Baroque Art

The major topics painted and sculpted during the 17th century are featured here. Baroque artists chose stories not only from the Bible but also from mythology; these are not included in art history texts. In this volume one finds the primary sources: The Golden Legend the Bible Ovid and Plutarch to name a few. Each entry concludes with an example of a work depicting the topic under examination (Diana Hunting Lot and His Daughters for instance) along with a readily available source where the work is pictured. The only reference of its type for art students this is a companion piece for the author''s earlier (Greenwood 1987).The turbulent 17th century resulted in two main artistic styles: an expressionistic sensual kind of emotional outpouring and a silent classical mode of the highest possible decorum. These styles focused on topics that were mostly mythological or religious: maenads satyrs and nymphs pouring wine carrying baskets of flowers and lounging at a mythological event; angels shown in the heavens or with the characters on earth. Art students until now have not had a single source that attempts to describe the topics of this intensely artistic age with artists as different in approach as Bernini and Rembrandt. Direct quotes from primary sources including the ^IBible^R and Ovid enrich the descriptive material. Extensive cross-referencing adds to the user-friendly aspect of the dictionary.