Famous Baroque Paintings
The most famous Baroque paintings include Caravaggio's Calling of Saint Matthew, Rembrandt's Night Watch, Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring and Velazquez's Las Meninas. Here are thirteen, and the murder, trial or scandal behind each one.
The Baroque swept through the 1600s on drama, deep shadow and motion. These are the paintings that carried it.
In brief
Caravaggio's shadows changed European painting for a century.
Artemisia Gentileschi painted her Judith the year of her rape trial.
Velazquez's Rokeby Venus was slashed by a suffragette in 1914.
Rembrandt's Night Watch was knifed in 1975 and restored live online in 2019.
Many of these were painted for churches, to move the faithful.
What to read after this
The ones I would send you to next:
The Ambassadors, detail by detail, the object at the bottom that only works from one side
Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, what is actually on those scales
Luncheon of the Boating Party, detail by detail, who everybody at that table actually was
The Calling of Saint Matthew, Caravaggio (1599 to 1600)
The picture that launched the Baroque, by Caravaggio.
A shaft of light cuts across a dim room and lands on Matthew, following the real window of the chapel it was painted for. That light, his signature chiaroscuro, works like the hand of God. It still hangs in San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome.
Judith Slaying Holofernes, Artemisia Gentileschi (around 1612)
The most violent beheading in art, painted by a woman who had every reason to mean it.
Gentileschi painted it around the time of the trial in which she was tortured with thumbscrews to prove she had been raped by her tutor, Agostino Tassi. Many read the two women sawing through a man's neck as revenge on canvas.
The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, Caravaggio (1608)
The largest painting Caravaggio ever made, and the only one he ever signed.
He signed his name in the blood pouring from the saint's neck. He painted it in Malta while on the run for murder. The full story is in Caravaggio's Beheading of Saint John.
David with the Head of Goliath, Caravaggio (around 1610)
A young David holding a severed head that wears Caravaggio's own face.
It was painted as a plea for pardon after he killed a man in Rome, and sent to the cardinal who could grant it. Caravaggio died before the pardon arrived.
One of his altarpieces was later stolen and never found, the subject of the mafia and the missing Caravaggio.
The Night Watch, Rembrandt (1642)
The most famous group portrait ever painted, by Rembrandt.
It is not a night scene. Darkened varnish fooled later viewers into the name. It was slashed with a knife in 1975 and splashed with acid in 1990, and in 2019 the Rijksmuseum restored it live online.
The Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt (around 1668)
Rembrandt's last great religious painting, made near the end of a ruined life.
A kneeling son buries his shaved head in his father's chest. Look at the father's hands. One is heavy and male, the other slimmer and softer, as if Rembrandt painted both a father and a mother forgiving at once.
Girl with a Pearl Earring, Johannes Vermeer (around 1665)
The quiet high point of the Dutch Baroque, by Vermeer.
It is a tronie, a study of a face rather than a named person. The pearl is two dabs of white paint over nothing. It sold for about two guilders in 1881. For a closer read of Vermeer, see Woman Holding a Balance.
Las Meninas, Diego Velazquez (1656)
The most analyzed painting in Spanish art, and a hall of mirrors.
Velazquez painted himself at the easel, the little princess and her maids in the foreground, and the king and queen reflected in a small mirror on the back wall.
Who is the real subject, the family or us? Picasso was so gripped he made 58 variations of it.
The Rokeby Venus, Diego Velazquez (around 1651)
The only surviving nude by Velazquez, and the target of a famous attack.
In 1914 the suffragette Mary Richardson walked into the National Gallery in London and slashed it seven times with a meat cleaver, in protest at the arrest of Emmeline Pankhurst. The cuts were repaired and the Venus still reclines there today.
The Descent from the Cross, Peter Paul Rubens (1612 to 1614)
The altarpiece that made Rubens the star of northern Europe.
Painted for Antwerp Cathedral, where it still stands, it lowers the dead Christ down a single bright diagonal of pale skin and white shroud. Every other figure leans into that line. It is Baroque drama built like a stage set.
The Penitent Magdalene, Georges de la Tour (around 1640)
A woman, a candle and a skull, painted almost in the dark.
Georges de la Tour lit his scenes with a single flame. Mary Magdalene rests her hand on a skull, a memento mori that reminds the viewer death is always in the room. The near darkness makes the small light feel sacred.
Aurora, Guido Reni (1614)
A ceiling of dawn, painted to be seen from far below.
Guido Reni covered a garden pavilion ceiling in Rome with Aurora, goddess of dawn, scattering flowers before the chariot of the sun. It was the most copied ceiling of its age, a model of Baroque grace before the style turned heavier.
Et in Arcadia Ego, Nicolas Poussin (around 1638)
Shepherds in paradise, reading a warning on a tomb.
Poussin painted young shepherds gathered around a stone tomb, tracing the Latin words, even in Arcadia, I am here. The speaker is death. It is the calm, classical side of the French Baroque, and it hangs in the Louvre.
Rome, Madrid and the churches that kept them
They are scattered across Europe. In London the Rokeby Venus is at the National Gallery, and in Amsterdam The Night Watch is at the Rijksmuseum.
Baroque paintings, what readers ask
What is the most famous Baroque painting? Caravaggio's Calling of Saint Matthew, Rembrandt's Night Watch and Velazquez's Las Meninas top most lists.
When was the Baroque period? Roughly 1600 to 1750, strongest in the 1600s across Italy, Spain, Flanders and the Dutch Republic.
What makes a painting Baroque? High drama, deep contrast between light and dark, movement, and strong emotion, often in the service of the Church.
Who are the major Baroque painters? Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Velazquez, Rubens, Vermeer, Artemisia Gentileschi and Nicolas Poussin.
How is Baroque different from Renaissance? The Renaissance sought balance and calm. The Baroque wanted motion, shadow and feeling.
Why the Baroque still hits hard
The Baroque was built to grab you by the collar.
Caravaggio aimed a spotlight at a saint. Gentileschi turned her own trial into a beheading. Four centuries later, the drama still lands before you have read a single label.
If the drama pulls you in, keep going: