Your hosts Allison and Michael unpack the transition from Renaissance into Baroque art with an emphasis on the impact the Reformation had on culture in its time (and beyond).
Stay tuned at the end for a Bach Cello Prelude played on classical guitar by Phil Hodges.
“Entombment of Christ”
Caravaggio
circa 1602-1603
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Hey. I wrote my previous note before I got to this podcast on Baroque. Great to hear you recognize how science and technology influenced art and art making.
You do rightly point out the difficulty the Reformation caused the relationship between art and the Protestant church. But we shouldn’t gloss over that. The Reformers didn’t just deface art, the destroyed a good bit. They drove many artists underground or at least caused them to move to more covert painting of things like the Holy Family, such as with Pieter Aertsen’s _Meat Stall_ where he sneaks the Holy Family into the background giving alms.
We also shouldn’t look at the Church’s history with commissioning art with rose colored glasses, either. They weren’t always nurturing artists for the sake of their artistry. They were seeking to control culture, not nurture it, before AND after the Reformation. Artists created at risk of being labeled, jailed, or even being killed by a charge of heresy, such as Paolo Veronese and his painting of the _The Feast in the House of Levi/Last Supper_, and facing the inquisition.
Personally, as an artist, I would just as soon never return to that cultural structure if that’s what the Church envisions as “engaging” with culture and supporting artists.
I know that’s not what you and Renew the Arts advocates. But we should be careful to recognize our (the Church’s) part in that history since that is the kind of control most of the 20th Century Culture Wars (TM) is built on.
Joe