Baroque and Rococo
In 17th and 18th century Croatia was reunited with the parts of country that were occupied by Venetian Republic and Ottoman Empire. The unity attributed to sudden flourishing of Art in every segment. In northern Croatia and Slavonia sprung out numerous and worthy works of baroque art – from urban plans and large forts to churches, palaces, public buildings and monuments, all were done in Baroque style.
Large fortifications with radial plan, ditches and numerous towers were built because of constant Ottoman threat. The two largest ones were Osijek and Slavonski Brod. Later they become large cities. They were fortified with water and earth – earth mounds with cannons and canals filled with water that was supposed to slow dawn the approaching enemies. The fort of Slavonski Brod was the largest in all Croatia, and one of the largest ones in entire Europe because it was bounding fort of Europe toward Ottoman Empire.
Urban planning of Baroque is felt in numerous new towns like Karlovac, Bjelovar, Koprivnica, Virovitica etc. that had large straight streets, rectangular squares in the middle surrounded with buildings as government and military ones as well as representative church.
Cities of Dalmatia also got baroque towers and bastions incorporated in their old walls, like the ones in Pula, Šibenik or Hvar. But biggest baroque undertaking happened in Dubrovnik in 17th century after catastrophic earthquake in 1667 when almost entire city was destroyed. In Baroque style were rebuilt the church of St Vlaho on the main square (1715), Main Chatedral and Jesuit monastery with church of St Ignatius. Paolo Passalaqua united several of those baroque masterpieces with his Jesuit Stairway. That beautiful wide stone stairway with series of convexities and concavities and strong balustrade (reminiscent of famous Spain Stairway Square in Rome) actually connected two separate baroque parts of the city - the Jesuit church above and Ivan Gundulić Square below.
During the Baroque numerous churches, enchanting us with their size and form were built in all Croatia, thus becoming a crown in every town or a city. The monastery churches often had an enclosing wall with inner porches lavishly decorated, like in Franciscan monastery in Slavonski Brod where the columns are as thick as baroque abundance. The most beautiful one is probably the church in Selima near Sisak. It has oval shape with elliptic dome and concave and convex front with two according towers.
Wall painting experienced flourishing in all parts of Croatia, from illusionist frescoes in church of Holy Mary in Samobor, St Catherine in Zagreb to Jesuit church in Dubrovnik. Best preserved ones are Rococo frescoes in Miljana mansion where allegorical seasons and natural elements were depicted through human nature and his reflection on art.
Read more about this topic: Croatian Architecture
Famous quotes containing the words baroque and/or rococo:
“It is the Late city that first defies the land, contradicts Nature in the lines of its silhouette, denies all Nature. It wants to be something different from and higher than Nature. These high-pitched gables, these Baroque cupolas, spires, and pinnacles, neither are, nor desire to be, related with anything in Nature. And then begins the gigantic megalopolis, the city-as-world, which suffers nothing beside itself and sets about annihilating the country picture.”
—Oswald Spengler (1880–1936)
“Everything ponderous, viscous, and solemnly clumsy, all long- winded and boring types of style are developed in profuse variety among Germans—forgive me the fact that even Goethe’s prose, in its mixture of stiffness and elegance, is no exception, being a reflection of the “good old time” to which it belongs, and a reflection of German taste at a time when there still was a “German taste”Ma rococo taste in moribus et artibus.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)