| Themes > Arts > Architecture > Baroque Architecture > Baroque and Rococo Architecture |
In the 15th century Florentine architecture relied for effect upon proportion, simple straight lines, and the correct use of classical details. During the 16th century, however, architects such as Michelangelo and Giulio Romano abandoned this restraint for a more exciting, idiosyncratic version of the style, now called Mannerism, in which the classical rules were deliberately flouted for effect. Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini further developed the style by introducing curvilinear forms and by incorporating sculpture and painting in their buildings to give a rich and dynamic version, known as Baroque, which spread during the 17th and 18th centuries from Rome to much of southern Europe and to South America. In northern Europe, especially in Austria and Germany, baroque architecture achieved an exuberance and freedom unmatched elsewhere, climaxing in the Rococo, as in the Wurzburg Residenz in West Germany. In France baroque and rococo were tempered by Neoclassicism, with a resultant elegance and refinement in both architecture and decoration, exemplified by the 18th-century sections of the palace of Versailles. The spread of neoclassical architecture during the 17th and 18th centuries was due in no small measure to the illustrated books that brought it to the attention of educated patrons. Although fine architecture has never been created by untalented architects, the rules of the classical orders enforced systematic convention in design that enabled many moderately competent architects to produce well-proportioned and finely detailed buildings. In part this explains the extraordinary success of the Palladian interpretation of Romanized Greek architecture. It was, for example, the source of almost all country-house building in England during the 18th century, as well as of numerous mansions, courthouses, state capitols, and universities along the eastern seaboard of North America. Abstracted from the Grolier Encyclopedia |
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