1. The Baroque Era
c to 1750

2. Baroque Era
The Baroque Era is a time period that some historians define as simply a part of the Renaissance, but is different and unique in several ways.
The Baroque Period is usually defined as spanning from about 1590 to 1700.
It started as a stylistic movement in art and architecture in Italy, but also extended to literature and music.
Baroque themes include deception and if man can trust his senses, emotion and feeling, and excessiveness of style and grandeur.

3. Deception and Senses
The Baroque Era writers often deal with the theme of senses and their trustworthiness – can a person trust their eyes.
Many literary pieces use characters and stories in which people are deceived either because they did not see the full picture, or because they were intentionally misled.
One notable author who used these themes is William Shakespeare.

4. William Shakespeare 1564 – 1616
Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in He is considered to be England’s national poet and is called The Bard.
He wrote over 3 dozen plays and over 150 sonnets.

5. The Globe Theatre
Most of Shakespeare’s plays were performed at the Globe Theatre which was in London near to the Thames.

6. Shakespeare’s Influence
Shakespeare had a dramatic effect on the English language, inventing many words, and contributing to the common quotations and phrases we use today.
“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”
“Et Tu, Brute?”
“Wherefore art thou, Romeo.”
“To be or not to be.”
“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
“To thine own self be true.”
“Give the devil his due.”
“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”

7. Deception and Senses Baroque Science
Science continued to develop during the Baroque Era under a few notable people.
One example is Francis Bacon who wrote to encourage people to use observation as a way to find the truth.

8. Deception and Senses Baroque Science
Another scientist of the Baroque Era was Galileo Galilei.
Galileo did not invent the telescope, but he improved it and used it to observe the solar system more fully than had been possible before.

9. Deception and Senses
Another prominent Baroque thinker was Rene Descartes. He believed that traditions and inherited beliefs were sometimes wrong and so we should be skeptical of them.
He set about trying to build up his own belief system by starting at the most simple and figuring things out from there.
First, he tried to determine if he could trust his own existence. He decided he could, since he was asking the questions at all.
“Cogito ergo sum”

10. Deception and Senses
Descartes believed, however, that mankind could not trust his senses, but only his logic.
Since dreams are a product of the mind and yet are different from what we can see, there must be truth outside of what we can perceive.
He believed, then, that mankind could simply figure out almost everything by thinking about the world, but he firmly placed the investigative process in a person’s interior mind, not in the exterior world.

11. Interiority and Emotion
Many of the religious thinkers during the Baroque Era focused on and interior sort of religion. Though the Humanism of the Renaissance and Baroque Eras did not, on a large scale, replace God, people began to focus on a person’s inward religious experiences.
Saint Ignatius and Saint Teresa of Avila were prominent religious writers of this time and their works were meant to help other people focus and understand their spiritual and religious experience so that they could grow closer to God personally.

12. Art and Extravagance
The Baroque Era’s art and architecture is characterized by its extravagance and opulence.
The statuary and paintings often prominently display emotion and feeling while the architecture is often viewed as excessive by modern people.

13. San Carlos Francesco Borromini

15. Michelangelo’s David

16. Bernini’s David

17. Baroque Music
Baroque Music is what most people associate with the word Baroque.
It included several stylistic differences from the Renaissance Era, most notably a shift away from polyphony to monody. This means that rather than having multiple lines of music played at the same time, one line is played, but with accompaniment.
Baroque style music mostly started with the Florentine Camerata, a group of thinkers who valued Classical (Greek) style of music and theater.

18. Baroque Music
Three new style emerged during the Baroque Era: Cantata, Oratorio, and Opera.
During this era, musical notation was elevated and became as important as the lyrics of a piece, which was different from the Renaissance Era.
Notable composers include Claudio Monteverdi, Antonio Vivaldi, and Johanne Sebastian Bach, and many others.