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Extravagant tastes
Baroque art and architecture is traditionally associated with the splendour of royal courts on the continent, epitomised by the lavish paintings commissioned by European monarchs during the 17th century.
However, baroque tastes also found favour on the other side of the Channel, with painters such as Sir Peter Lely sought by English royals to create works in a similarly extravagant style to those made for their overseas counterparts.
From Lely’s grandiose portrait of Charles II’s mistress Barbara Villiers to ornate architectural sketches by Sir Christopher Wren, a new Tate exhibition brings together many British baroque masterpieces for the first time, reveal- ing how they were used to convey messages of wealth and power.
As well as examining the rise of Britain’s new political class – as demonstrated by portraits of the Whig ‘Kit-Cat Club’ – the exhibition also looks at how art was used to symbolise the Stuarts’ military might, with
