Baroque

Categories / Architecture/Architectural Styles
BAROQUE, an artistic style. Its forms are closely related to the art of late antiquity and Renaissance (it applies to order elements, elaborately combined with such ornamental motifs as draped atlantes' torsos or leaves of acanthus). The eminent features of Baroque art include emotional expression, the complexity of perspective, intensity of colour, dramatic effects of light and shade, along with defiant symmetry violation in most expressive fragments and universal application of curvilinear shapes and elaborate decorative character. In St. Petersburg, the Baroque was not established at once: the art of the 1700s-30s was marked by regularity, austere geometry and symmetry, as well as the simplicity of decor (the works of architects D.Trezzini, N. Michetti, I.G. Braunstein, M.G. Zemtsov, gardens by D. Broquette, wall reliefs by N. Pinot). The most prominent master of the late Russian Baroque of the 1740s-50s was F. Rastrelli. The works of architects S.I. Chevakinsky, D.V. Ukhtomsky, A. Rinaldi, A.F. Kokorinov were already using the neo-Classical features to a great degree. The active use of the basic Baroque designs is clearly visible in St. Petersburg architecture of the 1840s-1910s; becoming fashionable again in the mid-20th century.

References: Гуляницкий Н. Ф. Градостроительные особенности Петербурга и черты русской архитектуры середины ХVIII в. // Архитектурное наследство. Л.; М., 1979. № 27. С. 12-21; Грабарь И. Э. Петербургская архитектура в XVIII и XIX веках. СПб., 1994; Власов В. Г. Архитектура "петровского барокко": Эпоха. Стили. Мастера. СПб., 1996; Каганов Г. З. Петербург в контексте барокко. СПб., 2001.

A. V. Burdyalo. Braunstein Johann Friedrich
Broquette D.
Chevakinsky Savva Ivanovich
Grabar Igor Emmanuilovich
Kokorinov Alexander Filippovich
Kurbatov Vladimir Yakovlevich
Michetti Niccolo
Peter I, Emperor
Pinot Nicolas
Rastrelli Francesco de
Rinaldi Antonio
Trezzini Domenico
Ukhtomsky Dmitry Vasilievich
Zemtsov Mikhail Grigorievich
Каганов Г. З. Петербург в контексте барокко. СПб., 2001
Власов В. Г. Архитектура "петровского барокко": Эпоха. Стили. Мастера. СПб., 1996
Грабарь И. Э. Петербургская архитектура в XVIII и XIX веках. СПб., 1994
Гуляницкий Н. Ф. Градостроительные особенности Петербурга и черты русской архитектуры середины ХVIII в. // Архитектурное наследство. Л.; М., 1979