my work was about the way English speakers just generally do not have a vocabulary for our baroque art bc we were severed from its discourse at key historical moments (late-blooming anti-catholic English renaissance, Cromwell's yard sales, the Great Fire, WW1 & 2 anti-Germanism)
(i talk about this a lot on the podcast patreon.com/meakoopa if that is your thing)
England had a flowering Baroque in its literatures, arts, and patronage, and then wilfully forgot about, sold it all, burned it to the ground, and finally plugged up its ears when the German theorists of the 1900s to 1940s were looking back trying to figure it out.
my favourite example of the lost English Baroque is the equestrian portrait of the Duke of Buckingham (lover to one, possibly two, English kings!) painted for him by Rubens
sold at auction by Cromwell’s agents - where the buyers quietly renamed it “Don Ferdinand of Austria”
sold at auction by Cromwell’s agents - where the buyers quietly renamed it “Don Ferdinand of Austria”
imagine topping two kings of england and it’s like not even in the top five raddest things about you
