In the arts, Baroque is both a period and the style that dominated
it. The Baroque style used exaggerated motion and clear, easily
interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and
grandeur in
sculpture,
oil painting, literature, and music. The style started
around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe. In music,
the Baroque applies to the final period of dominance of imitative
counterpoint, where different voices and instruments echo each
other but at different pitches, sometimes inverting the echo, and
even reversing thematic material.
The popularity and success of the "Baroque" was encouraged by the
Roman Catholic Church which had decided at the time of the Council
of Trent that the arts should communicate religious themes in
direct and emotional involvement. The aristocracy also saw the
dramatic style of Baroque architecture and art as a means of
impressing visitors and expressing triumphant power and control.
Baroque palaces are built around an entrance sequence of courts,
anterooms, grand staircases, and reception rooms of sequentially
increasing magnificence. In similar profusions of detail, art,
music, architecture, and literature inspired each other in the
"Baroque" cultural movement as artists explored what they could
create from repeated and varied patterns.
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