John Rupert Martin's "Baroque"

This book by John Rupert Martin is a good introductory book in the understanding of Baroque artists and their tremendous variety. Martin defines the Baroque characteristics, but only very broadly leaving a significant amount of room for the reader to make his own deductions. In general, Martin believes that the typical definitions of the Baroque are "too restrictive and hence likely to create more problems of classification and interpretation than it solves." Even the time of the Baroque is left open to the reader when Martin says the Baroque is roughly comprehended by the seventeenth century. It is important to note at the outset that this is only a convenient approximation; for epoch as a whole can certainly not be fitted into such a strait-jacket." This helps to define the Baroque much more generally as a gradual change which can much easily be noticed from the present than the past.

In general, Martin is not supportive of defining a governing rule of characteristics as only Baroque. However, in order for him to establish a basis to discuss the Baroque, certain major characteristics must be reluctantly defined. Martin organizes the book into different "essential characteristics" which describe art during the Baroque in order to help the reader. These characteristics include Naturalism, The Passions of the Soul, The Transcendental View of Reality and the Allegorical Tradition, Space, Time, Light, and Attitudes to Antiquity. Each chapter subsequently describes in further detail these characteristics.

The first characteristic, naturalism, is according to Martin a result of the "sophistications of Late Mannerism." Mannerism, as Martin describes, h...

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...nbsp;As Martin describes, this work is "at once a masterpiece of dramatic narrative and an exercise in archaeological correctness; attitudes, costumes and furnishings...studied from the Antique." Carracci's ability to paint works such as this enabled him to become one of the more popular artists of the time.

All in all, Martin breaks down the Baroque into eight key characteristics. Through the study of these characteristics, the viewer is able to further understand the purpose of the piece. Martin, however, points out that these characteristics are not bound in gold as the rules of the Baroque. Rather, these are a general guideline which should be used lightly in order to receive a better understanding of the time. In the end, as a reader, one does receive a well rounded flavor of the different emotions and senses of the Baroque.