Exhibitions - Archives

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Triumphs of Baroque

in Marseilles

Saint Isaac cathedral, Saint Petersbourg, 1768
(Antonio Rinaldi)
Baroque architecture in Europe
1600-1750

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As part of the "year of the Baroque style" in Marseilles, the Old Charity chapel hosts an exceptional exhibition entitled "Triumphs of Baroque".
Scale models coming from a dozen of European countries underline the genius of artists and architects as Brunelleschi with his dome of the Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.
Essential to convince the persons who commissioned these extraordinary construction, the models were also an outstanding mean of spreading the Baroque architecture from Italy up to Sweden or Russia. The genius of Baroque artists as Pierre of Crotona, Bernini or Borromini, is echoed through their different places, religious edifices, theatres, gardens, mansions, civil or military buildings.
The cities were opened to creation as the Baroque monument was raised as a central and final construction. Each country adopted but also adapted this style, baroque and rococo, as London and its Saint Martin in the fields, here in model. The models, genuine works of art, used as early as the Roman Age and during the Middle Ages, met their golden period during the Renaissance, and through to the Baroque period. They were widely used, even for cities and other raised plans, as those that can be seen in the Invalides museum in Paris.
This exhibition also presents numerous paintings and drawings.

E.Boutinard.
Translated by David Prouteau
(James Gibbs, Saint Martin in the fields, London, 1721; Franz-Almois Mayr, Marienberg church, closed to Reitenhaslach, 1760; Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli, Smolny monastery, Saint Petersbourg, 1748-1756)

Old Charity, 2, rue de la Charité, 2e, tel. 04 91 14 58 80
18th nov-4th march 2001, open every day except on Mondays.