The Baroque art extended for the whole century XVII and for the first decades of the XVIII. He/she originated in Italy and it didn't delay to irradiate for other countries of Europe and to arrive also to the American continent, brought by the Portuguese and Spanish settlers. Its appearance is due to a serious of economic change, nuns and social happened in Europe. With the humanism, the Renaissance and, mainly, the Reform, the Catholic Church had its weak power. The great Christian empire began fragmenting in several religions, because by force of the reason it freed the man of the autoritarismo. The church, to reconquer its prestige and power, organized the Against-reform, that is, took important initiatives that sought to reaffirm and to diffuse its doctrine. It is in the construction and decoration of the churches that he/she is born the Baroque art. Architects, sculptors and painters were summoned to transform churches in true artistic exhibitions, whose splendor had the purpose of converting to the Catholicism all the people.  

Its general characteristics are:

• emotional on the rational;
• search of ornamental and visual effects, through curves, contracurvas, twisted columns;
• enlacement between the architecture and sculpture;
• violent light contrasts and shade;
• and painting with effects illusionists, sometimes giving us the impression of seeing the sky, such the appearance of gotten depth.

ORIGIN OF THE WORD - Baroque: term of Spanish " origin Barrueco " applied to designate pearls in an irregular way.

PAINTING - Different from the Renaissance, in that the illustrations are presented in a static way as if they had posing for a picture, in the Baroque they become presented in a theatrical way, that is, they seem always in movement. Light games give dramatic intensity to the scene, highlighting the most important elements of the picture, which form a composition in diagonal. The symmetry and the balance between art and science, goals that the artist renascentista looked for in a conscious way, they are broken in the Baroque art, that tried to portray religious, mythological themes and of the daily with the predominância of the emotion and not of the reason. Through an intense coloring and of a contrast of clear-darkness, the Baroque art gets to express in a peculiar way the human feelings.

Main painters:

Caravaggio (Italian) the one that best characterizes its painting is the revolutionary way like him it uses the light. She doesn't appear as reflex of the solar light, but it is created intentionally by the artist, to drive the observer's attention.

Andréa Pozzo (Italian) it accomplished great perspective compositions in the paintings of the roofs of the Baroque churches, causing the illusion that the walls and columns of the church continue in the roof, and that this he/she opens up for the sky, from where saints and angels invite the men to the sanctity.

Italy was the center irradiador of the Baroque style. Dentre the painting ones more representative, of another countries of Europe, we have:

Velázquez (Spanish) besides portraying the people of the Spanish court of the century XVII it tried to register also in its pictures the popular types of its country, documenting the day-to-day of the Spanish people in a dice moment of the history. Rubens (Dutch) a vibrant colorist, if notabilizou for creating scenes that suggest, starting from the lines contorcidas of the bodies and of the pleats of the clothes, an intense movement. In its pictures, it is generally, in the clothes that the hot colors are located - the red, the green and the yellow - that compensate the brightness of the clear skin of the human illustrations.

Rembrandt (Dutch) what drives our attention in this painter's pictures it is not properly the contrast between light and shade, but the gradation of the clarity, the means-tones, the dimness that involve areas of more intense brightness.

SCULPTURE - THE Baroque chooses the dramaticidade of the expressions and the dynamism of the movements as basic elements of its spirit. Those peculiarities of the Baroque sculpture are summed up through the predominância of curved lines, excess of folds in you dress them (panejamento) and the use of the gilding. As in the painting, the initial impact for that artistic development left of Italian artists, among which GIAN LORENZO BERNINI was the most important. I build, sculptor, urbanista and painter, Bernini became the main artist of the papal court and of Rome. The Baroque sculpture didn't decorate only facades, carried and interiors of churches and palaces. She was also present in the constructions and restorations of sources.

ARCHITECTURE - THE Baroque architecture took place mainly in the palaces and in the churches. The Catholic church wanted to proclaim the victory of its faith and, that, it accomplished works that impressed for its splendor. In compensation, some rulers also wanted palaces that demonstrated cannot and wealth. The architects leave the simplicity and rationality sideways and they insist in the ornamental effects, because " in the whole Baroque I am walled it waves and it bends to create a new space ". It is of the period the valorização of the immediate cercanias of the architectural works for the beauty of the construction. Of that it resulted the concern paisagística with the great gardens of the palaces, as in Versalhes and with the square of the churches, as the one of São Pedro's Basilica. Main architects: Bernini, Francesco Borromini, Giacomo della Carries and Pietro of Cortona.

The introduction of the Baroque in Portugal is due to two factors: to the discovery of gold in Brazil, in 1681, and to the earthquake that destruíu Lisbon, in 1755. Lisbon was reconstructed in a majestic way by architects of the Baroque.