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Exploring the Baroque Era: Art, Music, and Literature

This quiz explores the Baroque era, focusing on its artistic, musical, and literary contributions. Test your knowledge on key figures, works, and characteristics of this influential period.

1 Baroque (pronounced /bəˈroʊk/, bə-rohk) is an artistic style prevalent from the late ________ to the early 18th century.

2 ________ (1678–1741), The Four Seasons

3 In ________, the baroque writers are framed in the Siglo de Oro.

4 The films Vatel, Farinelli, and the staging of Monteverdi's Orpheus at the ________ in Barcelona, give a good idea of the style of productions of the Baroque period.

5 Ludwigsburg Palace and Zwinger Dresden), ________ and Russia (see e.g.

6 The characteristic Baroque sculpture added extra-sculptural elements, for example, concealed lighting, or water ________.

7 ________, J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel are often considered its culminating figures.

8 Baroque actually expressed new values, which often are summarized in the use of metaphor and ________, widely found in Baroque literature, and in the research for the 'maraviglia' (wonder, astonishment — as in Marinism), the use of artifices.

9 Dido's Lament by ________ is a famous example of this technique.

10 ________ (1683–1764) Dardanus (1739)

💡 Interesting Facts

  • the Paço Imperial, a Baroque palace in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, served as a main government seat for almost 150 years.
  • the Lamentation of Christ (pictured) is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque.
  • the Royal Fort in Bristol was built with façades in Baroque, Palladian and Rococo styles because it was a compromise between the designs of three different architects.
  • the large number of Baroque buildings (Castle Mainau pictured) on the Upper Swabian Baroque Route are the result of immigration to depopulated areas of Upper Swabia, Germany and the following building boom at the end of the Thirty Years' War.
  • the main building of the Krzyżtopór Castle (pictured), a Baroque structure in Poland, has been a ruin since the Swedish Deluge.
  • the Holy Trinity Column in Olomouc was inscribed on the World Heritage List as "one of the most exceptional examples of the apogee of Central European Baroque artistic expression".
  • the 17th century Biaroza monastery in Biaroza, Belarus, has in its time been adapted into military barracks and a prison, and currently its ruins are an important baroque relic in the town.
  • Portuguese Josefa de Óbidos was one of the few women dedicated to painting (pictured: still life by her) in the Baroque era.
  • Dutch baroque painter Jan Wyck spent most of his career in England, where he influenced the development of British military art.
  • Bümpliz-Oberbottigen, a district of Berne, Switzerland, contains rural hamlets, Baroque estates and modernist highrise satellite towns.
  • early Baroque lutenist Michelagnolo Galilei was the younger brother of the renowned astronomer Galileo Galilei.
  • in Baroque Rome, when the Austrian-born artist-designer Johann Paul Schor was not collaborating with Bernini, he might be called on to design sculptural architecture to be executed in sugar at a banquet.
  • countertenor Patrick Van Goethem has taken part in the project Dieterich Buxtehude – Opera Omnia to record the complete works of Baroque composer Dieterich Buxtehude.