Baroque sculpture was often commissioned by the church and nobility for public spaces like courtyards and fountains. It had characteristics like complicated diagonal lines, dramatic lighting effects, and grand gestures. Famous sculptors included Bernini in Italy, known for capturing motion in stone, Girardon in France who worked for Louis XIV, and Gregorio Fernandez in Spain, renowned for his realistic depictions of human anatomy and emotion in religious works. Rococo sculpture became more decorative and emphasized technical skill, with allegorical works and portraits of great men placed in gardens and parks.

1. BAROQUE SCULPTURE
Revision

2. Sculpture
• It is one of the most popular arts.
• The clients are the church and the nobility.
• It is the way of expression of different religious
believes.
• It was used as a way of advertising power
• Works are located in public places, such as courtyards
and fountains.

3. Sculpture: Characteristics
• Creation of images that can be seen from different
points of view.
• Tendency to open structures.
• Complicated lines, being the diagonal the most used.
• Interest for the effects of light:
– different treatment of surfaces
– Resource to breaking wall to get the ideal
illumination

4. Sculpture: Characteristics
• Combination of different materials in the same work
• Grandiloquence of the gestures
• Human treatment of the depicted characters
• Mythological and religious images frull of humanities
and passions
• Perfect organisation of the volumes to obtain the
desired effect

5. Eskultura: Ezaugarriak
• Tension and drama: moment of maximum tension
• Violent contrast of light and shadows
• Regional differences

6. Sculpture: Characteristics
• Types of sculptures:
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Relief
Portrait
Equestrian portrait
Allegories
Mythological stories
Religious
Easter sculptures (Spain)
Fountains
Pantheons

7. Sculpture: Italy
• Bernini
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He created a new style in sculpture
Sources of inspiration were the paintings of his contemporaries
Sense of drama and naturalism (following Caravaggio)
Captured in stone frozen moment of human bodies in motion
Works:
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Apollo and Daphne
Sainte Therese Ecstasy
Fountain of the Four Rivers
Fountain of the Triton

9. Sculpture: France
• Girardon
– Quite classical conception
– He worked for Louis XIV
– Author of fountains (Apollo Tended by Nymphs), pantheons
(Richelieu)

10. Eskultura: Frantzia
• Puget
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Impassioned work
Formed in Italy
Expressed physical vigour and emotional intensity
Work: Milon of Crotona

11. Sculpture: Spain
• Religious sculpture had an important development
• It is realised for the Easter parades.
• Characteristics:
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Humanity (passions, mainly sufferance)
Symbols of sufferance: blood
Individual or group images
Wood is the most used material (polychrome)
Additional elements: real clothes, glazed eyes, hair
Common images:
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Painful Virgin (Dolorosa)
Ecce Homo (Christ tied up to a column)
Death Christ
Calvary

12. Sculpture: Spain
• Castilian School: Gregorio Fernandez
– His style evolved from the refinement and elegance of Court
Mannerism to Baroque naturalism
– Master in depicting the human body with anatomical detail,
tension in muscles, strength of bones and softness of flesh and
skin
– Clothing heavy and flat, with rigid and angular folders,
producing contrast of light and shadows
– Dramatic expressions
– Simple polychromes (flat colours)
– Works: Virgin with the Dead Christ, Road to the Calvary,
Saint Theresa

14. Sculpture: Spain
• Andalusian School:
– Greater classical tradition
– Artist maintained the aesthetic of latter Mannerism
(athletic figures, elegant composition, and idealised
beauty)
– Incorporation of the effects of naturalism in emotions
– Artists: Martinez Montañes, Alonso Cano, Pedro de
Mena, Jose de Mora

15. Sculpture: Spain
• Andalusian School:
– Martinez Montañes: “ The God of Wood”
• Combined love of beauty and serenity of the Mannerism with
the naturalism of the Baroque
• Elegant figures in restful poses
• Human and contained emotions
• Saint John the Evangelist

16. Eskultura: Espainia
• Andalusian School:
– Alonso Cano
• Combines classicism and Baroque
• Purity of form, delicacy and contaiment of expression
• Careful anatomy and slender outline
• Oval faces, eyes with melancholic and pensive gaze
• Saint John the Baptists

17. Sculpture: Spain
• Andalusian School:
– Pedro de Mena:
• Greater simplification of form
• Spiritual content
• Pure sentiments or states of mind: ecstasy
• Saint Peter of Alcántara, Ecce Homo

18. Sculpture: Spain
• Andalusian School:
– Jose de Mora:
• Simplicity and expression
• Realistic pain
• Faces with expression of introspection and sad gazes
• Impossibility of consolation
• Virgin of Solitude

19. Sculpture: Spain
• Pasos or processional scenes
– Made of light but fragile materials at the beginning
– Wooden carvings popular since 17th century
– Polychrome and with fake additions: glass eyes and tears,
ivory teeth, hair
– Viewpoints should be taken into account
– Different work in characters:
• Goodies: meticolous, pretty to look, dressed in timeless clothing
• Baddies: less detail, no additions, ugly and unpleasant, clothing
from the time they were made

20. Sculpture: Spain
– Mounted in wooden platforms: scenes seemed almost alive
with the movement
– Main images desmounted and put in altars and baddies
packed
– There were famous those of Valladolid, made by Gregorio
Fernandez
– Decadence during the 18th century

21. Sculpture: Spain
• In the late Baroque there were French and Italian
influences
• Creation of a new classicism
• Murcia took relevance: Salcillo
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Influenced by the Neapolitan school (Belen tradition)
Movement, delicacy and tender beauty
Perfection of form, serch of elegance and refinement
Great dynamism
Added materials and polychrome
• Luisa Roldan
– Larger sife sized an small terra-cotta compositions

23. Rococo Sculpture
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There is not a breaking with the former
The tune was set by courts and it is decorative
Staircases, columns with atlantes become common
Gardens and parks were adorned more than ever before with
statues. These isolated and groups were placed on fountains
• The social role of sculpture increased to show the power of
dynasties and nobility, mainly when cities expanded

24. Rococo Sculpture
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Taste for technical virtuosity, sheer brilliance of manner
Allegory was used because it had an elaborate system of symbols
Religion was a bit less used during the Enlightement
Portraits give importance to reallity with psychological quirks
Female portrait were less austere
Cult of great men
Increase of the number of equestrian statues
Funeral monuments

25. Rococo Sculpture
• Bouchardon:
– Clean forms, can and harmonious rhythms
– Precursor of the Neoclassicism
– Works: Louis XIV

26. Rococo Sculpture
• Houdon:
– Charming images a bit ambiguous
• Works: Voltaire, La Frileuse

27. Rococo Sculpture
• Pigalle: The Negro Paul, Tombe of Marshl Saxony

28. Rococo Sculpture
• Falconet: Equestrian statue of Peter the Great