read and finally it prevailed. Similarly,in the second half of the sixteenth century, the Baroque style began to come forth andconquer. The judgment of the Council of Trent ran counter to the philosophy as well asthe literature and art of the Renaissance. The decisions also disagreed with both the spritof classical mythology and the conclusions of natural sciences. In fact they engage inactive battle for absolutism in the rule of the Church and the temporal monarch. Thechurches of the Jesuit order considered the new standard in art. They did not advocatesilent dedication, they were designed as mediums for the preacher and the religiouspropagandist. Making use of the documents and the characteristics of the Manneristsartists, the new style was a form of assertion which alarmed a sacred faith in the believer,giving him an active sense of partaking in the mysteries of religion. The solemn guarantyof the Renaissance portraits, the stiff and chill portraits of Mannerism were replaced byradiant allegorical representations of the dominant princes and monarchs producing afeeling of awe and acquiescence before their almost superhuman power in the spectatorsbreast. Paintings were of classical gods and goddesses, extraordinary in flying draperiesand their fervid and unsettled indications.However, this was all that cultivated Europe had in common during the Baroqueperiod. The international similarity of Mannerist art which had lasted for about acentury, disintegrated England, but the widespread notions of art began to contrast inFrance, Italy and Spain. The bourgeois perspective of the Dutch Baroque naturallyfamiliarized the Dutch painters towards realism. There is no dilemma in determiningwhether one is looking at the work of a Northern or Southern arts, an Italian or a Dutch. The national characteristics break through the thin international coating that developedduring the Mannerist period. The diffusion and victory of Baroque art was...
