Polish Baroque

The Polish Baroque lasted from the early 17th to the mid-18th century. As with Baroque style elsewhere in Europe, Poland's Baroque emphasized the richness and triumphant power of contemporary art forms. In contrast to the previous, Renaissance style which sought to depict the beauty and harmony of nature, Baroque artists strove to create their own vision of the world. The result was manifold, regarded by some critics as grand and dramatic, but sometimes also chaotic and disharmonious and tinged with affectation and religious exaltation, thus reflecting the turbulent times of the 17th-century Europe.

The Polish Baroque was influenced by Sarmatism, the culture of the Polish nobility (szlachta). Sarmatism became highly influenced by the Baroque style and produced a unique mix of Eastern and Western styles. "East" refers here to the Oriental culture of the Ottoman Empire, not the culture of the Orthodox Muscovy. Those Oriental influences stemmed from a large border shared by Poland with the Ottoman Empire, and it frequent invasions.

Sarmatist thought had praised the idyllic countryside-existence, and the liberal Golden Freedom of the nobility, which stood against the absolute power of the monarchy. Sarmatism stressed the military prowess going back to the times when szlachta first emerged from the knight class; and its religious values, both associated with the historical mission of the Polish people as a bastion of Christianity. Sarmatian nobles felt superior to even the nobility of the other nations, whom they considered non-free and almost enslaved by their rulers (according to Poland's constitution, the king was but the "first among equals"). With the progression of time, however, the Sarmatism ideals became corrupted. By the time of the 18th-century Enlightenment in Poland, Sarmatism was often regarded as a backward and ultraconservative relic of the past – an opposite of progress, leading the country to its downfall.

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