Calm Sea Palace at the Garden of Perfect Clarity*
London's Victoria and Albert Museum is hosting Baroque, (1620 -1800); Style in the Age of Magnificence. Some selected paragraphs:
"Baroque was the first style to have a significant worldwide impact. It spread from Italy and France to the rest of Europe. Then it travelled to Africa, Asia, and South and Central America via the colonies, missions and trading posts of the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and other Europeans. The style was disseminated through the worldwide trade in fashionable goods, through prints, and also by travelling craftsmen, artists and architects."
"Chinese carvers worked in Indonesia, French silversmiths in Sweden, Italian furniture makers in France. Sculpture was sent from the Philippines to Mexico as well as Spain. London-made chairs went all over Europe and across the Atlantic. The French royal workshops turned out luxury products in the official French style that were both desired and imitated by fashionable society across Europe. But Baroque also changed as it crossed the world, adapting to new needs and local tastes."
"The patronage of the Roman Catholic Church was fundamental to the Baroque. Promoted by generations of popes, cardinals, priests, missionaries, worshippers and lay-patrons, the style spread to the four corners of the globe."
"Holy imagery was everywhere, on street corners and squares, on shrines and public statues, and carried in procession. Although the Baroque style was strongly associated with the power and authority of the Catholic Church, it would also have been familiar to many Protestants."
"The theatre was a setting for magnificent productions of drama, ballet and, especially, opera - then a new art form. Using ornate costumes, complex stage sets and ingenious machinery, these performance were the source of wonder and awe."
"Theatre was popular both with the public and at court, where members of the royal family and nobility often took part. It was not pure entertainment, however. Theatre played a vital role in the rivalries and power struggles between European courts. Rulers strove to outdo each other in the magnificence of their productions. In France, theatre and opera also became a key element of Louis XIV's cultural policy, used to control the nobility and add to the propaganda of the 'Sun King'."
"In the early 18th century, the theatre building itself acquired new importance as proof of courtly or civic power. A wave of building across Europe established the theatre types we know today."
*View of the Calm Sea Palace at the Garden of Perfect Clarity is a copperplate engraving by Yuanming Yuan, after drawings by Yi Lantai, 1781 - 6. "The European-style palace complex built for Emperor Qianlong of China at his summer residence was designed by Giuseppe Castiglione, an Italian Jesuit at the emperor's court. His designs were based on European Baroque models but incorporated Chinese decoration and Chinese building techniques. They housed the emperor's collection of European curiosities.
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