Baroque

Baroque was a style in art, architecture and music that began in Italy around 1600 and spread across Europe and the colonies of the Spanish and Portuguese empires. It was promoted by the Catholic Church after the Reformation as a way to inspire emotion and awe through drama, rich decoration, movement and strong contrasts of light and shadow. Leading figures included the painter Caravaggio, the sculptor and architect Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and in the northern Protestant countries painters such as Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer. In music it produced Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Bach and Handel, and the palace of Versailles shows its use by monarchs to display power. The Baroque gave way in the eighteenth century to the lighter Rococo and Neoclassicism.

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