Baroque Midterm

AR 305-Baroque Art Midterm Exam 1. Bernini was an Italian architect and sculptor who lived 1598-1680. During the reign of Urban VIII Bernini created several large-scale commissions around St. Peter’s Basilica. His plan of the square and colonnades in front of the basilica was an amazing architectural achievement. Bernini was a man of intense faith, and the supreme artist during the Catholic Counter-Reformation (Read, p. 42-43). He was selected as Vatican architect in 1629. In 1642, he …

…came to honor Louis XIV. King Louis XIV used the architecture and interior design of Versailles to establish the primacy of the French monarch. Louis XIV wanted to legitimatize his form of strict absolutism through art. Versailles was designed to flaunt Louis XIV’s wealth and to give him credibility. The gardens, grand staircase, hall of mirrors and salons flaunt the grandeur Of Louis XIV and the artwork makes comparisons between the Gods and Louis.