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Architectures of Europe: Baroque & Rococo, 1600s-1700s: General resources

Recommended resources on post-Renaissance European architectures and cultures, providing location info for print resources and links for digital resources.

Recommended books

Other resources

The Baroque and Rococo are well covered in the Oxford Art Online. Among the relevant articles, see .

"Baroque" (Kerry Downes)

"Baroque Revival" (Alastair Service)

Blondel, Jacques-François” (Dana Arnold)

"Rococo" (Richard John & Ludwig Tavernier)

"Rococo revival" (Margaret Barlow)

 

See also …

"18th century French aesthetics," Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Baroque” & “Rococo” smArt History.org

The Eighteenth Century (featuring “theoretical and interpretive research on all aspects of Western culture from 1660 to 1830,” PDFs from 1979, with a 3-year delay, are available via Jstor)

Eighteenth-Century Studies (journal of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, PDFs from 1967, with a 5-year delay, are available via Jstor)

Many baroque and rococo sites are now tourist destinations, including Blenheim Palace, Claydon House, Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, Versailles, etc. The Bavarian Department of State-owned Palaces, Gardens and Lakes is responsible for many Baroque and Rococo sites, including Nymphenburg Palace, and the Würzburg Residence.

Recommended for all architectural research

Specialized resources on related topics

Kaufmann, Emil, Architecture in the age of reason: Baroque and Post-Baroque in England, Italy, and France, Archon Books, NA590.K3 

Kubler, George & Martin Soria, Art and architecture in Spain and Portugal and their American dominions, 1500 to 1800, Penguin Books, N7104.K8 1959

Bauer, Hermann, Baroque, Taschen, ND182.B3 B38 2006

Blunt, Anthony & Richard Beresford, Art and Architecture in France 1500-1700, Yale University Press, N6845.B59 1998

Bohn, Babette, & James M. Saslow, A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque art, Wiley-Blackwell, 2012 (ebook via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Brown, Beverly Louise, The genius of Rome, 1592-1623, Royal Academy Books, ND620.G46 2001

Fagiolo, Marcello, et al., Roma barocca: Bernini, Borromini, Pietro da Cortona, Electa, N6920.R559 2006 

Hopkins, Andrew, Italian Architecture from Michelangelo to Borromini, Thames & Hudson, NA1115 .H66 2002

Levy, Evonne Anita, Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque, University of California Press, N7865 .L48 2004

Levy, Evonne and Kenneth Mills, Lexikon of the Hispanic Baroque: Transatlantic Exchange and Transformation, University of Texas Press, 2014 (ebook via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Loh, Maria H., “New and improved: repetition as originality in Italian Baroque practice and theory,” The Art Bulletin, Septempber 2004, p. 477-504

Panofsky, Erwin, “What is Baroque?” in Three Essays on Style, MIT Press, N7445.2.P36 1995

Reigl, Alois, The Origins of Baroque art in Rome, Getty Research Institute, N6920.R4813 2010

Steinberg, Leo, Renaissance and baroque art : selected essays, University of Chicago Press, ND170 .S84 2020

Wittkower, Rudolf, “Carlo Rainaldi and the Roman architecture of the full Baroque,” The Art Bulletin, June 1937, p. 242-313 (PDF available via Jstor)

Wittkower, Rudolf, “S. Maria della Salute: scenographic architecture and the Venetian Baroque,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, March 1957, p. 3-10 (PDF available via Jstor)

Wittkower, Rudolf, et al., Art and Architecture in Italy: 1600-1750, Yale University Press, N6916.W5 1999 volumes1-3

Wittkower, Rudolf, Studies in the Italian Baroque, Thames & Hudson, NA1116.5.B3 W57 1975b 

Balon, Hilary, The Paris of Henri IV: architecture and urbanism, MIT Press, NA9050.5.B3 1991

Habel, Dorothy Metzger, "When all of Rome was under construction" the building process in Baroque Rome,  Pennsylvania State University Press, NA9070.H33 2013

Heilmann, Christoph H., “Acqua Paola and the urban planning of Paul V Borghese,” The Burlington Magazine, October 1970, p. 656-663 (PDF via Jstor)

Krautheimer, Richard, The Rome of Alexander VII, 1655-1667, Princeton University Press, NA9204.R7K7 1985

Pinto, John. "The Trevi fountain and its place in the urban development of Rome," AA Files, #8, 1985, p. 8-20 (PDF via Jstor)

Stevenson, Frederic R., “Copenhagen, 1600-1700: an outstanding city planning achievement,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, January 1944, p. 18-40 (PDF via Jstor)

Zucker, Paul, “Space and movement in High Baroque city planning,” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, March 1955, p. 8-13 (PDF via Jstor)

Deleuze, Gilles, The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque, University of Minnesota Press, B2598.D4513 1993

Dietz, Bettina, "Mobile objects: the space of shells in eighteenth-century France," The British Journal for the History of Science, #3, 2006, p. 363-382 

“Establishing the Place of Art,” in Charles Harrison, et al., Art in theory, 1648-1815: an anthology of changing ideas, Blackwell Publishers, N6490.A78 2001

Harbison, Robert, Reflections on Baroque, Reaktion Books, NX451.5.B3H37 2000 (ebook also available via ProQuest Ebrary)

Howe, Stephen, Empire: a very short introduction, Oxford University Press, D217.H68 2002

Mullett, Michael, The Catholic Reformation, Routledge, 2002 (ebook via ProQuest Ebrary)

Ndalianis, Angela, Neo-Baroque aesthetics and contemporary entertainment, MIT Press, PN1995.N374 2004 

Saisselin, Rémy G., Enlightenment against the Baroque, University of California Press, CB411.S23 1992 

Teyssot, Georges, “Baroque topographies,” Assemblage, #41, 2000, p. 79 (PDF available via Jstor)

Conan, Michel, Baroque garden cultures: emulation, sublimation, subversion, Harvard University Press, SB457.536B37 2005 

Lawrence, Henry W., "Baroque Europe: The Seventeenth Century," in City trees : a historical geography from the Renaissance through the nineteenth century, University of Virginia Press, SB435.6.E85 L39 2006

Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow, "The garden as theater: Italian Baroque and Rococo gardens," in Landscape design : a cultural and architectural history, Harry N. Abrams, SB470.5 .R64 2001

Thompson, Ian H., The Sun King's garden : Louis XIV, Andre Le Nôtre, and the creation of the gardens of Versailles, Bloomsbury, SB470.L4 T46 2006

Baur, Eva Gesine, Rococo, Taschen, ND188.R6B38 2007

Carl, Klaus & Victoria Charles, Art History Rococo, Parkstone International, 2014 (ebook via ProQuest Ebook Central)

Gordon-Smith, Maria, “The Influence of Jean Pillement on French and English decorative arts Part One,” and Part TwoArtibus et Historiae, #41, 2000, p. 171-196 (PDF available via Jstor)

Hitchcock, Henry Russell, Rococo architecture in Southern Germany, Phaidon Books, NA1066 .H632 1968 

Hyde, Melissa Lee, Making up the Rococo: François Boucher and his critics, Getty Research Institute, ND553 .B7H93 2006 

Kimball, Fiske, “The Creation of the Rococo,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, April 1941/July 1942, p. 119-123 (PDF available via Jstor)

Kimball, Fiske, The creation of the Rococo decorative style, Dover, N6846.5.R6 K55 1980 

Please note

  • These guides are intended to provide initial orientation, and suggest a variety of different lines of investigation—not take the place of individual research.
  • All the resources cited here--print and digital--are available through the Kappe Library at SCI-Arc.Items not available at SCI-Arc are not included.
  • Surveys covering multiple projects are preferred over monographic studies focusing on specific works or individuals.
  • Resources on Los Angeles and Southern California are stressed.
  • Proprietary digital resources (Avery Index, Oxford Art Online, ArtStor, etc) can be accessed on-campus at SCI-ARC via any SCI-Arc internet provider. Off-campus they can be accessed 24/7 via the Kappe Library proxy server, and a valid SCI-Arc Network username and password.

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