Facts and Figures

The word “baroque” gets tossed around a lot, describing everything from a necklace to a symphony to a political speech, and so, often, its real meaning gets lost in the shuffle. If, indeed, it has one. Its label as an historical period in art and architecture isn’t so much in question; we’re talking roughly, very roughly, 1600 to the mid-and-late 1700's. In that sense, when you study it awhile, Baroque style becomes discernable with a modicum of confidence, though I wouldn’t say it too confidently when you’re touring the Louvre. You could choke your little self on a Rococo and look the fool, a thing Americans in Paris seem to fear more than death itself.

But when attempting to discern the actual definition, one is assaulted by a variety of complex and meaningless phrases that sound quite academic, but are in fact complete bullshit. Some refer to the Baroque obsession with rational philosophy and geometric grids, while others cite its adherence to emotionalism, metaphysical high drama and an adoration of the forces and free forms of nature, two ideas that would seem to cross one another out. God knows, anything that even smacks of the “science” of pure philosophy is worthy of contempt. Never have so many said so much to express so little. The word “baroque,” though not as bad as “phenomenological Neo-Hegelianism,” brings out this kind of nomenclature.

A good enough example - 17th and 18th century French gardens are often called Baroque style, and even our good friend Wikipedia, supposedly here to help us, lucidly explains that French Baroque gardening is inspired by both the Italian Renaissance and the works of the philosopher Descartes, “epitomizing monarch and man dominating and manipulating nature to show his authority, wealth and power . . .,” since “all movement is a straight line therefore space is a universal grid of mathematical coordinates and everything can be located on its infinitely extendable planes,” based upon the principles of Cartesian mathematics.

It really does make a person long for a couple of red geraniums in a plastic pot.

Rembrandt was one of the great Baroque painters, perhaps the father of the style, and he seemed to like his ladies chunky. In fact, he loved naturalism in his work, and could be downright ruthless about every physical imperfection; his self-portraits are anything but flattering, and though many of his commissioned portraits seem a bit kinder, others do not. In a few I’ve seen, if I’d paid the man to paint my portrait and then had him take such glee in highlighting every bag and sag, I’d have demanded my gilders back. But the simple fact that several of his most idealized works of great beauties of the past, from Bathsheba to Danaë, were modeled on his wife and, after her death, his live-in mistress, both of whom were quite hefty and clearly never refused a second helping of spekdikken, clearly shows that, for him at least, it only meant there was more of her to love. In fact, Rembrandt's Baroque "naturalism" gets taken to some really weird extremes. In the images below, he's sketched himself having a flurry with his wife, the beauteous Saskia, (how'd he hold the pencil?) in a sort of 17th century-version of dirty home videos, while in another fit of deviance the little perve drew her peeing in the back yard. How could you do that to your own wife? There is one artist, however, who unarguably epitomizes the Baroque style - the earthy Flemish painter Peter Paul (and Mary) Rubens. And so was born, for women everywhere, the adjectival phrase “Rubenesque” figure, a politically-correct synonym for those with the dimply thighs, turgid breasts and meaty backsides like carnival bunting that Rubens liked best. Of course, for feminists, Wiccans, sci-fi conventioneers and those who love fudge brownies, this has also come to imply that two centuries ago, men had far better taste in their ladies faire. And that, by extension, men these days have tried to box women into an idealized size and shape that is unattainable as well as unattractive. Of course, I love it in principle, but in reality I’m not sure it passes the historical smell test. A beautiful woman is a beautiful woman, whether stoutish or petite. There’s no question that slim wasn’t really in until the late 18th and very early 19th centuries, when idealized paintings of the great beauties of the day, from Emma Hamilton to Madame Tallien, dressed in their gauzy white empire gowns, glorified their far more elegant curves. They’re women who would knock any man’s eyes out walking along a beach in Cancun. Nevertheless, there are enough paintings of the Baroque period of lovely, curvaceous but still fairly slim ladies to put rout the notion that everybody wanted femme fatales with butt cheeks like two sofa cushions. Despite the erotica of the period often going into panting detail on men sinking their fingers into well-upholstered butts and buets, I think it’s a wishful misreading of the era as a whole for well-padded American ladies to suppose that the Baroque figure is something that had universal appeal. In other words, then as now, there is such a thing as chubby chasers. There were just probably a lot more of them. Exhibit A for the defense: The following was written in the late Baroque period in England by one Sydney Smith, who was a churchman and the canon of London’s treasure, St. Paul’s Cathedral. Professional churchmen were a lot different then. It was more a career choice than a divine revelation. Nevertheless, he also had a reputation as a rather liberal gentleman, who expected both the government and the people to occasionally live up to the principles of Christianity. Though largely forgotten now, he was considered to be the most savage wit of his day. His favorite targets were pomposity and stupidity, which means he shares a proud heritage with everyone from Mencken to Benchley to P.J. O’Rourke. But occasionally his gunsight strayed. Despite being a very well-upholstered specimen himself, he wrote the following on discovering that a friend of his was about to marry a widow twice his age, probably for the cash. One interesting historical side note on the last line - the term “reading someone the riot act” has a very real historical meaning. As a sop to the feelings of liberals, (called Whigs in those days) Britain passed a law in the 18th century that allowed free assembly, so long as everyone stayed calm. If they didn’t, the police were only allowed to bust heads and haul arses after they had read the “Riot Act,” officially announcing their intentions and giving the crowd a chance to just sober up and go home on its own. It rarely worked. In his missive Smith uses it to distinct humorous advantage. “Going to marry her! Going to marry her! Impossible! You mean, a part of her; he could not marry her all himself. It would be a case, not of bigamy, but of trigamy; the neighborhood or the magistrates should interfere. There is enough of her to furnish wives for a whole parish. One man marry her! It is monstrous. You might people a colony with her; or give an assembly with her; or perhaps take your morning walks around her, always providing there were frequent resting places, and you are in rude health. I once was rash enough to try walking round her before breakfast, but only got half-way and gave it up exhausted. Or you might read the Riot Act and disperse her; in short, you might do anything with her but marry her.” De-formalize some of the language, and it could have been some politically incorrect dialog on Sienfeld. It does, however, lead one to the inevitable conclusion that, in any time or place, this “Rubenesque” thing can get carried too far. It is undeniable that, in ages past, skinny often meant unhealthy, perhaps tubercular and probably syphilitic. Only people with some flesh on them had a chance to fight off the ravages of the age like cholera and typhus. And, then as now, the “rosy glow of health” translated in the minds of many to “horny.” But gals, let’s face it; it doesn’t help an already avoirdupois situation to glance at your spreading backside in the mirror and shrug, “Well, in the old days the guys would have loved it.” There is, of course, another side to this, another line of common sense in the sand. I should like to see a new movement in this country for women to stop pretending that a size 2 is something to shoot for; it’s not even something you could shoot at. The average female in America is a size 14, a perfectly respectable size, perhaps a little hippish, depending on the frame of the woman wearing it. In the fifties and sixties, 12 was good, but the best was embodied by the phrase “a perfect 10,” which was considered quite svelte. Sizes haven’t changed - a trip to any vintage clothing store will prove that. But young women nowadays would never know this, since between the modeling-reality show piffle and ads for mega-corporations built on dieting they’ve been told a 2 or a 4 amounts to success. In the aforementioned ads, these five-foot-six women who’ve gotten down to 145 pounds are just plain lying about their new size - they couldn’t get a size 2 over their thigh, shapely as it now is. Truth to tell, when I’m assaulted by this crap, I’d love nothing better than to see some wisp of the “fat acceptance movement” gain a little footing, so that women can have a more realistic notion of what estrogen has done to them, and learn to love, or at least accept the consequences. But anyone who thinks the ideal will ever be someone who takes up two if not three airline seats is living in a baroque daze.