Excerpt from Term Paper:

...... Baroque painting is primarily a reflection of the religious tensions that marked the period in question, more precisely the division of faith concretized in the form of the rupture between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The most important Baroque painters came from deeply Catholic countries such as Italy or Spain. This can account for the large number of religious paintings executed by some of the greatest representative of the movement. They supported the Catholic Churchs program named the Counter Reformation which was a response from the Catholic clergy to the rise of Protestantism starting from the 1550s. This program employed artistic representation as an emotional appeal which aimed at influencing the largest audience possible so that the Catholic Church would not lose too many followers
Baroque art is an expression of great dramatic scenes depicted through the use of rich deep colors and intense light and dark effects. In fact, the trademark of Baroque painting is the selective illumination of figured used in paintings which abound in dark colors and shadows. This stylistic device can be identified in the case of the three paintings this paper focuses on. In the case of Velazquez, his painting employs this technique in order

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