The Baroque in Central Europe [antikvár]

A century not only of 'soldiers' and 'saints' but also of 'genius', the Baroque was an age of great contradictions. It is a period of European history that eludes any straightforward unequivocal classification, no matter what sphere is considered - arts and letters, politics or society. Proof of this difficulty comes from the fact that even in recent times critics and experts have been unable to agree not only on the cultural contents of the age but even on the use of the term 'Baroque'. Thus the Baroque is something of a general label for an age that critics do agree was a time of crisis, disorder and instability. And, as Maravall and Castro have pointed out, it also covers the reaction to disorder by a conservative and repressive culture, permeated with political absolutism and a persistent desire for a return to Classicism in the arts and philosophy.And this in fact was how 'Baroque man' saw himself. Confirmation of such a vision can be found in every corner of Europe. This does not mean reducing to a question of detail the many great achievements made from 1600 to 1750 - to use the widest possible chronological definition. Parallels between the confused instability of the Baroque age and our own age may and have been found. Both were subject to sudden accelerations and long pauses, great ideological commitments, often unfortunately ending up in uncompromising confrontations or impositions, but also in a widespread daily indifference to major issues.The Baroque innovations emerged from a long series of political and religious conflicts which ultimately gave Europe its present form. Along with the rise of the great nation states - France, Great Britain and Spain - the crucial historical development was the consolidation of the Austrian Empire as the fulcrum of Central Europe. The destiny of this huge region was decided by a combination of political and religious factors at work both in the reorganization according to absolutist dictates inspired by the Catholic revival after the Lutheran storm and in the expansion of the Empire due tovictory in the centuries-old struggle with the Muslim xill Turks, who had not been as badly damaged by the Battle of Lepanto as initially seemed in the late sixteenth century. The long list of wars, uprisings and repressions throughout the age fall into the same framework determined by these religious and political factors: the Prague 'defenestration' which gave rise to the Bohemian conflict and the interminable Thirty Years' War; the recurrent uprisings of the Hungarian nobility against Vienna; Empress Maria Theresa's attempts to court the Hussars; the Catholic victory at Vienna which ended the Turkish advance into Europe; and the constitutional and self-damaging refractoriness of the Poles to creating a single monarchy rendering many regions vulnerable to attacks from Cossacks, Swedes, Moscovites, Transyl-vanians, Tatars and Brandenburg armies.Clearly in the mix of political and religious factors the former always came out on top and was crucial even in ideological terms. An example is the long drawn-out struggle involving the Magyar Rákóczi princes who were tolerated in a semi-independent Transylvanian state until they began to support the claims to freedom of the local Protestant population. They were then inexorably crushed by the Austrians or the Turks, often with the help of Ferenc II. Poland is another case in point. A country with an exemplary ethnic mix whose Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox worshippers and Jews enjoyed considerable religious freedom, it was sacrificed politically to stronger ambitions and was constantly invaded during outside wars until the various partitions from 1792 on.Such events had immediate repercussions on the world of art and the most striking sign was a growing away - albeit slowly - from a total dependence on Italian models, which had ruled unchallenged from the early seventeenth century. This change was no violent rejection but a gradual re-emerging of local traditions in a dialectical process of accepting and rejecting the Italian developments and enhancing consolidated styles. In Slovenia, for example, after a long Turkish interlude the Baroque of Italian origin