ABSTRACT
The Baroque style flourished during an extended period of political and religious strife. Conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism continued to plague Europe, which, from 1618 to 1648, was devastated by the Thirty Years' War. The content of Baroque painting and sculpture, in reaction to Mannerism, emphasizes realism and the direct study of nature. New categories of imagery, such as landscape, genre, and still life, begin to emerge. Although significant monuments of Baroque style were produced throughout Europe, the center of patronage in the early decades of the seventeenth century was the city of Rome. As the leading sculptor as well as the most successful architect of Baroque Rome, Bernini produced several key sculptural monuments. In the vertical arrangement of three generations of figures, Bernini has created a totemic image, emphasizing the ancestral character of the mythic founding of Rome. In contrast to Bernini, who excelled at sculpture as well as architecture, Borromini worked exclusively as an architect.
