The Triumph of the Baroque: Architecture in Europe, 1600-1750

Rating:
Summary: An Architectural Reformation
Review: Complex, tense, and diffuse, the art of the Baroque period remains for much of the English speaking world an unknown and somehow unsettling style. Such reactions shouldn't be unexpected; the style is still quite new in comparison to the Gothic and Greek Classicism. But just being a recent period doesn't fully account for society's often puzzled reactions: the Baroque is genuinely a highly inventive and original epoch, and as such, it's concepts cannot casually grasped. The current exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the accompanying catalogue--both carefully organized by Henry A. Millon--have taken long strides toward clarifying the principles underlying the architecture of the 17th and 18th centuries. The catalogues text and photography support one of the strengths of the exhibit: its carefully and fully crafted models. These models succinctly brings out the powerfully sculptural quality of this architecture. Dr. Millon's catalogue also helps bring to light the architecture of Central and Eastern Europe, an area whose cultural richness is only now becoming clear to the American audience.