[Baroque Baroque: The Culture of Excess] [Author: Calloway, Stephen] [February, 2000]

by Stephen Calloway

Baroque Baroque spotlights Baroque style in all of its twentieth-century fashion, film, photography, design, and interior decoration. It traces the origins of the Baroque 'revival' that evolved as a rebellion against the sterilities of Modernism, showing how Baroque thrives today as a colorful, opulent alternative to the minimalist aesthetic. It charts the achievements of figures as diverse as the Sitwells, Cecil Beaton, Angus McBean, Coco Chanel, and Fellini, including many other creative forces from the past 100 years. It explores all facets of contemporary Baroque culture, from the extravagances of haute couture to the theatrical affectation of Hollywood, to the fantastical whimsies of architecture and design.

Genres: Art, Fashion

Paperback

First published November 17, 1994

About the author

Stephen Calloway is a curator of paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

He is an expert on 19th century art, and has made a particular study of the decadent and dandy culture of the fin de siecle.

He staged the V&A's exhibition on the 1890s, 'High Art and Low Life' in 1993, and curated the 'Aubrey Beardsley Centenary Show' in Tokyo and London in 1998.

He writes on the history of taste and lectures widely in England and America.

He also worked, in his role as a consultant on period sytle and manners, with Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich on Jane Campion's film of Henry James' novel 'The Portrait of a Lady'.

Reviews

[Servabo · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a book about "Baroque" from the 1900s to 1990s. There is nothing Baroque during this period of time. A very misleading title indeed. Other than that the pictures were lovely.