Introduction

Going for Baroque is a role play designed for use in the art history classroom.

Students take on the personae of artists, writers, philosophers, cultural and political figures and engage in roundtable discussions on topics of importance to those living during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (as dictated to them by the moderator--the course instructor).

Specific Learning objectives

To learn about historical figures of the era.

To recognize the cultural conditions of the seventeenth century and early eighteenth centuries.

To develop empathy and imagination for the past to better understand art and its history.

To define the stylistic characteristics of Baroque art.

Skills objectives

To draw inferences about the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries from the role-play.

To synthesize formal and contextual elements into a reasoned analysis of specific works of art.

To develop confidence when involved in public speaking.

Groups and their sizesFour groups of at least four students each that contain the following:

Artists

Political and religious figures

Writers and musicians

Philosophers, scientists, and other cultural figures

Preparation

Explain to students that they will be role-playing historical figures from the seventeenth century.

Make them aware that they will have one week to research the historical personage that they will be assigned as well as to learn something about the art, literature, politics, and historical events of the period.

Outline that after they have researched, they are to meet with other members of their group to discuss what they learned about their person and his/her era and to plan for their specific role play. What kinds of questions would each want to be asked? What are important concepts? How can students convey the spirit of the era in an entertaining manner? What are some suggestions students have for each other so that they stay in character?

Divide students into groups and, based on the group topic (see slide further on for suggestions), assign them historical characters.

Time Required

Out-of-class research time for students to prepare (students should be given no less than a week to complete the research).

Out-of-class preparation time in which students meet with their group for approximately one hour before their assigned time for the in-class portion of the exercise. Explain what they should do during the session (this can be as specific or as open-ended as you’d like). One student is the secretary for this meeting; this observation is turned in to the instructor on the day of the role-play.

One last fifteen minute session with their group to make final preparations.

Role-play time (ten minutes for each role-play; forty minutes total and a minute between role-plays to write notes).

One class session to debrief (approximately one hour).

In-class Process

Set up an area for the role plays that is in a position where all students can see.

Show the slide with the role play topics to remind students of what they will be observing.

Call a group to begin.

After ten minutes call time.

Give students a minute or two to write down comments, questions, opinions about each group’s role-play before moving on to the next group. 

Sample Role-Play Topics

1.It is Friday, December 31, 1649 and you have been invited to an international summit to speculate on what will happen now that the Thirty Years’ War has ended.

2.You are meeting for a group therapy session on Monday, November 25, 1680, a few days after the Great Comet was first spotted.

3.It is Thursday, May 10, 1663 and Bernini and Vermeer with a couple of their friends happen to meet on the street. You four begin an argument over the Council of Trent.

4.It is Tuesday, April 6, 1638 . Poussin and Rubens meet to discuss the merits of line and color respectively. Many years later—on Wednesday, August 23, 1815—David and Ingres encounter one another as the French Academy convenes and yet another intense debate breaks out among the poussinistes and rubénistes.

Debrief

How did you feel while role-playing?

What helped you to get into the character?

What hindered you from getting into the character?

What do you consider the best thing about role-playing?

What is the worst thing about role-playing?

What did you learn from the role-play?

Final Comments

During the debriefing you will most likely have to ask probing questions to elicit the broader issues of historical context.

Be sure to record the major concepts that have come out of the role-play and distribute this to the class.

After the role play there is an additional class on the Baroque where we examine specific works in depth to really solidify the ideas that came out of the role play itself.

For those students with cultural impediments to participation in the role play and those with social anxiety disorders, I do provide other means of participating in the assignment. I will ask him/her to be part of a group (as a fifth member). This student is the secretary for the group meeting. Additionally, the student turns in a written dialogue on the topic of his/her group in which he/she has the character assigned interacting with one other figure from the group. This dialogue is about three pages in length.

AssessmentI prefer to make this a “low stakes” experience to encourage students to take risks, and because some students may not contribute significantly to the group while others shoulder the burden. Thus, I make this part of the 10% of an individual’s overall course grade that goes to informal/group/in-class activities. It generally winds up accounting for about 2% of the final grade.

If you want to give it more weight than that, I would suggest weighting it as 10% of the final grade .

For the assessment itself I’m looking for adherence to the objectives: how well did students stay in character? Have they used appropriate terminology when applicable? Did they refer to historical events, artworks, manuscripts, musical compositions and the like?

I have provided a rubric for you. Since one professor cannot assess all the students simultaneously I usually assign each student someone to assess while the role play is going on.

I also have students write a reflection on their own experience of the role play to use in combination with the rubric in order to derive the final +/- grade.

Criteria + Excellent-Very

Good

Good-Satisfactory

- Less than Satisfactory

Empathy and imagination/creativity—Staying in character

Student stays in character at all times.

Student stays in character most of the time.

Student has difficulty staying in character.

Research and analytical reasoning skills—Applying appropriate terminology

Student often applies terms that refer to the Baroque period. These terms are always applied at appropriate times and/or in the proper manner.

Student sometimes applies terms that refer to the Baroque period. These terms are applied often at appropriate times and/or in the proper manner.

Student rarely applies terms that refer to the Baroque period. These terms are not applied at appropriate times and/or not in the proper manner.

Research and analytical reasoning skills—Demonstrating historical understanding

Student often refers to events, places, and people from the era and connects these to the topic under discussion in the role play.

Student sometimes refers to events, places, and people from the era.

Student rarely refers to events, places, and people from the era.

On the following slides are a bibliography of resources that are available to our students and a sampling of information that can be derived from these sources. I provide it to give you a sense of the ideas, events, etc. that students often have access to, if not in the college library, through interlibrary loan. I also highly encourage students to make an appointment with the Reference Librarians for guidance.

Bibliography

Alpers, Svetlana. The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1984.---. The Vexations of Art: Velazquez and Others. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007.Bal, Mieke, ed. The Artemisia Files: Artemisia Gentileschi for Feminists and Other Thinking People. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2005.Bryson, Norman. Looking at the Overlooked: Four Essays on Still-Life Painting. London: Reaktion Books, 2004.DiYanni, Robert and Janetta Rebold Benton. Arts and Culture: An Introduction to the Humanities. Third edition. Volume II. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008. Garrard, Mary. Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.Grootenboer, Hanneke. The Rhetoric of Perspective: Realism and Illusionism in Seventeenth- Century Dutch Still-Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.Harris, Ann. Art and Architecture of the Seventeenth Century. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2008.Hochstrasser, Julie Berger. Still Life and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007.Minor, Vernon Hyde. Baroque and Rococo: Art and Culture. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003.Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. Third edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008.Westermann, Mariet. A Worldly Art: The Dutch Republic, 1585-1718. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2005.Wood, Paul, Jason Gaiger, and Charles Harrison, eds. Art in Theory, 1648-1815: An

Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001.

Between 1545 and 1563 The Council of Trent met to discuss the religious crisis of the Reformation. In order to counter the Protestant threat, the Council gave theological justification to the use of art and music in a religious context. The Council stipulated that the arts needed to aim to increase understanding of the “articles of faith” by possessing clarity; realism—according to the Council—would make art more meaningful to people in their everyday lives; and the inclusion of emotion would encourage piety and religious fervor in the faithful.

Between 1618 and 1648 an alliance of the Austrian Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperors, Ferdinand I and II, and the Spanish King Philip IV were warring with Denmark, France, Holland, and Sweden in the Thirty Years’ War.

May 31, 1659 England, France, and the Netherlands sign the Treaty of the Hague.

The Bourbon Louis XIV (“The Sun King”; 1638-1715) sits on the French throne.

The Netherlands or Dutch Republic is in the midst of “The Golden Age” (1581-1795).

Historical and Cultural Conditions

Philip IV (1621-1665) rules Spain.

Chinese Manchurians rule during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) that started in 1644.

Qing artists are divided into a mainstream style dictated by the court and an unorthodox or individualist style.

Japan is in the Edo or Tokugawa Period (1603-1868).

The Genroku Era of the Japanese Edo Period encourages Neo-Confucianism and bushido (“the way of the warrior”) on political and social levels; in regard to aesthetic trends, ukiyo-e prints, kabuki theater, and bunraku or puppet theater become popular.

Shah Jahan (1592-1666) rules the Mughal Empire in India.

Art of India is divided by region with the Mughals and the Rajput possessing major schools.

Historical and Cultural Conditions Continued

Key Attitudinal Features and Historical Conditions of the Seventeenth Century in Europe (called the

Baroque)The seventeenth century was an era of great changes in European societies:

•The Counter-Reformation strove to encourage piety in faithful Catholics and to persuade lapsed devotees to come back to the Church.

•Economic growth led to increased and diversified patronage (aristocracy, middle-class and working class).

•There were changes in scientific practice, including the development of the microscope and the recognition that the earth revolved around the sun. Such changes made people question their long-held assumptions about the universe and humans place within it.

•Expanded exploration and trade brought in not only new goods and colonies, but also placed Europeans in the position of encountering ways of life and worldviews vastly different from their own.

• There was a new conception of the viewer’s role in art. Artists now thought of viewers as participants.

• Therefore, artists aimed for viewers to turn away from an intellectual response and toward a more emotional reaction to the work of art.

• Artists were interested in “the dramatic moment” which they expressed through both subject choice and stylistic elements.

• There are several fundamental approaches that came out of the above: emotionalism; increased realism; and classicism.

• The creation of the Academy, a growing broad-based commercialism that gave rise to dealers and galleries, as well as to variety of subject matter.

• Creation of a hierarchy of subjects (in descending order): history painting; genre painting (scenes of everyday life); portraiture; landscape; and still life.

Key Attitudinal Features of the Continued

What are key stylistic features of Baroque?

•Heavy reliance on dynamic lines (many times diagonal to create a sense of movement).

•A stagelike treatment of setting and pyramidal composition.

•The use of a spotlighting effect known as tenebrism.

•A clear narrative line and epic themes in history paintings.

•A preference for jewel tones.

•Depiction of textural variety.

•A treatment that uses a seeming realism (going so far as to sometimes emphasize the exterior “flaws” of a person) combined with a subtle manipulation of pose, gesture and gaze to reveal the interior life of portrait subjects.

Fundamental Baroque Stylistic Features