What is Baroque? (Panofsky, 1934)

"...It is true that in representations like these there appears a feeling that is commonly known as sentimentality. And the fact that Baroque art has been so emphatically disapproved of for almost two centuries is largely due to the impression that the feeling of Baroque figures lacked genuineness and sincerity. The beholder seemed to feel that these figures displayed theatrical poses, that they reveled in their own sensations, that they "did not mean it" so to speak, whether they exhibit their half painful, half blissful raptures, like the St. Sebastian's and St. Lawrence's, or their patient devoutness, like the Mary Magdalen by Guido Reni. ( Read more... )