MARTINO LUKGHI THE YOUNGER: SS.
VINCEN2O ED ANASTASIO, ROME, 1650.

THE GESAMTKUNSTWERK OF THE BAROQUK

to architecture. In fact all
architecture is both structure
and decoration, decoration for
which the architect himself,
or the sculptor, the painter,
the glass-painter may be re-
sponsible. But the relation of
decoration to structure varies in
difierentagesand with different
nations. In the Gothic style of
the cathedrals all decoration
served the mason's work.
Then ornamental sculpture,
late in the isth and early in
die I4th century, seemed to
overgrow sculpture. Then,
again somewhat later, figure
sculpture and painting freed
themselves from the supremacy of architecture altogether. A monu-
ment like Verrocchio's Cofleoni in Venice, standing free in a square
without any architectural support, would have been inadmissible in
the Middle Ages. Just as novel was the conception of easel painting as
such, painting independent of the wall against which it was going
to be placed. The Renaissance accepted the independence of the
fine arts, but was able to hold them together within a building,
because of the principle of relatively independent parts that governed
all Renaissance composition. Now however, in the Baroque, that
principle had been abandoned. Again, as in Gothic architecture,
parts cannot be isolated. We have seen that at S. Carlo. But the
Baroque, although believing in the unity of all art, could not restore
die supremacy of structure. Architects of the lyth century had to
accept the claims of die sculptor and painter, and in fact often were
sculptors and painters. Instead of the Gothic relation of super-
ordinate and subordinate, there is now a co-operation of all the arts.
The result was still that "Gesamtkunsiwerk" (total art) which Wag-
ner, in his operas, after it had been wilfully destroyed at the end of
the Baroque, endeavoured in vain to recover for the ipth century.
In the works of Bernini and Borromini, what binds architectural,
ornamental, sculptural and pictorial effects into indivisible unity is
the decorative principle common to all.

E.A;----10

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