Traveler's Guide to Art & Architecture: Art

Renaissance & Baroque

16th-18th Centuries--The Renaissance hit England late, but its museums contain many important old-master paintings from Italy and Germany. Renaissance means "rebirth," in this case, the renewed use of Classical styles and forms originating in ancient Greece and Rome. Artists strove for greater naturalism, using newly developed techniques such as linear perspective. A few foreign Renaissance masters did come to work at the English courts and had an influence on some local artists, but significant Brits didn't emerge until the baroque. The baroque, a more decorative version of the Renaissance approach, mixes compositional complexity and explosions of dynamic fury, movement, color, and figures with an exaggeration of light and dark, called chiaroscuro, and a kind of super-realism based on using peasants as models. The rococo period is baroque art gone awry, frothy, and chaotic. Significant artists of this period include: Pietro Torrigiano (1472-1528). An Italian Renaissance sculptor, Torrigiano had to flee Florence after breaking the nose of classmate Michelangelo. He ended up in London crafting elaborate tombs for the Tudors in Westminster Abbey, including Lady Margaret Beaufort, and Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. London's Victoria and Albert Museum preserves Torrigiano's terra-cotta bust of Henry VII. Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). A German Renaissance master of penetrating portraits, Holbein the Younger cataloged many significant figures in 16th-century Europe: Sir Thomas More's family (Nostel Priory outside Wakefield in West Yorkshire; this may be a copy); Henry VIII and the Duke of Norfolk (Castle Howard outside York); and Erasmus (whom Holbein knew; Longford Castle, Wiltshire). More portraits are in London's National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery and in Windsor Castle. Anton Van Dyck (1599-1641). This Belgian artist painted passels of portraits in the baroque style for the Stuart court, setting the tone for British portraiture for the next few centuries. You'll find his works in London's National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery, Wallace Collection, and Wilton House, with more in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum and Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. Joshua Reynolds (1723-92). A fussy baroque painter and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, Reynolds was a firm believer in a painter's duty to celebrate history. Reynolds spent much of his career casting his noble patrons as ancient gods in portrait compositions cribbed from Old Masters. Many of his works are in London's National Gallery, Tate Britain, Wallace Collection, and Dulwich Picture Gallery; Oxford's Cathedral Hall; Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery; and Birmingham's Museum and Art Gallery and Barber Institute of Fine Arts. Thomas Gainsborough (1727-88). Although he was a classical/baroque portraitist like his rival Reynolds, at least Gainsborough could be original. Too bad his tastes ran to rococo pastels, frothy feathered brushwork, and busy compositions. When not immortalizing noble patrons such as Jonathan Buttell (better known as "Blue Boy"), he painted a collection of landscapes just for himself. His works grace the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath (where he first came to fame), London's National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, Cambridge's Fitzwilliam Museum, Oxford's Cathedral Hall and Ashmolean Museum, Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery, and Birmingham's Museum and Art Gallery and Barber Institute of Fine Arts.

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