WTI Magazine #22    2014 Mar, 21
Author : Enrico De Iulis      Translation by: Alessandra Bitetti

When we talk about Italian baroque and more specifically about Romanesque baroque, immediately come to our mind the style, the works and the names of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Francesco Borromini and Pietro Berrettini da Cortona, who are considered the forefathers of the Italian Baroque sculpture, architecture and painting. But the Baroque had a long life and even in Italy it acquired specific traits from region to region, strengthening more and more its features up to reach the extreme redundancy of the Rococo.

One of the most emblematic artists of the 2nd Generation of Baroque is Andrea Pozzo. He is considered emblematic because he had a resounding style, a frenetic life, a strike genius and an impressive craftsmanship.

Born in Trento in 1462, at the age of 23 he moved to Milan where he attended the Jesuit High School. After the Council of Trent, the Jesuits became a strong force, but their members had never used this power in the artistic field before. They were the guardians of education and knowledge, and also the cruel rivals of the major scientific personalities of the XVII century (Roberto Bellarmino opposed both Galileo Galilei and Giordano Bruno). Their inquisitor power and the strict appearance in their behavior led them to gain a huge wealth and to have a strong presence on the territory.

Throughout the years, several churches were built, devoted to the Society of Jesus and to its founder Saint Ignatius of Loyola: it was in the decoration of these churches that Andrea Pozzo was able to express his baroque power. He had the idea to express the dizziness produced by numerous optical illusions, like the breaking of the ceiling that simulate the extensions of the real church architectures, or the unreal wild spaces full of floundering figures: the "trompe l'oeil" meets the Baroque style of Pietro da Cortona. The result is pure scenic design, a set of static figures which brings the view to alternative worlds. All this had to be a sort of unusual 3d model effect for the spectator of the end of the XV century.

In 1681 Pozzo was called in Rome by Giovanni Paolo Oliva, Superior General of the Jesuits. The artist intensified his studies about decoration. The Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola became the major stage of the baroque illusionism, in a city that had yet gained the authorship in this style.

The vertiginous and inventive perspectives and the bright colors elevate the Baroque decoration style in an innovative way. In the vault of the central nave, Pozzo brought the perspective to a terminal point: he breaks the ceiling trough an illusion that redouble or triple the height of the Church up to get lost in an open and sunny sky full of curving figures and of dozens of characters that stand near the balustrades, the false ledges, the painted cavities.

But the most amazing stimulation lays in the dome. It doesn't exist! Still, it is painted in a such meticulous and perfect way in the flight, that the spectator seems to walk in a three-dimensional space, with a bundle of light that penetrate from the unreal tambour recesses. It's wonderful!

This was a new beginning that brought him to Vienna, invited by Prince Joseph, where he painted a monumental fresco from which his contemporaries will later be inspired on how to decorate interiors like rooms and naves.

Andrea Pozzo can be considered the inventor of the Baroque 2.0.