The Baroque Period.

This is a term often used to refer to most art of the seventeenth century. The Baroque movement also began in Italy and the spread to Austria, Germany and beyond. The style involved huge canvases featuring bright colours, extravagant flourishes and excessive grandeur with emphases on movement. Realism and religion were depicted in vivid, ornate detail. The grand baroque style was favoured by the Catholic Church for its public, religious themed art. By the mid-1600s private collectors began to demand smaller compositions suitable for private display. In the Netherlands a group of painters became known as the Dutch masters began to sell portraits, still life and landscapes to the wealthy middle classes rather been commissioned by the church.
In Spain artices such as Diego Velazquez used light and shadow to achieve a harsh, new realism in the depiction of religious subjects. Two other styles of the seventeen century to emerge were classicism, which focus on classical principles of art and naturalism. To which the lower middle classes were to beginning to be depicted in country taverns’, kitchens and everyday situations. It became the Art for who we are and to become. Its masters Peter Paul Ruben’s,Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Diego Velázquez, Rembrandt Van Rijn, Jan Vermeer and meny more