Assignment 3:

Renaissance - Baroque – Rococo – Neoclassic and Romantic

LEBANESE INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

ARTS215: History of Arts

Assignment 3:
Renaissance - Baroque – Rococo – Neoclassic and Romantic

Prepared By:
Ghayssaa Al Hassan
Due Date:
Tuesday January 15, 2019

Submitted To:
Mr. Ammar Ouwaida

Fall Semester 2018-2019

Part 1- Renaissance

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 Assignment 3:
Renaissance - Baroque – Rococo – Neoclassic and Romantic
a- Introduction:

The Renaissance is a period in European history, covering the span between the 14th and

17th centuries and marking the transition from the middle ages to modernity. The traditional

view focused more on the early modern aspects of the Renaissance and argued that it was a

break from the past, but many historians today focus more on its medieval aspects and argue

that it was an extension of the late medieval period

he intellectual basis of the Renaissance was its own invented version of humanism, derived

from the concept of Roman Humanitas and the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy

the changes of the Renaissance were not uniformly experienced across Europe: the very first

traces appear in Italy as early as the late 13th century, in particular with the writings of Dante

and the paintings of Giotto.

b- Main Features:

The Renaissance was characterized by a revitalized interest in classical Greek and Roman thought, an
increased receptiveness to humanist philosophies, a commercial revolution, and the inception of the
modern state.
The intellectual basis of the Renaissance was its own invented version of humanism, derived from the
rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy, such as that of Protagoras, who said that “Man is the
measure of all things.” This new thinking became manifest in art, architecture, politics, science, and
literature. Early examples were the development of perspective in oil painting and the recycled
knowledge of how to make concrete. Though availability of paper and the invention of metal movable
type sped the dissemination of ideas from the later 15th century, the changes of the Renaissance were
not uniformly experienced across Europe.
As a cultural movement, the Renaissance encompassed the innovative flowering of Latin and
vernacular literatures, beginning with the 14th-century resurgence of learning based on classical
sources, which contemporaries credited to Petrarch; the development of linear perspective and other
techniques of rendering a more natural reality in painting; and gradual but widespread educational
reform.
The Renaissance has a long and complex historiography, and in line with general skepticism of
discrete periodizations there has been much debate among historians reacting to the 19th-century
glorification of the Renaissance and individual culture heroes as “Renaissance men,” questioning the
usefulness of “Renaissance” as a term and as a historical delineation.
Some observers have called into question whether the Renaissance was a cultural advance from the
Middle Ages, seeing it instead as a period of pessimism and nostalgia for classical antiquity, while
social and economic historians, especially of the longue durée (long-term) have focused on the
continuity between the two eras, which are linked, as Panofsky observed, “by a thousand ties.”

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 Assignment 3:
Renaissance - Baroque – Rococo – Neoclassic and Romantic
Features of the Renaissance  The New Learning The Renaissance Man The Reformation The
New World The New Cosmos The New Learning  The printing press  Humanism
1. The printing press 1455 - The printing press is invented by Johannes Gutenberg. 1476 -
William Caxton sets up a press in England
2. Humanism
3. Someone who is interested in Science, Literature, Arts and supported Humanism Example:
Henry VIII The Renaissance Man
4. 1492 - Christopher Colombus discover a new continent (America). The New World
5. . It was a movement to reform the corrupt Church & Pope. The Reformation
6. The Ptolemaic cosmos pictured a stationary earth around which rotated the moon, many
stars, and planets. 1543 - Copernicus gave a theory where he said the sun is the center not the
earth. Which create debate. The New Cosmos

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Renaissance - Baroque – Rococo – Neoclassic and Romantic

Part 2- Baroque

a- Introduction:

The Baroque is a highly ornate and often extravagant style of architecture, music, painting,

sculpture and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th until the mid-18th

century. It followed the Renaissance style and preceded the Rococo (in the past often referred

to as "late Baroque") and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a

means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art and music, though

Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well.[1] The Baroque style used contrast,

movement, exuberant detail, deep colour, grandeur and surprise to achieve a sense of awe.

The style began at the start of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to France,

northern Italy, Spain and Portugal, then to Austria and southern Germany. By the 1730s, it

had evolved into an even more flamboyant style, called rocaille or Rococo, which appeared

in France and central Europe until the mid to late 18th century.

b- Main Features:

The use of the chiaroscuro technique is a well known trait of Baroque art. This technique
refers to the interplay between light and dark and is often used in paintings of dimly lit scenes to
produce a very high-contrast, dramatic atmosphere. The chiaroscuro technique is visible in the
painting The Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Paul Rubens. Other important Baroque painters
include Caravaggio (who is thought to be a precursor to the movement and is known for work
characterized by close-up action and strong diagonals) and Rembrandt.

In the Baroque style of architecture, emphasis was placed on bold spaces , domes , and large masses ,
as exemplified by the Queluz National Palace in Portugal. In music, the Baroque style makes up a
large part of the classical canon. Important composers include Johann Sebastian Bach, George
Handel, and Antonio Vivaldi. In the later part of the period, the Baroque style was termed Rococo, a
style characterized by increasingly decorative and elaborate works.

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Renaissance - Baroque – Rococo – Neoclassic and Romantic

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Renaissance - Baroque – Rococo – Neoclassic and Romantic

Part 3- Rococo

a- Introduction:

Rococoless commonly or "Late Baroque", is a highly ornamental and theatrical style of decoration

which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colors, sculpted molding, and

trompe l'oeil frescoes to create the illusions of surprise, motion and drama. It first appeared in France

and Italy in the 1730s and spread to Central Europe in the 1750s and 1760s It is often described as the

final expression of the Baroque movement

The Rococo style began in France in the first part of the 18th century in the reign of Louis XV as a

reaction against the more formal and geometric Style Louis XIV. It was known as the style rocaille, or

rocaille style It soon spread to other parts of Europe, particularly northern Italy, Bavaria, Austria,

other parts of Germany, and Russia. It also came to influence the other arts, particularly sculpture,

furniture, silverware and glassware, painting, music, and theatre

b- Main Features:

Characteristics of Rococo include the use of elaborate curves and scrolls, ornaments
shaped like shells and plants, and entire rooms being oval in shape. Patterns were intricate and
details delicate. Compare the intricacies of the c. 1740 oval chamber shown above at France's
Hôtel de Soubise in Paris with the autocratic gold in the chamber of France's King Louis XIV
at the Palace of Versailles, c. 1701. In Rococo, shapes were complex and not symmetrical.
Colors were often light and pastel, but not without a bold splash of brightness and light. The
application of gold was purposeful.

"Where the baroque was ponderous, massive, and overwhelming," writes fine arts professor
William Fleming, "the Rococo is delicate, light, and charming." Not everyone was charmed
by Rococo, but these architects and artists did take risks that others previously had not.

Painters of the Rococo era were free not only to create great murals for grand palaces but also
smaller, more delicate works that could be displayed in French salons. Paintings are
characterized by the use of soft colors and fuzzy outlines, curved lines, detailed
ornamentation, and a lack of symmetry. The subject matter of paintings from this period grew
bolder—some of it may even be considered pornographic by today's standards.

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Part 4 – Neoclassic and Romantic

A- Neoclassic

a- Introduction:

After the Renaissance--a period of exploration and expansiveness--came a reaction

in the direction of order and restraint. Generally speaking, this reaction developed in

France in the mid-seventeenth century and in England thirty years later; and it

dominated European literature until the last part of the eighteenth century.

Writers turned from inventing new words to regularizing vocabulary and grammar. Complex,

boldly metaphorical language, such as Shakespeare used in his major tragedies, is clarified

and simplified--using fewer and more conventional figures of speech.

b- Main Features:

As for painting, Greek painting was utterly lost: Neoclassicist painters imaginatively revived it,
partly through bas-relief friezes, mosaics and pottery painting, and partly through the examples of
painting and decoration of the High Renaissance of Raphael’s generation, frescos in Nero’s
Domus Aurea, Pompeii and Herculaneum, and through renewed admiration of Nicholas Poussin.
Much “Neoclassical” painting is more classicizing in subject matter than in anything else. A
fierce, but often very badly informed, dispute raged for decades over the relative merits of Greek
and Roman art, with Winckelmann and his fellow Hellenists generally the winning side

B- Romantic

a- Introduction:

Romanticism (also known as the Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical and

intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century, and in

most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was

characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the

past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical

The movement emphasized intense emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience,

placing new emphasis on such emotions as apprehension, horror and terror, and awe—

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especially that experienced in confronting the new aesthetic categories of the sublimity and

beauty of nature. It elevated folk art and ancient custom to something noble, but also

spontaneity as a desirable characteristic (as in the musical impromptu). In contrast to the

Rationalism and Classicism of the Enlightenment, Romanticism revived medievalism[7] and

elements of art and narrative perceived as authentically medieval in an attempt to escape

population growth, early urban sprawl, and industrialism

b- Main Features:

Romantic art focused on emotions, feelings, and moods of all kinds including spirituality,
imagination, mystery, and fervor. The subject matter varied widely including landscapes, religion,
revolution, and peaceful beauty. The brushwork for romantic art became looser and less precise.
The great Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich summed up Romanticism saying "the artist's
feeling is his law".

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