If It Ain't Baroque...
The Baroque Period is a very interesting section of Art History. Around the mid to late 1500s, the Catholic Church was starting to get a bit worried about the increasing popularity of Lutheranism in the populace. In response, they convened the Council of Trent, the 19th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, in Trento, Italy. The Council's main objective was to be a counter-reformation to the Protestant reformation and revitalize the public's interest in Catholicism. One of the ways it went about doing this was, in essence, advertising to the uneducated masses through visual art. Since a very large portion of the population was illiterate, it made sense to try to connect to them through mediums that didn't require reading. There was a sudden push from the Church to the artists of the time to create works that inspired awe in the public, while at the same time grounding iconic biblical scenes to make them more relatable. Possibly the exemplar of