relief, the figure of Jesus Christ suddenly steps out of the frame to face the viewer, almost detaching itself from the tableau.
Baroque France: Nature is tension forced into balance ... "Forcer la nature." ... (The aesthetic has) nature threatening to burst the bonds of human control...
It is noticed by art historians, then, that by the Baroque period in France the tensions between artifice and reality in art were very real reflections of both the character of the times and the temperament of the people. This was particularly at its height during Louis XIV's reign (r. 1643-1715). Baroque painting, needless to say, reflected this. Whereas Renaissance painters employed vanishing point effects and chiaroscuro techniques to recreate reality, Baroque painters utilized those tools to a different purpose - the creation of deliberately false "realities." Fake doors, columns and windows were painted onto architectural structures; in the candlelit illumination of the times, the deception of trompe d'oeil paintings was the metier. Maste
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