The Olympics remind us of Britain's baroque heritage - The Guardian (blog)

Britain's baroque age 'culminated in great mixed-media theatres of power like Blenheim Palace'. Photograph: The Travel Library/Rex Feature

The baroque is one of the great ages of British art. This week's Story of British Art is dedicated to it. But what is the baroque? It is a grand, florid style that first appeared in Italy around 1600 when artists and architects burst out of classical rules to create emotive, dynamic images and overwhelming spaces. Caravaggio's painting The Seven Acts of Mercy is a powerful expression of the baroque. So is Bernini's awe-inspiring multimedia installation the Cathedra Petri in St Peter's.

This Olympic summer exploded just about every cliche of British national identity. Stiff upper lip? Yeah, right. Severe and puritanical? You're kidding? The Olympics revealed a nation of extravagant, theatrical fun. You might even say a baroque nation. That talent for spectacle should come as no surprise because Britain took powerfully to the baroque the first time around, in the 17th century. The gore of Jacobean tragedy is totally baroque. Artists including Peter Paul Rubens, Gianlorenzo Bernini and Artemisia Gentilsechi worked for Britain's baroque monarch, Charles I. Sadly for him, there were plenty of Puritans around too. Early Stuart architectural extravagances like the Queen's House in Greenwhich and the Banqueting House in Whitehall – with its ceiling by Rubens – did not exactly reassure them about the dynasty's grand self-image.

The baroque age in Britain was bloody – it includes the Civil War and the execution of Charles I. Yet art and architecture kept on getting better and better. Van Dyck is the portraitist of Charles I's court, Peter Lely of Charles II's. The Great Fire of London was terrifying yet cleared the ground for the architectural masterpieces of Wren and Hawksmoor.

This was the age when British world power started to matter. By the end of the 17th century, London was taking over from Amsterdam as the leading entrepôt of global trade and the British navy was getting ready to rule the waves. Baroque magnificence was the perfect art to express Britannia's newfound glory. In 1698 Wren designed an enormous domed dining hall for officers of the Royal Navy at Greenwich: the "Painted Hall" was decorated with flamboyant murals by Sir James Thornhill that make it one of the most amazing interiors in Britain. In 1729 Thornhill's daughter Jane married a young printmaker and painter called William Hogarth. In Hogarth's art the energy of the baroque is transformed into grotesque comic abundance.

This is an age when art and architecture are one, culminating in great mixed-media theatres of power like Blenheim Palace and Castle Howard. In its quest for potent images and its mixing of all media to create an effect, baroque Britain (1600-1730) has a lot in common with the baroque Britain of 2012.