GREEK THEATER

The Greek theatre history began with festivals honoring their gods.
A god, Dionysus, was honored with a festival called by "City
Dionysia". In Athens, during this festival, men used to perform
songs to welcome Dionysus. Plays were only presented at City
Dionysia festival.
Athens was the main center for these theatrical traditions.
Athenians spread these festivals to its numerous allies in order to
promote a common identity.
At the early Greek festivals, the actors, directors, and dramatists
were all the same person. After some time, only three actors were
allowed to perform in each play. Later few non-speaking roles were
allowed to perform on-stage. Due to limited number of actors
allowed on-stage, the chorus evolved into a very active part of
Greek theatre. Music was often played during the chorus' delivery
of its lines.
Panoramic view of the Greek theatre at Epidaurus.
Panoramic view of the Greek theatre at Epidaurus.
Tragedy, comedy, and satyr plays were the theatrical forms.

Tragedy and comedy were viewed as completely separate genres.

Satyr plays dealt with the mythological subject in comic manner.
Aristotle's Poetics sets out a thesis about the perfect structure for
tragedy.
Tragedy plays
Thespis is considered to be the first Greek "actor" and originator of
tragedy (which means "goat song", perhaps referring to goats
sacrificed to Dionysus before performances, or to goat-skins worn
by the performers.) However, his importance is disputed, and
Thespis is sometimes listed as late as sixteenth in the
chronological order of Greek tragedians.
Aristotle's Poetics contain the earliest known theory about the
origins of Greek theatre. He says that tragedy evolved from
dithyrambs, songs sung in praise of Dionysus at the Dionysia each
year. The dithyrambs may have begun as frenzied improvisations
but in the 600s BC, the poet Arion is credited with developing the
dithyramb into a formalized narrative sung by a chorus.
Three well-known Greek tragedy playwrights of the fifth century
are Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus.
Comedy plays
Comedy was also an important part of ancient Greek theatre.
Comedy plays were derived from imitation; there are no traces of
its origin. Aristophanes wrote most of the comedy plays. Out of
these 11 plays survived - Lysistrata, a humorous tale about a
strong woman who leads a female coalition to end war in Greece.
Greek Theatre
Theatre buildings were called a theatron. The theaters were large,
open-air structures constructed on the slopes of hills. They
consisted of three main elements: the orchestra, the skene, and
the audience.

Orchestra: A large circular or rectangular area at the center part of

the theatre, where the play, dance, religious rites, acting used to
take place.
Skene: A large rectangular building situated behind the orchestra,
used as a backstage. Actors could change their costumes and
masks. Earlier the skene was a tent or hut, later it became a
permanent stone structure. These structures were sometimes
painted to serve as backdrops.
Rising from the circle of the orchestra was the audience. The
theatres were originally built on a very large scale to
accommodate the large number of people on stage, as well as the
large number of people in the audience, up to fourteen thousand.
Acting
The cast of a Greek play in the Dionysia was comprised of
amateurs, not professionals (all male).
Ancient Greek actors had to gesture grandly so that the entire
audience could see and hear the story. However most Greek
theatres were cleverly constructed to transmit even the smallest
sound to any seat.
Costumes and Masks
The actors were so far away from the audience that without the
aid of exaggerated costumes and masks.
The masks were made of linen or cork, so none have survived.
Tragic masks carried mournful or pained expressions, while comic
masks were smiling or leering.

ROMAN THEATER

Roman theatres derive their basic design from the Theatre of

Pompey, the first permanent Roman theatre. The characteristics of
Roman to those of the earlier Greek theatres due in large part to
its influence on the Roman triumvir Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.
Much of the architectural influence on the Romans came from the
Greeks, and theatre structural design was no different from other
buildings. However, Roman theatres have specific differences,
such as being built upon their own foundations instead of earthen
works or a hillside and being completely enclosed on all sides.
The Roman theatre was shaped with a half circle or orchestra
space in front of the stage. Most often the audience sat here in

comfortable chairs. Occasionally, however, the actors would

perform in this space. To solve the problem of lighting and sound the theaters were outdoors.
The Romans built theaters anywhere, even on flat plains, by
raising the whole structure off the ground. As a result, the whole
structure was more integrated and entrances/exits could be built
into the cave, as is done in large theaters and sports arenas today.
The arena was as high as the rest of the structure, so the audience
could not look out beyond the stage. It also created more of an
enclosed atmosphere and may have helped keep out the noises of
the city. A tarp could be rigged and moved over the top of the
theater to create shade.
The huge amount of people present still held problems for the
sound as the audience would not always stay quiet. To solve this
problem, costumes and mask were worn to show the type of
person on stage. Different symbols were worked out. The actors
wore masks - brown for men, white for women, smiling or sad
depending on the type of play. The costumes showed the audience
who the person was - a purple gown for a rich man, a striped toga
for a boy, a short cloak for a soldier, a red toga for a poor man, a
short tunic for a slave etc. Women were not allowed to act, so their
parts were normally played by a man or young boys wearing a
white mask.
The actors spoke the lines, but a second actor mimed the gestures
to fit the lines, along with background music. Some things were
represented by a series of gestures, which are recognized by the
audience to mean something, such as feeling a pulse to show a
sick person, making the shape of a lyre with fingers to show music.
The audience was often more interested in their favorite actors
than the play itself. The actors would try to win over the
audience's praise with decorative masks, costumes, dancing and
mime.

If the play scripted an actor's dying, a condemned man would take

the place of the actor at the last moment and actually be killed on
stage. The Romans loved the bloodthirsty spectacles. Emperors
such as Nero used the theatre as a way of showing their own
talents - good or otherwise. Nero actually used to sing and would
not let anyone leave until he was finished.
Most theaters still standing date from the Hellenistic period, which
dates from the 4th century BC and later. It's possible to assume
much of the features were preserved, but not definitely. This is due
to the fact that most plays completely lacked staging directions.
Those directions found in modern translations were merely added
by the translator. Some plays, however, do sometimes contain
scenic requirements.
Pompeii's large theatre underwent a structural change from the
Hellenistic style to a more Greco-Roman style. The traditional
Hellenistic theatres had the scene section moved forward into the
orchestra area, reducing it to a semicircle. The front portion of the
scene converted into a 'proskeniontogeion' (high raised stage).
The stage was 8-12 feet, 45-140 feet in width, and 6.5-14 feet in
depth. The back wall of the stage had 1-3 doors that opened onto
the stage but later the number of doors increased to 1-7,
depending on the theatre. The stage was supported in front by
open columns.
Triangular wooden prisms with a different scene painted on each
side (periaktoi) were created and located near the side entrance of
the stage. This allowed for a more realistic show. The higher stage
gave way to better acting which later attracted actors and
popularity.
After the Romans moved into the area and built the odium,
Pompeii's theatre underwent complete changes and in 65 A.D, the
theatre transformed away from the Hellenistic style into the Greco-

Roman style of theatre. A porticos was added in the back of the

theatre. The ends of the scene building were removed.
Rows of seats were added for honored guests. The stage was
lowered and 2 short flights of steps leading down to the stairs
were added. These changes were important because the intent of
the theatre was to replace the temporary wooden stages that the
Romans were using to house their tragedies and comedies. The
new look of the theatre is what was left to the world after
Vesuvius's fatal eruption.
The earliest known Italian drama, is known to come from the
region of Campania, which is located in the Southern half of Italy. It
was in the town of Atella where the Atellan Farces became popular.
These were originally written in the language of Oscan, and later
translated into Latin as these farces caught on in Rome. What
allowed theses plays to catch on, however, was actually due to the
Etruscans from the North, as well as Greek colonies located on the
Eastern side of the Peninsula to whom the Romans have given the
credit of introducing the many forms of music and dance.
In 364 B.C., the Romans specifically introduced the Etruscan form
of the ballet as a dance so as to appease the gods, so that they
might remove a plague from the empire. Livius Andronicus, who is
thought to be a freed slave during the 3rd century B.C., is credited
for translating the first Greek plays into Latin as well as producing
them (Butler 79). Many of the performances were associated with
important holidays as well as with religious festivals.

Roman theatres were built in all areas of the empire from

medieval-day Spain, to the Middle East. Because of the Romans'

ability to influence local architecture, we see numerous theatres

around the world with uniquely Roman attributes.
There exist similarities between the theatres and amphitheatres of
ancient Rome/Italy. They were constructed out of the same
material, Roman concrete, and provided a place for the public to
go and see numerous events throughout the Empire. However,
they are two entirely different structures, with specific layouts that
lend to the different events they held. Amphitheatres did not need
superior acoustics, unlike those provided by the structure of a
Roman theatre. While amphitheatres would feature races and
gladiatorial events, theatres hosted events such as plays,
pantomimes, choral events, and orations. Their design, with its
semicircular form, enhances the natural acoustics, unlike Roman
amphitheatres constructed in the round.
These buildings were semi-circular and possessed certain inherent
architectural structures, with minor differences depending on the
region in which they were constructed. The scaenae frons was a
high back wall of the stage floor, supported by columns. The
proscaenium was a wall that supported the front edge of the stage
with ornately decorated niches off to the sides. The Hellenistic
influence is seen through the use of the proscaenium. The Roman
theatre also had a podium, which sometimes supported the
columns of the scaenae frons. The scaenae was originally not part
of the building itself, constructed only to provide sufficient
background for the actors. Eventually, it became a part of the
edifice itself, made out of concrete. The theatre itself was divided
into the stage (orchestra) and the seating section (auditorium).
Vomitoria or entrances and exits were made available to the
audience.
The auditorium, the area in which people gathered, was
sometimes constructed on a small hill or slope in which stacked
seating could be easily made in the tradition of the Greek

Theatres. The central part of the auditorium was hollowed out of a

hill or slope, while the outer radian seats required structural
support and solid retaining walls. This was of course not always
the case as Romans tended to build their theatres regardless of
the availability of hillsides. All theatres built within the city of
Rome were completely man-made without the use of earthworks.
The auditorium was not roofed; rather, awnings (vela) could be
pulled overhead to provide shelter from rain or sunlight.
Some Roman theatres, constructed of wood, were torn down after
the festival for which they were erected concluded. This practice
was due to a moratorium on permanent theatre structures that
lasted until 55 BC when the Theatre of Pompey was built with the
addition of a temple to avoid the law. Some Roman theatres show
signs of never having been completed in the first place.
Inside Rome, few theatres have survived the centuries following
their construction, providing little evidence about the specific
theatres. Arausio, the theatre in modern-day Orange, France, is a
good example of a classic Roman theatre, with an indented
scaenae frons, reminiscent of Western Roman theatre designs,
however missing the more ornamental structure. The Arausio is
still standing today and, with its amazing structural acoustics and
having had its seating reconstructed, can be seen to be a marvel
of Roman architecture.

Standard Floor Plan

Theatre Structure
Interior view of the auditorium

1) Scaenae frons 2) Porticus post scaenam 3) Pulpitum 4)

Proscaenium
5) Orchestra 6) Cavea 7) Aditus maximus 8) Vomitorium

The scaenae frons is the elaborately decorated

background of a Roman theatre stage. This area usually
has several entrances to the stage including a grand
central entrance. The scaenae frons is two or sometime
three stories in height and was central to the theatre's
visual impact for this was what is seen by a Roman
audience at all times. Tiers or balconies were supported by
a generous number of classic columns. This style was
influenced by Greek theatre. The Greek equivalent was the
"Scene" building. It lends its name to "proscenium," which
describes the stage or space "before the scene."
The pulpitum is a common feature in medieval cathedral
and monastic architecture in Europe. It is a massive screen,

most often constructed of stone, or occasionally timber,

that divides the choir (the area containing the choir stalls
and high altar in a cathedral, collegiate or monastic
church) from the nave and ambulatory (the parts of the
church to which lay worshippers may have access).
A proscenium is the area of a theater surrounding the
stage opening. Note that a proscenium theatre should not
be confused with a "proscenium arch theatre".
The cavea were the subterranean cells in which wild
animals were confined before the combats in the Roman
arena or amphitheatre.
A vomitorium is a passage situated below or behind a tier
of seats in an amphitheatre, through which big crowds can
exit rapidly at the end of a performance.They are also a
pathway for actors to enter on and off stage. The Latin
word vomitorium, plural vomitoria, derives from the verb
vomeo, vomere, vomitum, "to spew forth." In ancient
Roman architecture, vomitoria were designed to provide
rapid egress for large crowds at amphitheatres and
stadiums, as they do in modern sports stadiums and large
theaters.

Theatre of Marcellus
the year 11 or 13. It stands on level ground and is supported by
radiating walls and concrete vaulting. An arcade with attached
half-columns runs around the building. The columns are Doric and
Ionic.
At the theatre, locals and visitors alike were able to watch
performances of drama and song. Today its ancient edifice in the
rione of Sant'Angelo, Rome, once again provides one of the city's
many popular spectacles or tourist sites. It was named after
Marcus Marcellus, Emperor Augustus's nephew, who died five
years before its completion. Space for the theatre w

of
Marcellus. one ancient The theatre to survive in Rome, the Theatre
of Marcellus, was started by Caesar and completed by Augustus

around as cleared by Julius Caesar, who was murdered before it

could be begun; the theatre was so far advanced by 17 BC that
part of the celebration of the ludi saeculares took place within the
theatre; it was completed in 13 BC and formally inaugurated in 12
BC by Augustus.
The theatre was 111 m in diameter; it could originally hold 11,000
spectators. It was an impressive example of what was to become
one of the most pervasive urban architectural forms of the Roman
world. The theatre was built mainly of tuff, and concrete faced with
stones in the pattern known as opus reticulatum, completely
sheathed in white travertine. The network of arches, corridors,
tunnels and ramps that gave access to the interiors of such Roman
theaters were normally ornamented with a screen of engaged
columns in Greek orders: Doric at the base, Ionic in the middle. It
is believed that Corinthian columns were used for the upper level
but this is uncertain as the theater was reconstructed in the Middle
Ages, removing the top tier of seating and the columns.
Like other Roman theaters in suitable locations, it had openings
through which the natural setting could be seen, in this case the
Tiber Island to the southwest. The permanent setting, the scaena,
also rose to the top of the cavea as in other Roman theaters.
The name templum Marcelli still clung to the ruins in 998. In the
Early Middle Ages the Teatro di Marcello was used as a fortress of
the Fabii and then at the end of the 11th century, by Pier Leoni
and later his heirs (the Pierleoni). The Savelli held it in the 13th
century. Later, in the 16th century, the residence of the Orsini,
designed by Baldassare Peruzzi, was built atop the ruins of the
ancient theatre.
Now the upper portion is divided into multiple apartments, and its
surroundings are used as a venue for small summer concerts; the

Portico d'Ottavia lies to the north west leading to the Roman

Ghetto and the Tiber to the south west.
In the 17th century, the renowned English architect Sir Christopher
Wren explicitly acknowledged that his design for the Sheldonian
Theatre in Oxford was influenced by Serlio's engraving of the
Theatre

Theatre at Orange

The Theatre of Orange is an ancient Roman theatre, in Orange,

southern France, built early in the 1st century CE. It is owned by
the municipality of Orange and is the home of the summer opera
festival, the Choregies d'Orange.
It is one of the best preserved of all the Roman theatres in the
Roman colony of Arausio (or, more specifically, Colonia Julia Firma
Secundanorum Arausio: "the Julian colony of Arausio established
by the soldiers of the second legion") which was founded in 40 BC.

Playing a major role in the life of the citizens, who spent a large
part of their free time there, the theatre was seen by the Roman
authorities not only as a means of spreading Roman culture to the
colonies, but also as a way of distracting them from all political
activities. Mime, pantomime, poetry readings and the "attelana" (a
kind of farce rather like the commedia dell'arte) was the dominant
form of entertainment, much of which lasted all day. For the
common people, who were fond of spectacular effects,
magnificent stage sets became very important, as was the use of
stage machinery. The entertainment offered was open to all and
free of charge.
As the Western Roman Empire declined during the 4th century, by
which time Christianity had become the official religion, the
theatre was closed by official edict in AD 391 since the Church
opposed what it regarded as uncivilized spectacles. After that, the
theatre was abandoned completely. It was sacked and pillaged by
the "barbarians" and was used as a defensive post in the Middle
Ages. During the 16th-century religious wars, it became a refuge
for the townspeople.

Medieval theatre

Nineteenth-century engraving of a performance from the

Chestermystery play cycle.
Medieval theatre refers to the theatre in the period between the
fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century A.D. and the
beginning of the Renaissance in approximately the 15th century
A.D. Medieval theatre covers all drama produced in Europe over
that thousand year period and refers to a variety of genres,
including liturgical drama, mystery plays, morality
plays, farces and masques. Beginning withHrosvitha of
Gandersheim in the 10th century, Medieval drama was for the
most part very religious and moral in its themes, staging and
traditions. The most famous examples of Medieval plays are the
English cycle dramas, the York Mystery Plays, the Chester Mystery
Plays, the Wakefield Mystery Plays and the N-Town Plays, as well as
the morality play, Everyman.
Due to a lack of surviving records and texts, a low literacy rate of
the general population, and the opposition of the clergy to some
types of performance, there are few surviving sources on Medieval
drama of the Early and High Medieval periods. However, by
the late period, dramaand theatre began to become more

secularized and a larger number of records survive

documenting plays and performances.

Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, the first dramatist of the post-classical

era.
Faced with the problem of explaining a new religion to a largely
illiterate population, churches in the Early Middle Ages began
staging dramatized versions of particular biblical events on
specific days of the year. These dramatizations were included in
order to vivify annual celebrations.[1] Symbolic objects and actions
(vestments, altars, censers, and pantomime performed by priests)
recalled the events which Christian ritual celebrates. These were
extensive sets of visual signs that could be used to communicate
with a largely illiterate audience. These performances developed
into liturgical dramas, the earliest of which is the Whom do you
Seek (Quem-Quaeritis) Easter trope, dating from ca. 925.
[2]
Liturgical drama was sung responsively by two groups and did
not involve actors impersonating characters. However, sometime
between 965 and 975, thelwold of Winchester composed
the Regularis Concordia (Monastic Agreement) which contains a
playlet complete with directions for performance.[3]

Transition from Rome, 500-900 A.D.[edit]

As the Western Roman Empire fell into severe decay through the
4th and 5th centuries A.D., the seat of Roman power shifted
toConstantinople and the Eastern Roman Empire, today called
the Byzantine Empire. While surviving evidence about Byzantine
theatre is slight, existing records show that mime, pantomime,
scenes or recitations from tragedies and comedies, dances, and
other entertainments were very popular. Constantinople had two
theatres that were in use as late as the 5th century A.D. However,
the true importance of the Byzantines in theatrical history is their
preservation of many classical Greek texts and the compilation of
a massive encyclopedia called the Suda, from which is derived a
large amount of contemporary information on Greek theatre. [4] In
the 6th century, the Emperor Justinian finally closed down all
theatres for good.
According to the binary thinking of the Church's early followers,
everything that did not belong to God belonged to the Devil; thus
all non-Christian gods and religions weresatanic. Efforts were
made in many countries through this period to not only
convert Jews and pagans but to destroy pre-Christian institutions
and influences. Works of Greek andRoman literature were burnt,
the thousand-year-old Platonic Academy was closed, the Olympic
Games were banned and all theatres were shut down. The theatre
itself was viewed as a diabolical threat to Christianity because of
its continued popularity in Rome even among new converts.
Church fathers such
as Tatian, Tertullian and Augustinecharacterized the stage as an
instrument in the Devil's fiendish plot to corrupt men's souls,
while acting was considered sinful because of its cruel mockery of
God's creation.[5]
Under these influences, the church set about trying to suppress
theatrical spectacles by passing laws prohibiting and

excluding Roman actors. They were forbidden to have contact with

Christian women, own slaves, or wear gold. They were
officially excommunicated, denied the sacraments,
including marriage and burial, and were defamed and debased
throughout Europe. For many centuries thereafter, clerics were
cautioned to not allow these suddenly homeless, travelling actors
to perform in their jurisdictions.[5]
From the 5th century, Western Europe was plunged into a period of
general disorder that lasted (with a brief period of stability under
the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century) until the 10th century
A.D. As such, most organized theatrical activities disappeared
in Western Europe. While it seems that small nomadic bands
traveled around Europe throughout the period, performing
wherever they could find an audience, there is no evidence that
they produced anything but crude scenes .[6]
Hrosvitha (c.935-973), an aristocratic canoness and historian in
northern Germany, wrote six plays modeled on Terence's comedies
but using religious subjects in the 10th century A.D. Terence's
comedies had long been used in monastery schools as examples
of spoken Latin but are full of clever, alluring courtesans and
ordinary human pursuits such as sex, love and marriage.[7] In order
to preempt criticism from the church, Hrosvitha prefaced her
collection by stating that her moral purpose to save Christians
from the guilt they must feel when reading Classical literature. Her
declared solution was to imitate the "laudable" deeds of women in
Terence's plays and discard the "shameless" ones.[8]These six plays
are the first known plays composed by a female dramatist and the
first identifiable Western dramatic works of the post-Classical era.
[3]
They were first published in 1501 and had considerable
influence on religious and didactic plays of the sixteenth century.
Hrosvitha was followed by Hildegard of Bingen (d. 1179),

a Benedictine abbess, who wrote a Latin musical drama

called Ordo Virtutum in 1155.
The anonymous pagan play Querolus, written c.420, was adapted
in the 12th century by Vitalis of Blois. Other secular Latin plays
were also written in the 12th century, mainly in France but also in
England (Babio). There certainly existed some other performances
that were not fully fledged theatre; they may have been
carryovers from the original pagan cultures (as is known from
records written by the clergy disapproving of such festivals). It is
also known that mimes, minstrels, bards, storytellers, and jugglers
traveled in search of new audiences and financial support. Not
much is known about these performers' repertoire and few written
texts survive. One of the most famous of the secular plays is the
musical Le Jeu de Robin et Marion, written by Adam de la Halle in
the 13th century, which is fully laid out in the original manuscript
with lines, musical notation, and illuminations in the margins
depicting the actors in motion. Adam also wrote another secular
play, Jeu de la Fueillee in Arras, a French town in which theatre
was thriving in the late 12th and 13th centuries. Perhaps the
ugliest play surviving from Arras, is the Jeu de saint
Nicolas by Jean Bodel (c.1200).
High and Late Medieval theatre[edit]

Stage drawing from 15th-century vernacularmorality play The

Castle of Perseverance.
As the Viking invasions ceased in the middle of the 11th century
A.D., liturgical drama had spread
from Russia toScandinavia to Italy. Only in Muslim-occupied
Spain were liturgical dramas not presented at all. Despite the large
number of liturgical dramas that have survived from the period,
many churches would have only performed one or two per year
and a larger number never performed any at all.[9]
The Feast of Fools was especially important in the development of
comedy. The festival inverted the status of the lesser clergy and
allowed them to ridicule their superiors and the routine of church
life. Sometimes plays were staged as part of the occasion and a
certain amount of burlesque and comedy crept into these
performances. Although comic episodes had to truly wait until the
separation of drama from the liturgy, the Feast of Fools
undoubtedly had a profound effect on the development of comedy
in both religious and secular plays.[10]

Performance of religious plays outside of the church began

sometime in the 12th century through a traditionally accepted
process of merging shorter liturgical dramas into longer plays
which were then translated into vernacular and performed by
laymen and thus accessible to a wider segment of society
inclusive of the working class. The use of vernacular enabled
drama to be understood and enjoyed by a larger audience. The
Mystery of Adam (1150) gives credence to this theory as its
detailed stage direction suggest that it was staged outdoors. A
number of other plays from the period survive, including La Seinte
Resurrection (Norman), The Play of the Magi Kings (Spanish),
and Sponsus (French).
The importance of the High Middle Ages in the development of
theatre was the economic and political changes that led to the
formation of guilds and the growth of towns. This would lead to
significant changes in the Late Middle Ages. In the British Isles,
plays were produced in some 127 different towns during the
Middle Ages. These vernacular "mystery plays" were written in
cycles of a large number of plays: York (48
plays), Chester (24), Wakefield (32) and Unknown (42). A larger
number of plays survive from France and Germany in this period
and some type of religious dramas were performed in nearly every
European country in the Late Middle Ages. Many of these plays
contained comedy, devils, villains andclowns.[11]
The majority of actors in these plays were drawn from the local
population. For example, at Valenciennes in 1547, more than 100
roles were assigned to 72 actors.[12] Plays were staged on pageant
wagon stages, which were platforms mounted on wheels used to
move scenery. Often providing their own costumes, amateur
performers in England were exclusively male, but other countries
had female performers. The platform stage, which was an

unidentified space and not a specific locale, allowed for abrupt

changes in location.

Henry VIII of England loved courtmasques

Morality plays emerged as a distinct dramatic form around 1400
and flourished until 1550. The most interesting morality play
is The Castle of Perseverance which depicts mankind's progress
from birth to death. However, the most famous morality play and
perhaps best known Medieval drama is Everyman. Everyman
receives Death's summons, struggles to escape and finally resigns
himself to necessity. Along the way, he is deserted
by Kindred, Goods, and Fellowship - only Good Deeds goes with
him to the grave.
There were also a number of secular performances staged in the
Middle Ages, the earliest of which is The Play of the
Greenwood byAdam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical
scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural
occurrences. Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after the
13th century. The majority of these plays come
from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form,
emphasizing sex and bodily excretions.[13] The best known
playwright of farces is Hans Sachs (14941576) who wrote 198
dramatic works. In England, [The Second Shepherds' Play of

the Wakefield Cycle is the best known early farce. However, farce
did not appear independently in England until the 16th century
with the work of John Heywood (14971580).
A significant forerunner of the development of Elizabethan drama
was the Chambers of Rhetoric in the Low Countries.[14] These
societies were concerned with poetry, music and drama and held
contests to see which society could compose the best drama in
relation to a question posed.
At the end of the Late Middle Ages, professional actors began to
appear in England and Europe. Richard III and Henry VII both
maintained small companies of professional actors. Their plays
were performed in the great hall of a nobleman's residence, often
with a raised platform at one end for the audience and a "screen"
at the other for the actors. Also important were Mummers' plays,
performed during the Christmas season, and courtmasques. These
masques were especially popular during the reign of Henry
VIII who had a house of revels built and an office of
revels established in 1545.[15]
The Ms of Medieval drama[edit]
During the Medieval time period the art of theatre was created and
developed. There are five notable types of drama that have a
significant role in the way theatre is practiced in the 21st century.
These types of drama are often referred to as "The Ms of Medieval
Drama." Here are the five notable types of Medieval drama:
1- Mummings: a theatrical drama in which people represent the
order of vegetation. Many of the performers dressed in costumes
that signified that they were a plant of some sort. These dramas
had a short plot and were often performed in the basement of a
bar. They were meant to be humorous and as such there was
always a clown. In other words, there was always a character
within the plot that was the butt of every joke and would often get

fooled to cause havoc. These performances were performed during

the dark time of the year. In each plot the hero dies, but is always
brought back to life.
2- Mystery play: a drama that explores the most known stories
within the Bible. Mystery plays were extremely prevalent in the
15th century. They were heavily religious and were the heart of
the Corpus Christi Festival in Medieval times. These plays became
obsolete when the focus of dramas were no longer religious.
3- Miracle play: a drama that accounted the life of a saint.
Sometimes the drama was focused on the martyrdom of the saint;
sometimes the drama focused on the miracles the saint either
witnessed or performed. These dramas could either be real stories
or fictitious ones.
4- Morality play: characters within the drama personify moral
qualities to teach moral lessons. In these dramas the plot led to
teaching the audience how to be a good Christian, or how to be a
person worthy of Heaven. In other words, these dramas were
allegories of correct Christian behavior.
5- Manners: the first secular dramas. These dramas were the
beginning of breaking the tradition of keeping a religious purpose
in the theatre world during the Medieval time period. Because of
this genre of drama, mummings, mystery, miracle, and morality
plays began to become obsolete.
Staging[edit]

The Valenciennes Passion Play

Depending on the area of the performances, the plays were
performed in the middle of the street, on pageant wagons in the
streets of great cities (this was inconvenient for the actors
because the small stage size made stage movement impossible),
in the halls of nobility, or in the round in amphitheatres, as
suggested by current archaeology in Cornwall and the southwest
of England. The most detailed illustration of a mystery play stage
design is the frontispiece to Hubert Cailleau's The Passion and
Resurrection of the Savior. All medieval stage production was
temporary and expected to be removed upon the completion of
the performances. Actors, predominantly male, typically wore
long, dark robes. Medieval plays such as the Wakefield cycle, or
the Digby Magdalene featured lively interplay between two distinct
areas, the wider spaces in front of the raised staging areas, and
the elevated areas themselves (called, respectively, the locus and
the platea).[16] Typically too, actors would move between these
locations in order to suggest scene changes, rather than remain
stationary and have the scene change around them as is typically
done in modern theater.
The dramas remained religious but were no longer strictly
liturgical; therefore, they were not exclusively performed in the
church or before the gates of the church. When staging later
Medieval theatre, it was important to have spectacle and present a

realistic depiction of the play so the audience members would see

and feel the characters whom religious traditions may have not
fully presented. Although the main key to having widespread
knowledge of the plays was the vernacular language they were
performed in, the spectacle of action, props, costumes and stage
direction enhanced the production and its interpretation by the
audience. Thus, scenery, stage machinery and costumes enabled
a more realistic depiction of the message the play was trying to
promote. Whether on a fixed stage, with more opportunity for
spectacle, or on a pageant wagon that moved through the streets,
the ornate details and tricks attributed to these productions
enhanced the audiences experience of the play.[17]
More examples of the Medieval Stage
Decline and change[edit]
Its death was due mostly to changing political and economic
factors. First, the Protestant Reformation targeted the theatre,
especially in England, in an effort to stamp out allegiance to Rome.
In Wakefield, for example, the local mystery cycle text shows signs
of Protestant editing, with references to the pope crossed out and
two plays completely eliminated because they were too Catholic.
However, it was not just the Protestants who attacked the theatre
of the time. The Council of Trent banned religious plays in an
attempt to rein in the extrabiblical material that the Protestants
frequently lampooned.
A revival of interest in ancient Roman and Greek culture changed
the tastes of the learned classes in the performing
arts. Greek and Roman plays were performed and new plays were
written that were heavily influenced by the Classical style. This led
to the creation of Commedia dell'arte and other forms
of Renaissance theatre.

A change of patronage also caused drastic changes to the theatre.

In England the monarch and nobility started to support
professional theatre troupes (including Shakespeare'sLord
Chamberlain's Men and King's Men), which catered to their upper
class patrons' tastes. These patrons desired to be entertained, not
preached to, and as time passed the plays became more secular
and refined. In time these same tastes would filter down to the
lower classes.
Finally, the construction of permanent theaters, such as
the Blackfriars Theatre signaled a major turning point from
reliance on church facilities, touring groups, and inns as stages.
Permanent theaters allowed for more sophisticated staging and
storytelling. Moreover, professional troupes that owned their own
theatre had more resources with which to prepare their
productions, which changed the theatre from a mostly amateur or
traveling art form to a professional one with different practices and
standards.
Contributions to theatre[edit]
Medieval theatre brought many contributions to the theatre that
continue to be incorporated in productions around the world to this
day. The major contributions of the Medieval theatre are the use of
the vernacular, spectacle, stage direction and the use of farce.
Prior to Medieval theatre, all drama was performed in Latin or
Greek, however Medieval theatre evolved to the use of the
vernacular about 1200 A.D. Performances that were spoken in the
vernacular provided opportunities for larger audiences, who
included members of lower socio-economic status, who would
have otherwise been excluded from understanding the
performances.[18]
Medieval theatre differed from the classical theatre for it
emphasized spectacle. In addition, it presented various actions on

stage in time and space and presented a combination of the

sublime with detailed realism. Approximately 1400 A.D., the
dramas were performed with spectacle; no longer dependent
exclusively on the spoken word, but incorporating music, dance,
costume and set design. The spectacle of the later Medieval
theatre made it necessary to have detailed stage directions. A
sample of documented staging drawings and directions remain
from the 15th-century morality play The Castle of Perseverance.
The evolution to the dependence on detailed stage direction made
possible the great Shakespearean stage.[19]
Farce contributed to modern theatre in that it allowed the author
and the actors to ridicule and criticize their superiors whether it be
in the church or in society, without retribution. This was a
transition to all the future theatre including Shakespeare, who
employed the use of farce with ease.
Separation of the Medieval theatre from the oversight and support
of the church, as well as the growth of the productions in the later
Medieval theatre, made it necessary to have the financial
subsidization, a need that exists through the remaining history of
the theatre.
Modern day productions of Medieval theatre[edit]
Main article: Contemporary productions of medieval theatre

Medieval theatre productions are still performed today.

Performances of plays outside of the church are frequent during
the Christmas season with reenactments of the Nativity. The
reenactment of the Passion is performed throughout the world in
the late Lenten season. The most famous of the productions is
The Oberammergau Passion Play. It is a Passion play performed
every 10 years by the inhabitants of the village of Oberammergau,
Bavaria, Germany and each performance is attended by
thousands.

A 1596 sketch of a rehearsal in progress on the thrust stage of The

Swan, a typical circular Elizabethanopen-roof playhouse.
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early
modern English theatre, or (commonly) as Elizabethan
theatre, refers to the theatre of England between 1562 and 1642.
This is the style of the plays of William Shakespeare, Christopher
Marlowe and Ben Jonson.
Background[edit]
English Renaissance theatre encompasses the period between
1562 (performance at the Inner Temple during the Christmas
season of 1561 of Gorboduc, the first English play using blank
verse) and 1642 (ban on theatrical plays enacted by the English
Parliament).

The phrase Elizabethan theatre is used at times improperly,

especially in languages other than English[citation needed], to
mean English Renaissance theatre, even though in a strict sense
this only applies to 1603. Strictly speaking one distinguishes
within English Renaissance
theatre between Elizabethan theatre from 1562 to
1603, Jacobean theatre from 1603 to 1625
and Caroline theatre from 1625 to 1642
Along with the economics of the profession, the character of the
drama changed towards the end of the period. Under Elizabeth,
the drama was a unified expression as far as social class was
concerned: the Court watched the same plays the commoners saw
in the public playhouses. With the development of the private
theatres, drama became more oriented towards the tastes and
values of an upper-class audience. By the later part of the reign
of Charles I, few new plays were being written for the public
theatres, which sustained themselves on the accumulated works
of the previous decades.[1]
Theatrical life and the establishment of permanent theatres[edit]
Theatrical life was largely centred in London, but plays were
performed by touring companies all over England.[2]
English companies even toured and performed English plays
abroad, e.g. in Germany and in Denmark.[3]
The period starts before the establishment of the first permanent
theatres. Initially two types of location were used for performing
plays, the courtyards of inns and the Inns of Court such as
the Inner Temple. These venues continued to be used even after
permanent theatres were established.

The first permanent English theatre, the 'Red Lion' opened in

1567[4] but it was a short-lived failure. The first successful theatres,
such as The Theatre, opened in 1576.
The establishment of large and profitable public theatres was an
essential enabling factor in the success of English Renaissance
drama. Once they were in operation, drama could become a fixed
and permanent rather than a transitory phenomenon. Their
construction was prompted when the Mayor and Corporation of
London first banned plays in 1572 as a measure against the
plague, and then formally expelled all players from the city in
1575.[5] This prompted the construction of permanent playhouses
outside the jurisdiction of London, in the liberties of
Halliwell/Holywell in Shoreditch and later the Clink, and
at Newington Butts near the established entertainment district of
St. George's Fields in rural Surrey.[5] The Theatre was constructed
in Shoreditch in 1576 by James Burbage with his brother-in-law
John Brayne (the owner of the unsuccessful Red Lionplayhouse of
1567)[6] and the Newington Butts playhouse was set up, probably
by Jerome Savage, some time between 1575[7] and 1577.[8] The
Theatre was rapidly followed by the nearby Curtain
Theatre (1577), the Rose (1587), the Swan (1595),
the Globe (1599), the Fortune (1600), and the Red Bull (1604).[9]
Archaeological excavations on the foundations of the Rose and the
Globe in the late 20th century showed that all the London theatres
had individual differences; yet their common function necessitated
a similar general plan.[10] The public theatres were three stories
high, and built around an open space at the centre. Usually
polygonal in plan to give an overall rounded effect (though the Red
Bull and the first Fortune were square), the three levels of inwardfacing galleries overlooked the open centre, into which jutted the
stageessentially a platform surrounded on three sides by the
audience, only the rear being restricted for the entrances and exits

of the actors and seating for the musicians. The upper level behind
the stage could be used as a balcony, as in Romeo and
Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra, or as a position from which an actor
could harangue a crowd, as in Julius Caesar.[citation needed]
Usually built of timber, lath and plaster and with thatched roofs,
the early theatres were vulnerable to fire, and were replaced
(when necessary) with stronger structures. When the Globe
burned down in June 1613, it was rebuilt with a tile roof; when the
Fortune burned down in December 1621, it was rebuilt in brick
(and apparently was no longer square).[citation needed]
A different model was developed with the Blackfriars Theatre,
which came into regular use on a long-term basis in 1599. [11] The
Blackfriars was small in comparison to the earlier theatres and
roofed rather than open to the sky; it resembled a modern theatre
in ways that its predecessors did not. Other small enclosed
theatres followed, notably theWhitefriars (1608) and
the Cockpit (1617). With the building of the Salisbury Court
Theatre in 1629 near the site of the defunct Whitefriars, the
London audience had six theatres to choose from: three surviving
large open-air "public" theatres, the Globe, the Fortune, and the
Red Bull, and three smaller enclosed "private" theatres, the
Blackfriars, the Cockpit, and the Salisbury Court.[12] Audiences of
the 1630s benefited from a half-century of
vigorous dramaturgical development; the plays
of Marlowe and Shakespeare and their contemporaries were still
being performed on a regular basis (mostly at the public theatres),
while the newest works of the newest playwrights were abundant
as well (mainly at the private theatres).[citation needed]
Around 1580, when both the Theatre and the Curtain were full on
summer days, the total theatre capacity of London was about
5000 spectators. With the building of new theatre facilities and the
formation of new companies, the capital's total theatre capacity

exceeded 10,000 after 1610.[13] In 1580, the poorest citizens could

purchase admittance to the Curtain or the Theatre for a penny; in
1640, their counterparts could gain admittance to the Globe, the
Cockpit, or the Red Bullfor exactly the same price.[citation
needed]
(Ticket prices at the private theatres were five or six times
higher).[citation needed]
Performances[edit]
The acting companies functioned on a repertory system; unlike
modern productions that can run for months or years on end, the
troupes of this era rarely acted the same play two days in a
row. Thomas Middleton's A Game at Chess ran for nine straight
performances in August 1624 before it was closed by the
authoritiesbut this was due to the political content of the play
and was a unique, unprecedented, and unrepeatable
phenomenon. Consider the 1592 season of Lord Strange's Men at
the Rose Theatre as far more representative: between 19 Feb. and
23 June the company played six days a week, minus Good Friday
and two other days. They performed 23 different plays, some only
once, and their most popular play of the season, The First Part of
Hieronimo, (based on Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy), 15 times. They
never played the same play two days in a row, and rarely the
same play twice in a week.[14] The workload on the actors,
especially the leading performers like Edward Alleyn, must have
been tremendous.
One distinctive feature of the companies was that they included
only males. Female parts were played by adolescent boy players in
women's costume.
Costumes[edit]
Costumes were often bright in colour and visually entrancing.
Costumes were expensive, however, so usually players wore
contemporary clothing regardless of the time period of the play.

Otherwise, costumes would be recycled and used in multiple

different plays multiple times until it was too worn to be used.
Occasionally, a lead character would wear a conventionalized
version of more historically accurate garb, but secondary
characters would nonetheless remain in contemporary clothing.
Playwrights[edit]
The growing population of London, the growing wealth of its
people, and their fondness for spectacle produced a dramatic
literature of remarkable variety, quality, and extent. Although
most of the plays written for the Elizabethan stage have been lost,
over 600 remain.
The men (no women were professional dramatists in this era) who
wrote these plays were primarily self-made men from modest
backgrounds.[15] Some of them were educated at
either Oxford or Cambridge, but many were not. Although William
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were actors, the majority do not
seem to have been performers, and no major author who came on
to the scene after 1600 is known to have supplemented his
income by acting.
Not all of the playwrights fit modern images of poets or
intellectuals. Christopher Marlowe was killed in an apparent tavern
brawl, while Ben Jonson killed an actor in a duel. Several probably
were soldiers.
Playwrights were normally paid in increments during the writing
process, and if their play was accepted, they would also receive
the proceeds from one day's performance. However, they had no
ownership of the plays they wrote. Once a play was sold to a
company, the company owned it, and the playwright had no
control over casting, performance, revision or publication.

The profession of dramatist was challenging and far from lucrative.

[16]
Entries in Philip Henslowe's Diary show that in the years around
1600 Henslowe paid as little as 6 or 7 per play. This was
probably at the low end of the range, though even the best writers
could not demand too much more. A playwright, working alone,
could generally produce two plays a year at most; in the
1630s Richard Brome signed a contract with the Salisbury Court
Theatre to supply three plays a year, but found himself unable to
meet the workload. Shakespeare produced fewer than 40 solo
plays in a career that spanned more than two decades; he was
financially successful because he was an actor and, most
importantly, a shareholder in the company for which he acted and
in the theatres they used. Ben Jonson achieved success as a
purveyor of Court masques, and was talented at playing
thepatronage game that was an important part of the social and
economic life of the era. Those who were playwrights pure and
simple fared far less well; the biographies of early figures
like George Peele and Robert Greene, and later ones like Brome
and Philip Massinger, are marked by financial uncertainty,
struggle, and poverty.
Playwrights dealt with the natural limitation on their productivity
by combining into teams of two, three, four, and even five to
generate play texts; the majority of plays written in this era were
collaborations, and the solo artists who generally eschewed
collaborative efforts, like Jonson and Shakespeare, were the
exceptions to the rule. Dividing the work, of course, meant
dividing the income; but the arrangement seems to have
functioned well enough to have made it worthwhile. (The truism
that says, diversify your investments, may have worked for the
Elizabethan play market as for the modern stock market.) Of the
70-plus known works in the canon of Thomas Dekker, roughly 50
are collaborations; in a single year, 1598, Dekker worked on 16
collaborations for impresario Philip Henslowe, and earned 30, or a

little under 12 shillings per weekroughly twice as much as the

average artisan's income of 1s. per day.[17] At the end of his
career, Thomas Heywood would famously claim to have had "an
entire hand, or at least a main finger" in the authorship of some
220 plays. A solo artist usually needed months to write a play
(though Jonson is said to have done Volpone in five weeks);
Henslowe's Diary indicates that a team of four or five writers could
produce a play in as little as two weeks. Admittedly, though, the
Diary also shows that teams of Henslowe's house dramatists
Anthony Munday,Robert Wilson, Richard Hathwaye, Henry Chettle,
and the others, even including a young John Webstercould start
a project, and accept advances on it, yet fail to produce anything
stageworthy. (Modern understanding of collaboration in this era is
biased by the fact that the failures have generally disappeared
with barely a trace; for one exception to this rule, see: Sir Thomas
More.).[18] Most playwrights, like Shakespeare for example, wrote in
verse.
Genres[edit]
Genres of the period included the history play, which depicted
English or European history. Shakespeare's plays about the lives of
kings, such as Richard III and Henry V, belong to this category, as
do Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and George Peele's Famous
Chronicle of King Edward the First. History plays dealt with more
recent events, like A Larum for London which dramatizes the sack
of Antwerp in 1576.
Tragedy was an amazingly popular genre. Marlowe's tragedies
were exceptionally popular, such as Dr. Faustus and The Jew of
Malta. The audiences particularly liked revenge dramas, such
as Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy. The four tragedies
considered to be Shakespeare's greatest (Hamlet, Othello, King
Lear, and Macbeth) were composed during this period, as well as
many others (see Shakespearean tragedy).

Comedies were common, too. A subgenre developed in this period

was the city comedy, which deals satirically with life in London
after the fashion of Roman New Comedy. Examples are Thomas
Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday and Thomas Middleton's A
Chaste Maid in Cheapside.
Though marginalised, the older genres like pastoral (The Faithful
Shepherdess, 1608), and even the morality play (Four Plays in
One, ca. 1608-13) could exert influences. After about 1610, the
new hybrid subgenre of the tragicomedy enjoyed an efflorescence,
as did the masque throughout the reigns of the first
two Stuart kings, James I and Charles I.
Printed texts[edit]
Only a minority of the plays of English Renaissance theatre were
ever printed; of Heywood's 220 plays noted above, only about 20
were published in book form.[19] A little over 600 plays were
published in the period as a whole, most commonly in
individual quarto editions. (Larger collected editions, like those
of Shakespeare's, Ben Jonson's, andBeaumont and
Fletcher's plays, were a late and limited development.) Through
much of the modern era, it was thought that play texts were
popular items among Renaissance readers that provided healthy
profits for the stationers who printed and sold them. By the turn of
the 21st century, the climate of scholarly opinion shifted
somewhat on this belief: some contemporary researchers argue
that publishing plays was a risky and marginal business[20]though
this conclusion has been disputed by others.[21] Some of the most
successful publishers of the English Renaissance, like William
Ponsonby or Edward Blount, rarely published plays.
A small number of plays from the era survived not in printed texts
but in manuscript form.[22]

End of English Renaissance theatre: ban on plays by the English

Parliament[edit]
The rising Puritan movement was hostile toward theatre, as they
felt that "entertainment" was sinful. Politically, playwrights and
actors were clients of the monarchy and aristocracy, and most
supported the Royalist cause. The Puritan faction, long powerful in
London, gained control of the city early in the First English Civil
War, and on 2 September 1642, the Parliament, pushed by
the Parliamentarian party, under Puritan influence, banned the
staging of plays in the London theatres[23] though it did not,
contrary to what is commonly stated, order the closure, let alone
the destruction, of the theatres themselves:
The text of the act is as follows: Whereas the distressed Estate of
Ireland, steeped in her own Blood, and the distracted Estate of
England, threatened with a Cloud of Blood by a Civil War, call for
all possible Means to appease and avert the Wrath of God,
appearing in these Judgements; among which, Fasting and Prayer,
having been often tried to be very effectual, having been lately
and are still enjoined; and whereas Public Sports do not well agree
with Public Calamities, nor Public Stage-plays with the Seasons of
Humiliation, this being an Exercise of sad and pious Solemnity,
and the other being Spectacles of Pleasure, too commonly
expressing lascivious Mirth and Levity: It is therefore thought fit,
and Ordained, by the Lords and Commons in this Parliament
assembled, That, while these sad causes and set Times of
Humiliation do continue, Public Stage Plays shall cease, and be
forborn, instead of which are recommended to the People of this
Land the profitable and seasonable considerations of Repentance,
Reconciliation, and Peace with God, which probably may produce
outward Peace and Prosperity, and bring again Times of Joy and
Gladness to these Nations.[24]

Note that the Act purports the ban to be temporary ("...while these
sad causes and set Times of Humiliation do continue, Public Stage
Plays shall cease and be forborn") but does not assign a time limit
to it.
After 1642, during the English Civil War and the
ensuing Interregnum (English Commonwealth), even after the
Puritan mandated banning of the performance of plays, theatrical
activity which continued English Renaissance theatre could be
seen to some extent, e.g. in the form of short comical plays
called Drolls that were allowed by the authorities, while proper fulllength plays were banned. The theatres were not closed. The
buildings were used for purposes other than staging plays.[25]
The performance of plays remained banned for most of the next
eighteen years, becoming allowed again after the Restoration of
the monarchy in 1660. The theatres started again performing
many of the plays of the previous era, though often in adapted
forms; new genres of Restoration comedy and spectacle soon
evolved, giving English theatre of the later seventeenth century its
distinctive character.

Baroque

The Triumph of the Immaculate by

Paolo de Matteis

The Church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale, designed by Gian Lorenzo

Bernini
The Baroque (US /brok/ or UK /brk/) is often thought of as a
period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear,
easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance,
and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance,
and music. The style began around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread
to most of Europe.[1]
The popularity and success of the Baroque style was encouraged
by the Catholic Church, which had decided at the time of
the Council of Trent, in response to the Protestant Reformation,
that the arts should communicate religious themes in direct and
emotional involvement.[2] The aristocracy also saw the dramatic
style of Baroque architecture and art as a means of impressing
visitors and expressing triumph, power and control. Baroque
palaces are built around an entrance of courts, grand staircases
and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence. However,
"baroque" has resonance and application that extend beyond a
simple reduction to either style or period.[3]

Etymology[edit]

Brooch of an African,Walters Art Museum

The word baroque is derived from the Portuguese word "barroco",
Spanish "barroco", or French "baroque", all of which refer to a
"rough or imperfect pearl", though whether it entered those
languages via Latin, Arabic, or some other source is uncertain.
[4]
The 1911 Encyclopdia Britannica 11th edition thought the
term was derived from the Spanish barrueco, a large, irregularlyshaped pearl, and that it had for a time been confined to the craft
of the jeweller.[5] Others derive it from
the mnemonic term "Baroco", a supposedly laboured form of
syllogism in logicalScholastica.[6] The Latin root can be found
in bis-roca.[7]
In informal usage, the word baroque can simply mean that
something is "elaborate", with many details, without reference to
the Baroque styles of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The word "Baroque", like most periodic or stylistic designations,
was invented by later critics rather than practitioners of the arts in
the 17th and early 18th centuries. It is a French transliteration of
the Portuguese phrase "prola barroca", which means
"irregular pearl", and natural pearls that deviate from the usual,

regular forms so they do not have an axis of rotation are known as

"baroque pearls".[8]
The term "Baroque" was initially used in a derogatory sense, to
underline the excesses of its emphasis. In particular, the term was
used to describe its eccentric redundancy and noisy abundance of
details, which sharply contrasted the clear and sober rationality of
the Renaissance. Although it was long thought that the word as a
critical term was first applied to architecture, in fact it appears
earlier in reference to music, in an anonymous, satirical review of
the premire in October 1733 of Jean-Philippe Rameau's Hippolyte
et Aricie, printed in the Mercure de France in May 1734. The critic
implied that the novelty in this opera was "du barocque",
complaining that the music lacked coherent melody, was
unsparing with dissonances, constantly changed key and meter,
and speedily ran through every compositional device.[9]
Modern taste and usage[edit]
The word was first rehabilitated by the Swiss-born art
historian, Heinrich Wlfflin (18641945) in his Renaissance und
Barock (1888); Wlfflin identified the Baroque as "movement
imported into mass," an art antithetic to Renaissance art. He did
not make the distinctions between Mannerism and Baroque that
modern writers do, and he ignored the later phase, the academic
Baroque that lasted into the 18th century. Long despised, Baroque
art and architecture became fashionable between the two World
Wars, and has largely remained in critical favour. For example the
often extreme Sicilian Baroque architecture is today recognised
largely due to the work of Sir Sacheverall Sitwell, whoseSouthern
Baroque Art of 1924 was the first book to appreciate the style,
followed by the more academic work of Anthony Blunt. In painting
the gradual rise in popular esteem ofCaravaggio has been the best
barometer of taste.

In art history it has become common to recognise "Baroque"

stylistic phases, characterized by energetic movement and
display, in earlier art, so that Sir John Boardmandescribes the
ancient sculpture Laocon and His Sons as "one of the finest
examples of the Hellenistic baroque",[10] and a later phase of
Imperial Roman sculpture is also often called Baroque. William
Watson describes a late phase of Shang dynasty Chinese ritual
bronzes of the 11th century BC as "baroque".[11]
The term "Baroque" may still be used, usually pejoratively,
describing works of art, craft, or design that are thought to have
excessive ornamentation or complexity of line.
Development[edit]

Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598

The Baroque originated around 1600, several decades after
the Council of Trent (154563), by which the Roman Catholic
Church answered many questions of internal reform, addressed
the representational arts by demanding that paintings and
sculptures in church contexts should speak to the illiterate rather
than to the well-informed. This turn toward a populist conception
of the function of ecclesiastical art is seen by many art
historians as driving the innovations of Caravaggio and
brothers Agostinoand Annibale Carracci, all of who were working
(and competing for commissions) in Rome around 1600.

The appeal of Baroque style turned consciously from the witty,

intellectual qualities of 16th-century Mannerist art to a visceral
appeal aimed at the senses. It employed an iconography that was
direct, simple, obvious, and theatrical (illustration, right). Baroque
art drew on certain broad and heroic tendencies in Annibale
Carracci and his circle, and found inspiration in other artists
like Correggio and Caravaggio and Federico Barocci (illustration,
right), nowadays sometimes termed 'proto-Baroque'. Germinal
ideas of the Baroque can also be found in the work
of Michelangelo. Some general parallels in music make the
expression "Baroque music" useful: there are contrasting phrase
lengths, harmony and counterpoint have ousted polyphony, and
orchestral color makes a stronger appearance. Even more
generalized parallels perceived by some experts in philosophy,
prose style and poetry, are harder to pinpoint.
Though Baroque was superseded in many centers by
the Rococo style, beginning in France in the late 1720s, especially
for interiors, paintings and the decorative arts, the Baroque style
continued to be used in architecture until the advent
of Neoclassicism in the later 18th century. See the Neapolitan
palace of Caserta, a Baroque palace (though in a chaste exterior)
whose construction began in 1752.

St. Nicholas Church in Lesser Town inPrague was founded in 1703

under lead of Baroque architect Christoph Dientzenhofer.

In paintings Baroque gestures are broader than Mannerist

gestures: less ambiguous, less arcane and mysterious, more like
the stage gestures of opera, a major Baroque art form. Baroque
poses depend on contrapposto ("counterpoise"), the tension within
the figures that move the planes of shoulders and hips in
counterdirections. See Bernini's David.
The dryer, less dramatic and coloristic, chastened later stages of
18th century Baroque architectural style are often seen as a
separate Late Baroque manifestation, for example in buildings
by Claude Perrault. Academic characteristics in the neoPalladianstyle, epitomized by William Kent, are a parallel
development in Britain and the British colonies: within interiors,
Kent's furniture designs are vividly influenced by the Baroque
furniture of Rome and Genoa, hierarchical tectonic sculptural
elements, meant never to be moved from their positions,
completed the wall decoration. Baroque is a style of unity imposed
upon rich, heavy detail.
The Baroque was defined by Heinrich Wlfflin as the age where the
oval replaced the circle as the center of composition, that
centralization replaced balance, and that coloristic and "painterly"
effects began to become more prominent. Art historians,
oftenProtestant ones, have traditionally emphasized that the
Baroque style evolved during a time in which the Roman Catholic
Church had to react against the many revolutionary cultural
movements that produced a new science and new forms
of religionReformation. It has been said that the monumental
Baroque is a style that could give the Papacy, like secular absolute
monarchies, a formal, imposing way of expression that could
restore its prestige, at the point of becoming somehow symbolic of
the Counter-Reformation.

Whether this is the case or not, it was successfully developed

in Rome, where Baroque architecture widely renewed the central
areas with perhaps the most important urbanistic revision.
Periods[edit]
The Baroque era is sometimes divided into roughly three
phases for convenience:[12][13][14]
Early Baroque, c.1590c.1625
High Baroque, c.1625c.1660
Late Baroque, c.1660c.1725
Late Baroque is also sometimes used synonymously with the
succeeding Rococo movement.
Painting[edit]
Main article: Baroque painting

Caravaggio, The Crowning with Thorns

A defining statement of what Baroque signifies in painting is
provided by the series of paintings executed by Peter Paul
Rubens forMarie de Medici at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris (now
at the Louvre),[15] in which a Catholic painter satisfied a Catholic
patron: Baroque-era conceptions of monarchy, iconography,

handling of paint, and compositions as well as the depiction of

space and movement.
Baroque style featured "exaggerated lighting, intense emotions,
release from restraint, and even a kind of artistic sensationalism".
Baroque art did not really depict the life style of the people at that
time; however, "closely tied to the Counter-Reformation, this style
melodramatically reaffirmed the emotional depths of the Catholic
faith and glorified both church and monarchy" of their power and
influence.[16]
There were highly diverse strands of Italian baroque painting,
from Caravaggio to Cortona; both approaching emotive dynamism
with different styles.
Another frequently cited work of Baroque art is Bernini's Saint
Theresa in Ecstasy for the Cornaro chapel in Saint Maria della
Vittoria, which brings together architecture, sculpture, and theatre
into one grand conceit.[17]

Still-life, by Josefa de bidos, c.1679,Santarm, Portugal, Municipal

Library
The later Baroque style gradually gave way to a more
decorative Rococo.
A rather different art developed out of northern realist traditions in
17th century Dutch Golden Age painting, which had very little
religious art, and little history painting, instead playing a crucial
part in developing secular genres such as still life, genre
paintings of everyday scenes, and landscape painting. While the

Baroque nature of Rembrandt's art is clear, the label is less often

used forVermeer and many other Dutch artists. Flemish Baroque
painting shared a part in this trend, while also continuing to
produce the traditional categories.
In a similar way the French classical style of painting exemplified
by Poussin is often classed as Baroque, and does share many
qualities of the Italian painting of the same period, although the
poise and restraint derived from following classical ideas typically
give it a very different overall mood.
Sculpture[edit]
Main article: Baroque sculpture

Stanislas Kostka on his deathbed byPierre Le Gros the Younger

In Baroque sculpture, groups of figures assumed new importance
and there was a dynamic movement and energy of human forms
they spiraled around an empty central vortex, or reached outwards
into the surrounding space. For the first time, Baroque sculpture
often had multiple ideal viewing angles. The characteristic
Baroque sculpture added extra-sculptural elements, for example,
concealed lighting, or water fountains. Aleijadinho in Brazil was
also one of the great names of baroque sculpture, and his master
work is the set of statues of the Santurio de Bom Jesus de

Matosinhos in Congonhas. The soapstone sculptures of old

testament prophets around the terrace are considered amongst
his finest work.
The architecture, sculpture and fountains of Bernini (15981680)
give highly charged characteristics of Baroque style. Bernini was
undoubtedly the most important sculptor of the Baroque period.
He approached Michelangelo in his omnicompetence: Bernini
sculpted, worked as an architect, painted, wrote plays, and staged
spectacles. In the late 20th century Bernini was most valued for
his sculpture, both for his virtuosity in carving marble and his
ability to create figures that combine the physical and the
spiritual. He was also a fine sculptor of bust portraits in high
demand among the powerful.
Bernini's Cornaro chapel[edit]
A good example of Bernini's Baroque work is his St. Theresa in
Ecstasy (164552), created for the Cornaro Chapel of the church
of Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. Bernini designed the entire
chapel, a subsidiary space along the side of the church, for the
Cornaro family.

Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa

Saint Theresa, the focal point of the chapel, is a soft white marble
statue surrounded by a polychromatic marble architectural
framing. This structure conceals a window which lights the statue
from above. Figure-groups of the Cornaro family sculpted in
shallow relief inhabit opera boxes on the two side walls of the
chapel. The setting places the viewer as a spectator in front of the
statue with the Cornaro family leaning out of their box seats and
craning forward to see the mystical ecstasy of the saint.
St. Theresa is highly idealized and in an imaginary setting. She
was a popular saint of the Catholic Reformation. She wrote of her
mystical experiences for an audience of the nuns of her Carmelite
Order; these writings had become popular reading among lay
people interested in spirituality. In her writings, she described the
love of God as piercing her heart like a burning arrow. Bernini
materializes this by placing St. Theresa on a cloud while a Cupid
figure holds a golden arrow made of metal and smiles down at her.
The angelic figure is not preparing to plunge the arrow into her

heartrather, he has withdrawn it. St. Theresa's face reflects not

the anticipation of ecstasy, but her current fulfillment.
This work is widely considered a masterpiece of the Baroque,
although the mix of religious and erotic imagery (faithful to St
Teresa's own written account) may raise modern eyebrows.
However, Bernini was a devout Catholic and was not attempting to
satirize the experience of a chaste nun. Rather, he aimed to
portray religious experience as an intensely physical one. Theresa
described her bodily reaction to spiritual enlightenment in a
language of ecstasy used by many mystics, and Bernini's depiction
is earnest.
The Cornaro family promotes itself discreetly in this chapel; they
are represented visually, but are placed on the sides of the chapel,
witnessing the event from balconies. As in an opera house, the
Cornaro have a privileged position in respect to the viewer, in their
private reserve, closer to the saint; the viewer, however, has a
better view from the front. They attach their name to the chapel,
but St. Theresa is the focus. It is a private chapel in the sense that
no one could say mass on the altar beneath the statue (in 17th
century and probably through the 19th) without permission from
the family, but the only thing that divides the viewer from the
image is the altar rail. The spectacle functions both as a
demonstration of mysticism and as a piece of family pride.
Architecture[edit]
Main article: Baroque architecture
In Baroque architecture, new emphasis was placed on
bold massing, colonnades, domes, light-and-shade (chiaroscuro),
'painterly' color effects, and the bold play of volume and void. In
interiors, Baroque movement around and through a void informed
monumental staircases that had no parallel in previous
architecture. The other Baroque innovation in worldly interiors was

the state apartment, a sequence of increasingly rich interiors that

culminated in a presence chamber or throne room or a state
bedroom. The sequence of monumental stairs followed by a state
apartment was copied in smaller scale everywhere in aristocratic
dwellings of any pretensions.
Baroque architecture was taken up with enthusiasm in central
Germany (see, e.g., Ludwigsburg Palace and Zwinger,
Dresden), Austria and Russia (see, e.g., Peterhof). In England the
culmination of Baroque architecture was embodied in work by
Sir Christopher Wren, Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor,
from ca. 1660 to ca. 1725. Many examples of Baroque architecture
and town planning are found in other European towns, and in Latin
America. Town planning of this period featured radiating avenues
intersecting in squares, which took cues from Baroque garden
plans. In Sicily, Baroque developed new shapes and themes as in
Noto, Ragusa and Acireale "Basilica di San Sebastiano".
Another example of Baroque architecture is the Cathedral of
Morelia, Michoacn in Mexico. Built in the 17th century by
Vincenzo Barrochio, it is one of the many Baroque cathedrals in
Mexico. Baroque churches are also seen in the Philippines, which
were built during the Spanish period.
Francis Ching described Baroque architecture as "a style of
architecture originating in Italy in the early 17th century and
variously prevalent in Europe and the New World for a century and
a half, characterized by free and sculptural use of the classical
orders and ornament, dynamic opposition and interpenetration of
spaces, and the dramatic combined effects of architecture,
sculpture, painting, and the decorative arts."[18]
Architecture


Augustusburg Palace near Cologne

Trevi Fountain in Rome

Wilanw Palace in Warsaw, Poland

Interior of the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria church,

Rome including the Cornaro portraits, but omitting the lower parts
of the chapel.

Theatre[edit]

18th-century painting of theRoyal Theatre of Turin

In theatre, the elaborate conceits, multiplicity of plot turns and a
variety of situations characteristic of Mannerism (Shakespeare's
tragedies, for instance) were superseded by opera, which drew
together all the arts into a unified whole.
Theatre evolved in the Baroque era and became
a multimedia experience, starting with the actual architectural
space. In fact, much of the technology used in current Broadway
or commercial plays was invented and developed during this era.
The stage could change from a romantic garden to the interior of a
palace in a matter of seconds. The entire space became a framed
selected area that only allows the users to see a specific action,
hiding all the machinery and technology mostly ropes and
pulleys.
This technology affected the content of the narrated or performed
pieces, practicing at its best the Deus ex Machina solution. Gods
were finally able to come down literally from the heavens and
rescue the hero in the most extreme and dangerous, even absurd
situations.
The term Theatrum Mundi the world is a stage was also
created. The social and political realm in the real world is

manipulated in exactly the same way the actor and the machines
are presenting/limiting what is being presented on stage, hiding
selectively all the machinery that makes the actions happen.
The films Vatel and Farinelli give a good idea of the style of
productions of the Baroque period. The American musician William
Christie andLes Arts Florissants have performed extensive
research on all the French Baroque Opera, performing pieces
from Charpentier and Lully, among others that are extremely
faithful to the original 17th century creations.
Literature and philosophy[edit]
Further information: 17th century in literature, 17th century
philosophy and Early Modern literature
For German Baroque literature, see German literature of the
Baroque period.
Music[edit]
Main article: Baroque music

George Frideric Handel, 1733

Johann Sebastian Bach, 1748

The term Baroque is also used to designate the style of music
composed during a period that overlaps with that of Baroque art,
but usually encompasses a slightly later period.
It is a still-debated question as to what extent Baroque music
shares aesthetic principles with the visual and literary arts of the
Baroque period. A fairly clear, shared element is a love
of ornamentation, and it is perhaps significant that the role of
ornament was greatly diminished in both music and architecture
as the Baroque gave way to the Classical period.
The application of the term "Baroque" to music is a relatively
recent development, although it has recently been pointed out
that the first use of the word "baroque" in criticism of any of the
arts related to music, in an anonymous, satirical review of the
premire in October 1733 of Rameaus Hippolyte et Aricie, printed
in the Mercure de France in May 1734. The critic implied that the
novelty in this opera was "du barocque," complaining that the
music lacked coherent melody, was filled with unremitting
dissonances, constantly changed key and meter, and speedily ran
through every compositional device.[19]

However this was an isolated reference, and consistent use was

only begun in 1919, by Curt Sachs,[20] and it was not until 1940
that it was first used in English (in an article published by Manfred
Bukofzer).[19]
Many musical forms were born in that era, like
the concerto and sinfonia. Forms such as
the sonata, cantata and oratorio flourished. Also, opera was born
out of the experimentation of the Florentine Camerata, the
creators of monody, who attempted to recreate the theatrical arts
of the Ancient Greeks. An important technique used in baroque
music was the use of ground bass, a repeated bass line. Dido's
Lament by Henry Purcell is a famous example of this technique.