German art and architecture: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries

Some of Germany's finest buildings date from the 17th and 18th cent.—exuberant baroque and rococo churches and palaces that are marvels of lightness and spatial complexity. Among the best are the works of the Austrian Fischer von Erlach. Ceiling decoration was widely practiced. The rococo style came to the fore c.1730, with the Tischbein family and Angelica Kauffmann its chief exponents in painting. At this time, too, small Dresden china figures and groups became very popular, with the workshops at Meissen producing exquisite miniature statuettes of genre subjects. A. R. Mengs's work marked the widespread revival of classicism modeled on the theories of J. J. Winckelmann and on the art of Rome. Meanwhile, the monumental sculptures of J. G. Schadow were regarded as the model for a century of subsequent German plastic art.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• The Twentieth Century
• The Nineteenth Century
• The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
• The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
• The Romanesque and Gothic Periods
• The Carolingian and Ottonian Periods
• Bibliography

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2024, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

See more Encyclopedia articles on: European Art to 1599