If it's Not Baroque...

From Wikipedia's entry on Baroque Painting:

"As opposed to Renaissance art, which usually showed the moment before an event took place, Baroque artists chose the most dramatic point, the moment when the action was occurring..."

I know, I know... citing Wikipedia in an academic project of any capacity is bringing the proverbial knife to the gun fight. But there's something useful about Wikipedia as a folk taxonomy-- sometimes you're looking for people's perceptions as much as facts. But I digress.

I can attest to the accuracy of this quote, as a recent member of Professor Hurlburt's Baroque art class. Perhaps it was his teaching dynamic as much as the paintings themselves, but this year I have learned to love the Baroque. For my grant project, the Renaissance Festival paintings, I plan on adopting some of the formal Baroque elements that I enjoy in master paintings: drapery, small still lives, drama, interesting composition. However, the above quote addresses another element of why I am emulating the Baroque.

I am playing with "moments" a lot in this series. I have been seeking moments where the present is trying to emulate the past, then taking a photograph to capture the moment, and now sketching and painting from the photographs. Anachronism and the passage of time is absolutely central to this work. If I choose to work in a Renaissance style, it is true that the painting style may more closely align with the subject matter. But I would be giving up some of that struggle, and some of the life and energy of Baroque art. I am looking to honor the performers whom I am depicting in this series because I admire their work and their research. To paint them from a Renaissance mindset would suggest a relationship to these moments that never quite happen. To paint them as Baroque asserts that while the final product is not as historically accurate as it could be, it is simply wonderful for what it is.


I used some of my grant money to buy a DVD called "Faire: An American Renaissance", a documentary following the evolution of the Renaissance Festival. It just arrived, and once I've watched it, I plan to review it here.