The general picture is not one of the different arts tending to converge in a common focus, rather that each of the arts, having consolidated its position within its own province, began to expand into the adjoining areas, broadening its sphere of influence and jockeying for dominance in the arts. The result was what seemed a paradoxical situation: there was, so to speak, a struggle for the throne in the realm of culture, and yet there were no losers, for each participant benefited by borrowing from the others, constantly increasing its own chances of dominance. This productive exchange of values carried the arts as a whole to new heights. We should particularly note that the greatest 17th-century writers more often than not chose to convey their ideas in dramatic form, from whence derives the theatricality of Baroque poetry and prose. At the same time, the fine arts went hand-in-hand down the same path as literature.

      Landscape with the Rest on the Flight into Egypt

      1635–1636

      Oil on canvas, 73 × 97.5 cm

      Private collection, New York on loan to the Hamburger Kuntshalle

      Tree Study

      c. 1635

      Brush drawing in brown wash with pen and brown ink, 28.9 × 20.5 cm

      Musée du Louvre, Paris

      The classical principle ut pictura poesis retained its significance for both aesthetic and artistic practice; in the sphere of music, there emerged such new dramatic forms as opera and the oratorio, which were of paramount importance for the later development of music; in garden design, we see the dramatisation of Nature itself; and there are strong grounds to speak of a specifically dramatic quality to 17th-century architecture, sculpture, and painting.

      The Colosseum

      c. 1635–1640

      Brush drawing in brown wash, over pen and brown ink and black chalk, 19.2 × 26.2 cm

      Teylers Museum, Haarlem

      The idea of the close intercourse between and especially the essential homogeneity of the arts was central to the aesthetic doctrine of the period. In 1642, a treatise by Baltasar Gracian, one of the leading theoreticians of the Spanish Baroque, was published. This work, reprinted in 1648 under the title Agudeza y arte de ingenio (The Art of Quick Wit), was innovatory, giving a new direction to aesthetic thought by shifting its focus from Aristotle’s Logic and Poetics to his Rhetoric. The Spanish author strictly differentiated between man’s powers of logical and aesthetic judgement.

      View of the Campo Vaccino

      1636

      Oil on canvas, 56 × 72 cm

      Musée du Louvre, Paris

      The latter is designated by the word gusto, or taste, which is determined by creative intuition capable of grasping the essence of disparate objects of phenomena and establishing affinities between them. “The art of quick wit” was given a theoretical basis in the writings of Gracian’s contemporary, Emmanuelle Tesauro, who was justly called the Boileau of the Baroque. His treatise Il Cannochiale Aristotelico (The Telescope of Aristotle, 1655) contains a systematic exposition of the new principles of poetics.

      Trees and Rocks by a Stream

      c. 1635

      Brush drawing in brown wash, with pen and brown ink heightened with white, 25.2 × 19.3 cm

      Teylers Museum, Haarlem

      Taking, like Gracian, Aristotle’s Rhetoric as his point of departure, he placed an even stronger emphasis on the independence of Arte Nuova, new art, from any logical schemes, and dwelt at great length on this art’s specific character. Tesauro declared the concetto, ingenious conceit, to be divine, and placed artists capable of it on a level with the Creator, who in turn is thus transformed into an accomplished rhetorician. The art of quick wit uses metaphor as its principal instrument, whereas logic assigns this role to concept.

      Landscape with a Goatherd and Goats

      c. 1636–1637

      Oil on canvas, 52 × 42 cm

      National Gallery, London

      Hence the basic importance of metaphor and allegory in the poetics of the stile moderno: the theory of art and aesthetics cognition takes on certain features of general rhetoric.

      The rhetorical orientation of art and aesthetics in the 17th century is closely bound up with a phenomenon aptly described in more recent literature on the subject as a “mythology explosion”.

      The 17th century is essentially the beginning of the end for mythology’s dominant role in artistic subject matter, after holding undisputed sway for several millennia.

      The Cowherd

      1636

      Etching, 12.6 × 19.5 cm

      Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

      And precisely at this crucial point, in a seemingly unfavourable historical and cultural situation, the mythological theme suddenly burst into flower, with an unprecedented growth in its repertory of themes and with an infinite wealth of forms and interpretations. In this respect,

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