The Birth of Baroque: Caravaggio, Bernini, and Rubens

The Baroque style emerged in Italy around 1600, closely tied to the Catholic Church's response to the Protestant Reformation. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) had reaffirmed the value of religious images as tools of instruction and emotional persuasion, in explicit contrast to Protestant iconoclasm and its suspicion of devotional art. Catholic patrons, above all the papacy and the new religious orders such as the Jesuits, encouraged an art capable of moving the faithful directly: dramatic, theatrical, and rich in movement, contrast, and sensory intensity, designed to reassert the Church's authority and beauty in an age of religious conflict.