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The Origins of Baroque Art in Rome

2012; Iter Press; Volume: 34; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.33137/rr.v34i1-2.16191

2293-7374

Aloïs Riegl, Andrew Hopkins, Arnold Witte, Gregory Davies,

Architecture and Art History Studies

The translation into English of Alois Riegl's final book, Die Entstehung der Barockkunst in Rom, is certain to be embraced with enthusiasm by specialists and students of art history and the Baroque alike.Those familiar with Riegl's work in the field of Baroque studies will appreciate the renewed attention given to this important text while English-speaking newcomers will no doubt welcome the opportunity to access the late ideas of this pioneer of the Vienna School.Riegl is of course best known for his influential theory of Kunstwollen, first projected in his groundbreaking Stilfragen of 1893.Yet in The Origins of Baroque Art in Rome this theoretical concern is largely set aside in order to privilege discussion of singular works.To some extent this may be attributed to the fact that the text, first published posthumously in 1908, derives from the incomplete lecture notes compiled by Riegl during his tenure at the University of Vienna.The emphasis here is on example and though the book seeks to adumbrate the stylistic changes that took place in Italian art between 1520 and 1610 it does so principally through the close formal analysis of select works, many of which will surprise by their appearance in a discussion on Baroque art.For in Riegl's view the Italian Baroque finds its earliest expression not in the familiar late sixteenth-century paintings of the Bolognese school or the Roman works of Maderno and Caravaggio but in the shifting styles of the mature artists of the Renaissance including Michelangelo and Correggio.Amongst these artists it is Michelangelo who occupies a central position for although Riegl openly acknowledges that he belongs to the Renaissance an evident change in the artist's style after 1520 indicates for the author a departure from the "equilibrium and balance" of his earlier work.Thus Michelangelo is, in Riegl's estimation, as much the "father of the Baroque" as he is an artist of the Renaissance (112).The ensuing discussion on this style shift is nuanced and entirely engaging even if, for contemporary readers, the discussion ultimately falls short of producing a full and satisfying definition of the Baroque in art and architecture.