Baroque

• the long-lived disasters of the religious wars gave human beings zest for a life that seemed precarious and . . . fervor for the life to come.
• Expanded trade and colonization in Africa and the New World gave artists wealth, more exotic themes, and an enlarged sense of space. 
  Definitions: 
  As art history and criticism evolved and the seventeenth century was revalued, barouque appeared to be the opposite of classical, in reference either to antiquity or to the High Renaissance.  In this sense the term suggested art that was naturalistic rather than ideal, and emotional rather than rational.  Translated visually, this would produce an art of movement, vitality, and brilliant color.   

  　

  Literary Baroque Late-sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century drama and poetry, as well as some fiction, in all European languages show some characteristics similar to those we have seen in the visual arts: conflict, paradox and contrast, metaphyiscal concern, and a hightened spirituality, combined with a lively sensuality and ultrarealism.   e.g. German Lutheran hymns, Spanish Catholic devotional poetry, Italitan erotic verse, and English "metaphysical poetry."   (The Humanities 4th ed.  132; 142-43).