The term "Baroque" is not one that tends to appeal to most art-lovers in the 21st century - even though many people familiar with contemporary art might in fact have some difficulties in defining exactly what constitutes the Baroque style: We just know that it's overly elaborate and impossibly found of the curve and the swirl. But while we might well be justified in decrying the art of the Baroque as overly formal, impossibly fussy and entirely inauthentic for our own tastes, we must also remember the art of every period reflects the philosophical and cultural needs of that era. This is no less true of the Baroque period than of our own, and this paper examines how three pieces produced during the English Baroque period were both expressions of the individual perspective and skills of the artists themselves as well as more generally expressive of the period as a whole.
The origins of the word baroque itself are no longer entirely clear, although it may be based on either the Portuguese word "barocco" or the Spanish word "barueco", both of which referred to an irregular pearl. The connection between such a gem and the style itself is also unclear - although given the preoccupation of Baroque artists for the absorption, reflection and refraction of light and the complex ways in which pearls themselves both reflect and absorb light there may well be some fundamental connection.
Baroque art chronologically followed the neoclassicism of the Renaissance and it is tempting to see the fascination of the Baroque artist for the (then) modern and an overtly human, non-divine scale of figure and narrative as a protest against the classicism of the Renaissance. However, while it is certainly true that most artistic styles since the Middle Ages can be seen as being at least in part an aesthetic protest against that which came before, Baroque art cannot be easily categorized as simply a reaction to neoclassicism. It is far more accurate to judg...