Counter-Reformation Realism

The ongoing Counter-Reformation stimulated demand for art in the triumphant Baroque style. Rubens, court painter to Isabella and Archduke Albert, made Antwerp one of the cultural capitals of Europe. In the area of scholarship, the Bollandists, a group of Antwerp Jesuits, made valuable contributions to historical methodology.

…16th-century style is best called Counter-Reformation Realist. A similar process took place in Florence, where a strong movement away from Mannerist conventions is seen in the paintings of Ludovico Cigoli, and in Milan, where the dominant artistic personalities were the painters Giovanni Crespi (known as Il Cerano) and Pier Francesco…