if it ain't baroque,don't fix

aroque

在罗马老城区中心地带的Piazza Sant’Ignazio广场上有一座华丽的红白相间的四层的楼房,它是巴洛克风格建筑的一颗宝珠.它的对面是Sant’Ignazio耶稣会教堂,因其天花板上有印象派画家Andrea Pozzo的作品而著名.

The Baroque style reflects the times.As advances swept the world,people began to be less and less devoted to God.Subjects became less and less religious in nature.For instance,Vermeer's The Geographer shows a scientist.Other subjects included soldiers,self portraits (as Rembrandt painted) and scenes of classical gods and goddesses.There were religious paintings,however.Peter Paul Rubens painted The Raising of the Cross at this time.Bernini's sculpture The Ecstacy of St.Teresa depicted a religious theme.This was the result of the Inquisition and the Catholic church's attempt to retain it's vast influence in the face of burgeoning scientific advances that directly contradicted some of the church's teachings.
In Rococo art,however,there are almost no religious subjects.While some churches were decorated and built in the Rococo style,there is almost no evidence of religion in painting.This,too,is a reflection of the times.Rococo was in vogue during the eighteenth century,known as The Age of Enlightenment.Divine right of kings was generally disestablished,and secularism and rationalism prevailed.Rococo art was on a whole more frivolous and optimistic than Baroque art.Watteau's Pilgrimage to Cythera portrays of the day aristocracy in a scene from classical mythology.This piece is imbued with more grace than,say,Ruisdael's Extensive Landscape With Ruins.The landscape in Pilgrimage is also less realistic.It is more fanciful,as opposed to the stark realistic quality of Extensive Landscape.The frivolity of the times is evident in Frogonard's The Swing.There is no frolicking in Baroque art.The closest thing to it is Leyster's The Last Drop,and that's not really a frolic.
While many scholars believe that Rococo is merely a refinement of Baroque,it seems that there are two distinct styles.While there are similarities,the themes and the general attitude of Rococo would suggest that it is,in fact,independent of Baroque.