh and made models representing the working
of the muscles. One factor that stands out clearly from
these early years is Wren's disposition to approach
scientific problems by visual means.His diagrams that
have survived are beautifully drawn, and his models seem
to have been no less elegant.
In 1649 Wren went to Wadham College, Oxford, as a
“gentleman commoner,” a status that carried certain
privileges, and graduated with a B.A. in 1651. Oxford at
that time had passed through a rigorous purgation of its
more conservative elements by the parliamentary
government. New men had been introduced, some of whom
possessed great ability and had a special interest in
the “experimental philosophy” so eloquently heralded by
the scientific philosopher Sir Francis Bacon.
Receiving his M.A. in 1653, Wren was elected a fellow of
All Souls College, Oxford, in the same year and began an
active period of research and experiment, ending with
his appointment as Gresham professor of astronomy in
Gresham College, London, in 1657. In the following year,
withthe death of Oliver Cromwell and the ensuing
political turmoil, the college was occupied by the
military, and Wren returned to Oxford, where he probably
remained during the events that led to the restoration
of Charles II in 1660. He returned to Gresham College,
where scholarly activity resumed and an intellectual
circle proposed a society “for the promotion of
Physico-Mathematicall Experimental Learning.” After
obtaining the patronage of the restored monarchy, this
group became the Royal Society, Wren being one of the
most active participants and the author of the preamble
to its charter.
In 1661 Wren was elected Savilian professor of astronomy
at Oxford, and in 1669 he was appointed surveyor of
works to Charles II. It appears, however, that, having
tested himself successfully in so many directions, he
still, at 30, had not found the one in which he could
find complete satisfaction.
Turn to architecture
One of the reasons why Wren turned to architecture may
have been the almost complete absence of serious
architectural endeavour in England at the time. The
architect Inigo Jones had died about 10 years
previously. There were perhaps half a dozen men in
England with a reasonable grasp of architectural theory
but none with the confidence to bring the art of
building within the intellectual range of Royal Society
thought—that is, to develop it as an art capable of
beneficial scientific inquiry. Here, for Wren, was a
whole field, which, given the opportunity, he could
dominate—a field in which the intuition of the physicist
and the art of a model maker would join to design works
of formidable size and intricate construction.
Opportunity came, for in 1662 he was engaged in the
design of the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford. This, the
gift of Bishop Gilbert Sheldon of London to his old
university, was to be a theatre in the classical sense,
where university ceremonies would be performed. It
followed a classical form, inspired by the ancient
Theatre of Marcellus in Rome, but was roofed with timber
trusses of novel design, thereby combining the classical
point of view with the empirical modern in a way
entirely characteristic of a Royal Society mind. At the
same time, Sheldon probably was consulting Wren about
London's battered—and in parts nearly derelict—St.
Paul's Cathedral. So Wren was drawn, deeply and
immediately, into building problems. What he desperately
needed at that moment was contact with the European
tradition of classicism, and he seized a chance to join
an embassy proceeding to Paris.
By 1665 architecture at the court of Louis XIV had
reached a climax of creativity. The Louvre Palace was
approaching completion, and the remodeling of the Palace
of Versailles had begun. Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the great
sculptor and architect, was in Paris making designs for
the Louvre's east front, and the aged Italian allowed
Wren to peruse his drawings. There was considerably more
for Wren to see in the French capital, including the
domed churches of the Val-de-Grâce and the Sorbonne and
a marvelous array of chateaus within easy range of
Paris.
At Oxford in the spring of 1666, he made his first
design for a dome for St. Paul's. It was accepted in
principle on August 27,1666. One week later, however,
London was on fire. The Great Fire of London reduced
two-thirds of the City to a smoking desert and old St.
Paul's Cathedral to a ruin. Wren was most likely at
Oxford at the time, but the news, so fantastically
relevant to his own future, drew him at once to London.
Between September 5 and 11 he ascertained the precise
area of devastation, worked out a plan for rebuilding
the City on new and more regular lines, and submitted it
to Charles II. His plan reflected both his familiarity
with Versailles and his acquaintance, through
engravings, with the Rome of Pope Sixtus V. Others also
submitted plans, and the king proclaimed on September 13
that a new plan for London would be adopted. No new
plan, however, proceeded any further than the paper on
which it was drawn. The problems of survey,
compensation, and redistribution were too great. A
rebuilding act was passed in 1667. It allowed only for
the widening of certain streets, laid down standards of
construction for new houses, levied a tax on coal coming
into the Port of London, and provided for the rebuilding
of a few essential buildings.
In 1669 the king's surveyor of works died, and Wren was
promptly installed. In December he married Faith Coghill
andmoved into the surveyor's official residence at
Whitehall, where he lived, so far as is known, until his
dismissal in 1718.
In 1670 a second rebuilding act was passed, raising the
tax on coal and thus providing a source of funds for the
rebuilding of St. Paul's Cathedral and several churches
withinthe City of London and the erection of a column
(The Monument) to commemorate the Great Fire. The city
was now being rebuilt at a considerable pace. Wren
himself had nothing to do with the general process. He
did give occasional advice to the City authorities on
their major projects but designed no houses or City
companies' halls. Hewas the king's surveyor operating
from Whitehall, not an official of the City of London.
St. Paul's and the City churches did not fall
automatically within the sphere of the royal works,
though there was a long tradition of royal
responsibility for St. Paul's.
In 1670 the first churches were rebuilt. Eighty-seven
churches had been destroyed in the fire, but some
parishes were united so that only 52 were rebuilt.
Although Wren was personally responsible for all these,
it is not to be supposed that each of them represents
his own fully developed design.That there was much
delegation is shown by the surviving drawings. Only a
few are in Wren's hand. There is no doubt, though, that
Wren approved the design in every case, and in certain
churches the impress of his personality is distinct.
Construction of St. Paul's
While the churches were being built, Wren was slowly and
painfully evolving designs for St. Paul's. The initial
stage is represented by the First Model of 1670, now in
the trophy room at the cathedral. This plan was approved
by the king, and demolition of the old cathedral began.
By 1673, however, the design seemed too modest, and Wren
met his critics by producing a design of spectacular
grandeur. A wooden model was made of this, and the Great
Model, as it iscalled, is still preserved at St. Paul's.
It failed to satisfy the canons of St. Paul's and
clerical opinion generally, however, and Wren was
compelled to withdraw from the ideal and compromise with
the traditional. In 1675 he proposed the rather meagre
Classical-Gothic Warrant Design, which was atonce
accepted by the king, and within months building
started.
What happened then is something of a mystery. The
cathedral that Wren started to build bears only a slight
resemblance to the Warrant Design. A mature and superbly
detailed structure began to rise. In 1694 the masonry of
the choir was finished and the rest of the fabric well
in hand. In 1697 the first service was held in the
cathedral. There was still, however, no dome. Building
had been in progress for 22 years, and some restless
elements in the government seemed to think this too
long. As an incentive for more rapid progress, half of
Wren's salary was suspended until the cathedral would be
complete. Wren was now 65. Construction was completed in
1710, and in 1711 the cathedral was officially declared
to be finished. Wren, 79, petitioned for the withheld
moiety of his salary, which was duly paid. The cathedral
had been built in 35 years under onearchitect. (See also
Saint Paul's Cathedral and related classicarticles from
the 2nd (1777–84) and 3rd (1788–97) editions
ofEncyclopædia Britannica.)
Concurrent projects
Through all those years Wren was not only the chief
architect of St. Paul's and the City churches but also
the headof the King's Works and thus the responsible
officer for all expenditure on building issuing from the
royal exchequer. He had an able staff to look after
routine maintenance, but much business passed through
his hands, including the control of building
developments in and around Westminster. About 1674 the
University of Cambridge considered building a Senate
House for purposes similar to those for which the
Sheldonian Theatre had been built. Wren made designs,
but the project was abandoned. The master ofTrinity
College, who had promoted the scheme, was disappointed,
but he persuaded his own college to undertakethe
erection of a new library (1676–84) and to employ Wren
to design it. Wren's classicism here is impressive.
There is nohint of the Baroque style prevalent in Europe
at the time, andthe building could well be mistaken for
a Neoclassical work of a century later.
At Oxford in 1681 the dean of Christ Church invited Wren
to complete the main gateway of the college. The lower
part of Tom Tower, as the gateway was called, had been
built by Thomas Cardinal Wolsey in a richly ornamental
Gothic style. The octagonal tower that Wren imposed
illustrates both his respect for Gothic and his
reservations about it. His attitude toward Gothic design
was consistent and influenced Gothic construction in
England well into the 18th century. In 1682 Charles II
founded the Royal Hospital at Chelsea for the reception
of veterans superannuated from his standing army. The
idea doubtless derived from Louis XIV's Hôtel des
Invalides (1671–76) in Paris, but Wren's building,
completed about 1690, is very different from its
prototype. Charles II died in 1685. In the short reign
of his brother, James II, Wren's attention was directed
mainly to Whitehall. The new king, a Roman Catholic,
required a new chapel; he also ordered a new privy
gallery and council chamber and a riverside apartment
for the queen. All these were built by Wren but were
destroyed in the Whitehall fire of 1698.
There is not much information about Wren's personal life
after 1669. He was knighted in the year of the Great
Model, 1673. His first wife died of smallpox in 1675,
leaving him withone young son, Christopher (another had
died in infancy). His second wife, Jane Fitzwilliam (Fitz
William), by whom he had a daughter, Jane, and a son,
William, died in 1679. In these years he never wholly
abandoned his scientific pursuits. He was still at the
centre of the Royal Society and was its president from
1680 to 1682. He was sufficiently active in public
affairs to be returned as member of Parliament for Old
Windsor in 1680 and, although he did not again take his
seat, in 1689 and 1690.
With the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which drove James
II from the throne, Wren found himself chief architect
to William of Orange. William III and Mary II proved to
be the most active builders of them all. They disliked
Whitehall Palace, and in 1689 Wren was at work
reconstructing two palaces: one at Kensington on the
outskirts of London and the other at Hampton Court, 15
miles (24 km) away, up the River Thames. Kensington
Palace was a piecemeal conversion of an older house,
with new courts and galleries added. It is not a totally
satisfactory composition, but the south front is a noble
piece of brickwork. Hampton Court Palace, on the other
hand, started as a project of huge dimensions—nothing
less, in fact, than a rebuilding of the entire palace
begun by Wolsey. Wren's first designs have survived, and
in these he is seen, for the first time, spreadinghis
wings as a palace architect. It was decided to demolish
only half of the old palace, however, and Wren's design
was reduced considerably. Nevertheless, he brought to it
many innovations and a unique use of English building
materials. Hampton Court is a mixture of red and brown
brick and Portland stone combined in masterly
equilibrium.
Queen Mary died in 1694. The king lost heart, and
building at Hampton Court was suspended; the palace was
not completed until 1699. Two years before her death the
queen had initiated a scheme for the building of a royal
hospital for seamen at Greenwich. For this Wren made his
first plans in 1694. The work began in 1696, but the
whole group of buildings was not completed until several
years after his death. Greenwich Hospital (later the
Royal Naval College) was Wren's last great work and the
only one still in progress after St. Paul's had been
completed in 1710.
Queen Anne granted him a house at Hampton Court. He had,
besides, a London house on St. James's Street, and it
was there that a servant, noticing that he was taking an
unusually long nap after dinner one evening, found him
deadin his chair. Wren was buried with great ceremony in
St. Paul's Cathedral, the tomb covered by a simply
inscribed slab of black marble. On a nearby wall his son
later placed a dedication, including a sentence that was
to become one of the most famous of all monumental
inscriptions: “Lector, si monumentum requiris,
circumspice” (“Reader, if you seek a monument, look
about you”).
Assessment
At his death Wren was 90. He had far outlived the age to
which his genius belonged. Even the men he had trained
and who owed much to his original and inspiring
leadership were no longer young. The Baroque school they
had created was already under fire from a new generation
that brushed Wren's reputation aside and looked back
beyond him to InigoJones. Architects of the 18th century
could not forget Wren, but they could not forgive those
elements in his work that seemed to them unclassical.
The churches left the strongest mark on subsequent
architecture. In France, where Englisharchitecture
rarely made much impression, St. Paul's Cathedral could
not be easily ignored, and the Church of Sainte-Geneviève
(now the Panthéon) in Paris, begun about 1757, rises to
a drum and dome similar to St. Paul's. Nobody with a
dome to build could ignore Wren's, and there are myriad
versions of it, from St. Isaac's Cathedral (dome
constructed 1840–42; completed 1858) in St. Petersburg
to the U.S. Capitol at Washington, D.C. (dome built
1855–63).
It was only in the 20th century that Wren's work ceased
to be a potent and sometimes controversial factor in
English architectural design. The last major architect
to have been confessedly dependent on him was Sir Edwin
Lutyens, who died in 1944. The Wren Society, founded at
the bicentenary of Wren's death in 1923, published 20
volumes of Wren material (1924–43), edited by A.T.
Bolton and H.D. Hendry.
Sir John Summerson
|
Sir John Vanbrugh
baptized January 24, 1664, London, England
died March 26, 1726, London
British architect who brought the English Baroque style
to its culmination in Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire. He
was also one of the dramatists of the Restoration comedy
of manners.
Vanbrugh's grandfather was a Flemish merchant, and his
father was a sugar baker in Chester, Cheshire, England,
where the young Vanbrugh (by tradition) went to the
King's School. In 1686 he was commissioned in a regiment
of foot soldiers and in 1690, while visiting Calais,
France, was arrested as a suspected English agent. While
imprisoned in the Bastille, he wrote the first draft of
a comedy. After his release in 1692, he was a soldier
again for six years but appears to have seen no active
service.
Vanbrugh's first comedy, The Relapse: Or Virtue in
Danger , was written as a sequel to Colley Cibber's
Love's Last Shift. Itopened in 1696 and was highly
successful. His next important piece, The Provok'd Wife
(1697), was also a triumph. In 1698 the churchman Jeremy
Collier published an attack on the immorality of the
theatre aimed especially at Vanbrugh, whose plays were
more robust than those of such contemporaries as William
Congreve. Vanbrugh and others retaliated, but to little
effect, and he kept silent until 1700. Then came a
sequence of free and lively adaptations from the French,
more farce than comedy, including The Country House
(first performed 1703) and The Confederacy (1705).
In 1702 Vanbrugh entered another field; he designed
Castle Howard, Yorkshire, for Lord Carlisle. His first
design was far simpler than the richly articulated
palace that resulted. Probably he was untrained, but
aptly at hand was Nicholas Hawksmoor, the accomplished
clerk of the great architect SirChristopher Wren.
Hawksmoor played the assistant to Vanbrugh but was in
effect the partner. These two men brought to its peak
English Baroque—an architecture concerned with the
rhythmic effect of diversified masses, using classical
architectural elements to that end. The
Vanbrugh-Hawksmoor Baroque manner is often called
“heavy,” but the heaviness is in the service of the
dramatic. The style they evolved was a joint creation:
Hawksmoor had already begun to develop it in the 1690s
and acted as draftsman, administrator, and architectural
detailer, while Vanbrugh is credited with the buildings'
general plan and heroic scale.
Through Lord Carlisle, who was head of the Treasury,
Vanbrugh became in 1702 comptroller of the queen's
works. In 1703 he designed the Queen's Theatre, or Opera
House, in the Haymarket. Though a magnificent building,
it proved a failure, partly because of its poor
acoustics, and he lost considerable money in the
venture.
In 1705 Vanbrugh was chosen by John Churchill, 1st Duke
of Marlborough, to design the palace at Woodstock,
Oxfordshire, which was the nation's gift to that hero of
many campaigns. Blenheim Palace, named for Marlborough's
most famous victory, was the architectural prize of
Queen Anne's reign. Again Hawksmoor was indispensable to
Vanbrugh: Blenheim (1705–16) is their joint masterpiece.
Any one of its powerful components may have been of
Hawksmoor's shaping, but the planning and broad
conception were surely Vanbrugh's, and the massive
effect was the result of the hero-worshiping
soldier-architect. Though the duke approved the plans,
the duchess did not; there was trouble over costs and
payments, and she caused Vanbrugh's dismissal. He
continued to design country houses, however, and in such
buildings as Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdon (1707–10), and
Kings Weston, Gloucestershire (now in Bristol; c.
1710–14), his style became simpler in its use of
decoration and of starkly geometric masses of masonry.
Under George I, Vanbrugh was knighted in 1714 and made
comptroller again in 1715. Influenced by the art of
fortification and Elizabethan building, Vanbrugh's great
last works were Eastbury, Dorset (1718–26); Seaton
Delaval, Northumberland (1720–28); and Grimsthorpe
Castle, Lincolnshire (1722–26). Without Hawksmoor, he
adopted a simple style in these designs, using a few
elementary forms with increasing audacity, until in
Seaton Delaval he achieved the height of drama with a
comparatively small house.
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Even in England, reflections of an interest in continuous
curvilinear form inspired by Borromini and Bernini may be seen in
isolated examples such as St. Philip, Birmingham (1710), by Thomas
Archer.
Central Europe
A stable political situation in central Europe and the vision of
Rudolf II in Prague in the late 16th and early 17th centuries
created an intellectual climate that encouraged the adoption of new
Baroque ideas. The Thirty Years' War and the defense against the
encroachments of the expanding French and Ottoman empires, however,
absorbed all the energies of central Europe. The fully developed
Baroque style appeared in Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Poland
after 1680 but flourished only after the end of the debilitating War
of the Spanish Succession (1714). In the late 17th and early 18th
centuries, Germany and Austria turned for their models principally
to Italy, where Guarini and Borromini exerted an influence on
Johann Bernhard Fischer
von Erlach and Johann Lucas von
Hildebrandt. The third Austrian master, Jakob Prandtauer, on the
other hand, came from a local stonemason tradition and worked
primarily for monastic orders. Fischer von Erlach's University
Church in Salzburg (1696) is particularly noteworthy and shows
direct Italian inspiration, while the Karlskirche, Vienna (1715),
demonstrates his original, mature phase. Hildebrandt's Belvedere
palace in Vienna and Prandtauer's superbly sited Abbey of Melk
overlooking the Danube (1702) are among their most notable works.
Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach
(baptized July 20, 1656, Graz, Austria—d. April 5, 1723,
Vienna), Austrian architect, sculptor, and architectural
historian whose Baroque style, a synthesis of classical,
Renaissance, and southern Baroque elements, shaped the
tastes of the Habsburg empire. Fischer's works include
the Dreifaltigkeitskirche (1694–1702) and the
Kollegienkirche (1696–1707), both in Salzburg, and the
Winter Palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1695–1711) in
Vienna. His Entwurf einer historischen Architektur
(1721; A Plan of Civil and Historical Architecture) was
the first successful comparative study of architecture.
Early career in Italy and Austria.
The son of a provincial sculptor and turner, Fischer was
trained in his father's workshop. He went to Rome at
about age 16 and had the good fortune to enter the
studio of the great Baroque sculptor and architect Gian
Lorenzo Bernini. InRome he acquired considerable
knowledge of ancient art and of the scientific methods
then beginning to be used in archaeology—methods that
formed the basis for his own later archaeological
reconstructions. He also studied ancient Roman,
Renaissance, and Baroque art and architecture. About
1684 he went to Naples, then under Spanish rule,
probably in the service of the Spanish viceroy. He is
reported to have been ambitious and even to have
acquired considerable wealth.
After some 16 successful years in Italy, Fischer
returned to his homeland at an opportune time; after the
imperial victories over the Turks, the Habsburg empire
was emerging as a great European power, and the Holy
Roman emperor Leopold I wished to emulate King Louis XIV
of France by representing his power as an absolute
monarch visibly in magnificent buildings. The
aristocracy followed his example by erecting splendid
palaces, and the Roman Catholic clergy, too, wanted to
glorify, in ecclesiastical architecture, the victory
over the infidel as well as that over the Protestant
Reformation. Moreover, the Turks had destroyed many
country seats of the aristocracy and had severely
damaged the suburbs of Vienna during the siege of 1683.
The need for new buildings as well as the quick economic
recovery following the victories brought about a great
increase in building and a resultant flowering of art
andarchitecture.
In 1687 Fischer embarked on a brilliant career as court
architect to three successive emperors, Leopold I,
Joseph I, and Charles VI, and also designed buildings
for the aristocracy and the archbishop of Salzburg. In
1689 Leopold Iappointed him to teach his elder son,
Joseph, perspective and the theory and history of
architecture. In 1690 Fischer won public recognition
with two temporary triumphal arches erected in Vienna to
celebrate Joseph's entry into the city after his
coronation in Frankfurt am Main as king and future ruler
of the Holy Roman Empire. During the next 10 years,
Fischer was much sought after as an architect in Vienna
and Salzburg and in the Habsburg lands. In 1693 alone he
was commissioned to design 14 important buildings.
During these years he created a new type of country
house, combining the most important achievements in
suburban architecture since the 16th century. He united
the ideas of the French Baroque country palace made up
of many joined pavilions with that of the classically
inspired Renaissance villa, typical of Andrea Palladio,
surrounded by low detached wings. By using the powerful
curving forms of the Roman Baroque architects,
especially Bernini, he gave his villas a more dynamic
form. One of their outstanding features is the spacious
oval hall in the centre of the plan, as in Schloss
Neuwaldegg (1692–97), near Vienna, and in Schloss
Engelhartstetten (c. 1693), in Lower Austria. Fischer's
country house designs had a decisive influence on the
architects of his time. In a similar synthesis of Roman
and French Baroque seasoned with Palladian elements, he
also created a new type of town palace characterized by
impressive form, structural clarity, and the dynamic
tension of its decoration. The Winter Palace of Prince
Eugene of Savoy, begun in 1695, and the palace of the
ban of Croatia, Count Batthyány (1699–1706), both in
Vienna, are notable examples of this type.
As architect to Johann Ernst, Count von Thun, the
archbishop of Salzburg, Fischer displayed his talent in
church architecture and town planning. The domes and
towers of his churches changed the whole appearance of
Salzburg. In their exquisitely proportioned, lofty
interiors he tried to achieve a balance between the
longitudinal and central schemes, a problem all great
church architects had been faced with since
Michelangelo's projects for St. Peter's in Rome. All of
Fischer's churches have two-towered facades accented by
dynamic curves and elegant decoration, but each has its
own special quality, determined by its location and by
its particular function, as attached to a seminary, a
university, or a nunnery. The elegant concave facade of
the Dreifaltigkeitskirche (Church of the Holy Trinity),
for example, contrasts to and heightens the effect of
the sober front of the adjoining seminary buildings. The
almost geometric forms of the Kollegienkirche
(University Church) surmounted by the undulating forms
of its towers crown the university complex, providing a
new architectural and symbolic accent to a city
dominated by its massive cathedral, as Salzburg had
been. Fischer also designed a newfacade for the
archbishop's stables and laid out a square in front of
it. He changed an old quarry into a summer riding school
and built the archbishop's summer residence, Schloss
Klesheim (1700–09), outside Salzburg.
Foreign travels and change of style.
At the turn of the 18th century, Fischer was at the
height of his career. In a visible sign of his success
as a court architect,he was raised to the nobility in
1696. The imperial alliance with Prussia, Holland, and
England during the War of the Spanish Succession enabled
Fischer, in 1704, to visit those countries and to study
their architecture, particularly in relation to Palladio.
The result was a remarkable change in his architectural
style. In 1707 he went to Venice to study Palladian
architecture at its source. The result was his
development of a new type of “Palladian” palace facade,
classical in its proportions but enlivened with richly
sculptured decoration. It consists of a central
projection accentuated by a giant order and surmounted
by a triangularpediment and of relatively unarticulated
lateral sections. Its models were English and North
German Baroque interpretations of Palladian architecture
as well as the works of Palladio himself and of his
Italian followers. Fischer's major achievements in this
field are the facades of the Bohemian Chancellery
(1708–14) and Trautson Palace (1710–16), both in Vienna,
and of the Clam-Gallas Palace (begun 1713), in Prague,
which were imitated by architects all over the Habsburg
empire.
During the first 10 years of the 18th century, however,
Fischer designed fewer buildings than in the years
before. His time was taken up by his administrative
duties as chief inspector of court buildings and his
work on a great history ofarchitecture, Entwurf einer
historischen Architektur. His book, which reveals the
wide range of his learning, was the first comparative
history of the architecture of all times and all
nations; it included significant specimens of Egyptian,
Persian, Greek, Roman, Muslim, Indian, and Chinese
architecture, illustrated by engravings with explanatory
notes. Some of the archaeological reconstructions that
appeared in the book were among the best of Fischer's
time. At the end of the historical survey he placed his
own achievements, which he saw as a logical continuation
of the Roman tradition of architecture. The book was
published in 1721.
Final projects.
When his second imperial patron, Joseph I, died in 1711,
Fischer's position as the principal architect at the
Viennese court was no longer uncontested. Many preferred
the more pleasing and less demanding architecture of his
rival Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt to Fischer's lofty
conceptions. Yet he was also able to gain the favour of
Charles VI, to whom he dedicated his history of
architecture in manuscript in 1712, and to obtain the
commission for the building of the Karlskirche (Church
of St. Charles Borromeo; begun 1715).
Charles had vowed to build the Karlskirche as an
offering to his patron saint for the city's deliverance
from an epidemic of the plague. In its imperial grandeur
the building Fischer conceived not only glorified St.
Charles but was also a monument to the emperor himself.
In this church he attempted to incorporate and harmonize
the main ideas contained in the most important sacred
buildings of past and present, beginning with the Temple
of Jerusalem and including the Pantheon and St. Peter's
in Rome, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and also the Dôme
des Invalides in Paris and St. Paul's in London. The
relatively independent parts of the building—a pair of
Roman triumphal columns, low towers,a high oval dome, a
central portico modeled after a Roman temple facade, a
transept and presbytery—are harmonized to form a visual
unity from whatever point they are seen. Thecomplex
formal and symbolic structure of the building is the
result of its twofold function. For example, the most
striking feature of the church—the pair of giant
triumphal columns oneither side of the portico—is
decorated with spiral reliefs glorifying the life of St.
Charles. The pair of columns, however, also alludes to
the emperor's emblem, the “pillars of Hercules.”
Fischer did not live to see his masterpiece completed,
but hisson Joseph Emanuel Fischer von Erlach completed
the churchwith some alterations. Joseph Emanuel also
completed the Imperial Stables (1719–23) and built,
according to his father'sdesigns, the Imperial Library
(designed 1716, built 1723–37), the interior of which
was the most imposing library hall of its time.
Assessment.
In a highly idealistic formal synthesis, Fischer tried
to combine the achievements of past and present, mixing
forms from ancient Roman, Renaissance, Italian Baroque,
and French Baroque architecture to find a new and unique
solution for each architectural problem. The leading
principleof his building was the integration of various
plastically conceived elements, complete in themselves,
by dynamic contrast.
Hans Aurenhammer
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Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt
born Nov. 14, 1668, Genoa
died Nov. 16, 1745, Vienna
Austrian Baroque architect and military engineer whose
work strongly influenced the architecture of central and
southeastern Europe in the 18th century. The types of
buildings he developed for parish churches, chapels,
villas, garden pavilions, palaces, and houses were much
imitated, spreading his architectural principles
throughout and beyond the Habsburg empire.
Born in Italy of German parents, Hildebrandt studied
architecture, town planning, and military engineering in
Rome. He joined the Austrian Imperial Army as a
fortificationengineer and participated (1695–96) in
three Piedmontese campaigns under Prince Eugene of
Savoy, afterward moving to Vienna and turning to civil
architecture. In 1700 he was appointed court engineer
and employed as an architect by Prince Eugene and other
Austrian aristocrats, in Vienna, in Salzburg, and in
southern Germany.
After the death of the Baroque architect Johann Fischer
von Erlach, a strong influence on Hildebrandt, the
younger man became the leading court architect. The main
elements of hisstyle were derived from the French
architectural era of Louis XIV and from north Italian
late-Baroque models, particularly the undulating walls
of the Italian architect Guarino Guarini. He became
famous for his architectural decoration, articulating
the surface of his buildings with quasipictorial effects
and introducing new motifs of decoration.
Of Hildebrandt's numerous works some of the most
outstanding are the Belvedere in Vienna, summer
residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy (1700–23); Schönborn
Castle near Göllersdorf, northwest of Vienna (1710–17);
the Mirabell Palace (1721–27) in Salzburg; and the
episcopal residence atWürzburg, Ger. (1729–37).
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In Bohemia the developed, or high, Baroque was heralded by the work
of a French architect, Jean-Baptiste Mathey, who carried both Roman
and French ideas to Prague from Rome in 1675. The Bavarian
Christoph Dientzenhofer, however, transformed architecture in
Prague and Bohemia with his boldly conceived buildings in the high
Baroque style (Prague, nave of St. Nicholas, 1703, and Brevnov,
Benedictine church, 1708).
Christoph Dientzenhofer
born July 7, 1655, Rosenheim, Bavaria
died June 20, 1722, Prague
born Sept. 1, 1689, Prague
died Dec. 18, 1751, Prague
father and son, members of a large family of German
architects, who were among the leading builders in
Bohemian Baroque. Among their joint works are the Church
of St. Nicholas (1703–11, 1732–52) and the Břevnov
Monastery (1708–21), both in Prague. K.I. Dientzenhofer
built the churches of St. Thomas (1725–31; a Gothic
structure reworked into Baroque) and St. John on the
Rock (1730–39; including the Vyšehrad Steps), both in
Prague, and St. Mary Magdalene, Karlsbad(now Karlovy
Vary; 1733–36); he also built the Villa Amerika
(1712–20; afterward the Antonin Dvořák Museum), Prague.
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The spectacular Rococo of central Europe, Germany, and Austria,
which by 1720 had begun to influence Italian architecture, grew out
of a fusion of Italian Baroque and French Rococo. Its chief
monuments are to be found in the Roman Catholic regions. Johann
Michael Fischer, Balthasar Neumann, the brothers Cosmas
Damian and Egid Quirim Asam, and Dominikus Zimmermann were the most
accomplished of the native architects, while the Frenchmen François
de Cuvilliés, Philippe de La Guêpière, and Nicolas de Pigage made
the most important foreign contributions to mid-century architecture
in Germany.
Johann Michael Fischer
born 1692, Burglengenfeld, Bavaria [Germany]
died May 6, 1766, Munich
German architect, one of the most creative and prolific
designers of late Baroque and Rococo churches in
southern Germany.
Fischer was trained by his father, a mason. As an
apprentice in Bohemia and Moravia beginning in 1713, he
became familiar with the churches of the Dientzenhofer
family and returned to Munich in 1718 to become foreman
of city architecture. One of his earliest independent
projects was the renovation of the Premonstratensian
abbey church of Osterhofen (1726–29). The major elements
of Fischer's churches are a centralized ground plan,
with rounded-off interior angles, interconnecting
spaces, and rhythmically undulating patches of lush
decoration, the whole being brilliantly lit by large
windows. His productivity was astounding; in 1735 alone
he planned three outstanding churches—St. Michael's in
Berg-am-Laim, the pilgrimage church at Aufhausen, and
the Augustinian church at Ingolstadt.
Fischer's greatest work is generally considered to be
the Benedictine abbey church at Ottobeuren (1748–55), a
vast Rococo structure centred on three successive
cupolas and lavishly—but elegantly—decorated with
sculpture, stuccowork, and paint. The Benedictine abbey
church of St. Marius and St. Arianus at Rott-am-Inn
(1759–62) may be stylistically more significant, as its
relative simplicity heralds the approach of
Neoclassicism.
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Balthasar Neumann
born 1687, Eger, Bohemia, Austrian Habsburg domain [now
Cheb, Czech Republic]
died Aug. 19, 1753, Würzburg [Germany]
in full Johann Balthasar Neumann German architect who
was the foremostmaster of the late Baroque style.
Neumann was apprenticed to a bell-founder and in 1711
emigrated to Würzburg, where he gained the patronage of
that city's ruling prince-bishop, a member of the
Schönborn family, after working on military
fortifications. In 1719 Neumann began directing
construction of the first stage of the new Residenz
(palace) for the prince-bishop in Würzburg,and he was
soon entrusted with the planning and design of the
entire structure. Work on the Residenz continued at
intervals after Neumann's own death in 1753, though by
the 1740s it had advanced far enough for the painter G.B.
Tiepoloto decorate the palace's enormous ceilings.
Neumann began designing other buildings as well,
starting inthe 1720s with the Schönborn Chapel (1721–36)
in Würzburg Cathedral, the priory church at Holzkirchen
(1726–30) outside Würzburg, and the abbey church at
Münsterschwarzach (1727–43). He did buildings for other
members of the Schönborn family and was eventually put
in charge of all major building projects in Würzburg and
Bamberg, including palaces, public buildings, bridges, a
water system, and more than a dozen churches. Neumann
designed numerous palaces for the Schönborns, including
those for the prince-bishops at Bruchsal (1728–50) and
Werneck (c. 1733–45). In the 1740s he designed his
masterpiece, the pilgrimage church at Vierzehnheiligen
(1743–53), as well as the pilgrimage church known as the
Käppele (1740–52) near Würzburg and the abbey church at
Neresheim (1747–53).
Neumann showed himself a great master of composition in
the interiors of his churches and palaces. The walls and
columns in his buildings are diminished, disguised, or
opened up to create startling and often playful effects
while nevertheless retaining a sense of symmetry and
harmony. Neumann made ingenious use of domes and barrel
vaults to create sequences of round and oval spaces
whose light, airy elegance is highlighted by the
daylight streaming in through huge windows. The free and
lively interplay of these elements is accented by a
lavish use of decorative plasterwork, gilding, and
statuary and by wall and ceiling murals.
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Fischer's austere, dignified facade of the church at Diessen (1732)
and his masterpiece of integrated painting, decorative stucco,
sculpture, and architecture, the Benedictine abbey of Ottobeuren
(1744), are landmarks of the Bavarian Rococo. Neumann's joyous, airy
Rococo Pilgrimage Church at Vierzehnheiligen (1743) and his later,
more restrained Benedictine abbey at Neresheim (1745) characterize
the increasing influence of classicism in Germany. In the north, in
Berlin, Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff alternated between Rococo
(Potsdam, Sanssouci, 1745) and neo-Palladian classicism (Berlin,
OperaHouse, 1741). Two influential country houses, La Guêpière's
Solitude, near Stuttgart (1763), and Cuvilliés's Amalienburg, Munich
(1734), exquisitely graceful and refined, are examples of French
influence in Württemberg and Bavaria.
Henry A. Millon
David John Watkin
Russia
The Baroque appeared in Russia toward the end of the 17th century.
The Russians imaginatively transformed its modes into a clearly
expressed national style that became known as the Naryshkin Baroque,
a delightful example of which is the Church of the Intercession of
the Virgin at Fili (1693) on the estate of Boyarin Naryshkin, whose
name had become identified with this phase of the Russian Baroque.
Western Europeans brought the prevailing Baroque styles
characteristic of their own countries, but the very different
artistic and physical setting of St. Petersburg produced a new
expression, embodying Russia's peculiar sense of form, scale, colour,
and choice of materials. The transformed Baroque eventually spread
all over Russia and, with its vast register of variations, developed
many regional idioms.
A French architect, Nicolas Pineau, went to Russia in 1716 and
introduced the Rococo style to the newly founded city of St.
Petersburg (e.g., Peter's study in Peterhof, before 1721). The
Rococo in Russia flourished in St. Petersburg under the protection
of Peter I and Elizabeth. Peter's principal architect, Gaetano
Chiaveri, who drew heavily on northern Italian models, is most noted
for the library of the Academy of Sciences (1725) and the royal
churches of Warsaw and Dresden. Bartolomeo Rastrelli was
responsible for all large building projects under the reign of
Elizabeth, and among his most accomplished designs in St. Petersburg
are the Smolny Cathedral and the turquoise and white Winter Palace.
Bartolomeo
Franchesko (Varfolomei Varfolomeevich) Rastrelli
1700-1771
Count, an Italian by birth. Born in Paris. Son of architect and
sculptor Carl-Bartolomeo Rastrelli. Studied under his father. In 1716 came to
St. Petersburg with his father, who had concluded an agreement with Emperor
Petr I, and assisted him.
Beginning in 1722 worked independently as an architect. Between 1722 and 1730
traveled twice to Italy and France to improve his knowledge of architecture (one
time for 5 years). Carried out private orders in Saint Petersburg and Moscow.
When Elizabeth ascended the
throne in 1741, he became her favorite court architect. He bore the rank of
major general, the title of cavalier of the Order of St. Anne, and was an
academician of architecture (1770). He had a number of students and followers.
When Empress Catherine II
ascended the throne in 1762 Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli went into temporary
retirement, in 1763 he was dismissed completely and left for Switzerland.
Most of Rastrelli's work has survived. This architect
is often referred to as the "master of Elizabeth an
Baroque." Most of his buildings are in Saint Petersburg:
the Smolny Monastery, Vorontsov Palace, Stroganov
Palace, Summer Palace of Elizabeth I (located at the
site of present Mikhailov or Engineer Palace), the Large
Peterhof Palace, the Winter Palace (interiors
reconstructed following the fire) and other buildings.
Between late 1748 and 1756 during the reign of
Empress Elizabeth I, Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli
headed the construction of the Tzarskoje Selo residence.
During this period he rebuilt the entire Large
(Catherine) Palace. He also designed the Hermitage
(1746 - 1752) and the Grotto (1755 - 1756) in the
regular part of the Catherine Park. Between 1754 and
1757 the Slide Hill, disassembled in 1792-1795, was
constructed according to Rastrelli's designs. Later the
Granite Terrace still in existence today was constructed
on this hill according to plans by the architect Luigi
Rusca. In 1750 - 1752 the Mon Bijou pavilion of
Rastrelli's design was erected in the center of the
Menagerie, in place of which the landscape part of the
Alexander Park was later planned. The Arsenal designed
by Adam Menelaws was later built in place of the Mon
Bijou hunting lodge, which had been partially dismantled
during the early 19 century.
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Arthur Voyce
Henry A. Millon
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