Barocke

Barocke, or Baroque, is a term used to describe a broad European cultural phenomenon in art, architecture, and music from about 1600 to 1750. Originating in Italy during the late Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation, Baroque style spread across the continent and beyond, influencing churches, palaces, courts, and concert halls.

The Baroque is characterized by drama, movement, and emotional intensity. Visual arts favored dynamic compositions, strong contrasts of light and shadow (tenebrism), ornate detail, and illusionistic spaces intended to overwhelm the viewer. Architecture emphasized grandeur, curvature, exuberant ornament, and large-scale civic and religious projects. In music, continuity of rhythm and bass lines (basso continuo), ornate melodies, and sudden contrasts of mood and texture became central.

Regional varieties emerged. Italian Baroque often stressed faith and spectacle; Northern Baroque combined naturalism with moral or civic themes; French Baroque favored classical clarity and monumental symmetry; Spanish Baroque tended to pious intensity and decorative richness. Notable figures include painters such as Caravaggio, Rubens, Rembrandt, Bernini, Borromini, and Velázquez; composers such as Monteverdi, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, and Purcell.

The Baroque declined in the mid-18th century as tastes shifted toward Rococo and Classicism, yet its influence persisted in architecture, painting, music, and theater. In German-language contexts, barocke or Barock is the standard term for this period and its characteristic artistic language.