What am I doing reviewing a documentary about the baroque? I hate the baroque — have done for as long as I can remember — and I expect it’s probably the same with you.
What am I doing reviewing a documentary about the baroque? I hate the baroque — have done for as long as I can remember — and I expect it’s probably the same with you. Apart from being an essential sign of aesthetic superiority (we much prefer neoclassical in this country, don’t we, those of us who’ve spent time living in places like Peck quad, what, what, what?) hating the baroque is also the most wonderful time-saver. When you’re on holiday in somewhere like Italy or Spain, it means that instead of having to waste hours being impressed by the various churches, you can just whizz round them in about ten seconds going ‘urgh’, ‘argh’, ‘bleeuuch’ and ‘naaah’, feeling you’ve done your cultural duty while simultaneously confirming yourself as a man of great taste.
But now Waldemar Januszczak has gone and ruined it for me with his series Baroque! St Peter’s to St Paul’s, a repeat which I caught up with on Sunday on BBC4. Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say he has made me love the baroque, he has suddenly made me very, very interested in it. Naples, for example. I’m really quite keen to go there now and experience for myself the squalid, decaying, menacing picturesqueness that Januszczak showed us so invitingly, and to see for myself the dark, sometimes terrifying work of the Cabal of Naples.
The Cabal comprised three painters — Jusepe de Ribera (known as ‘the Little Spaniard’), Greek-born Belisario Corenzio and a nasty piece of work called Battistello Caracciolo. Together they conspired to bully, rough up or even kill any rival artists who dared to try to make a living on their patch. They’d put sand in their paint, they’d rub out their paintings and in the case of poor Guido Reni they attempted assassination. Reni’s assistant copped it instead, forcing Reni to flee the city. When another young artist came to Naples to complete the work Reni had left unfinished, he was lured on to a boat in the Bay of Naples and never heard of again.
‘Baroque’ is derived from barroco, the Portuguese word for a deformed pearl. Januszczak held up a pretty, smooth, round pearl to illustrate the Renaissance: ‘perfectly formed, exquisite, delicate, so civilised, precious’; then he held up a barroco and put on a leering, pervy, dirty old man’s voice: ‘blobby, exuberant, misshapen, difficult to handle and exciting’. It made you desperate to want to like baroque for fear of being thought a terrible prude.
And a very compelling case Januszczak went on to make for it, too. He introduced us (well, me, anyway) to Francesco Borromini, of whom I had but barely heard before but who, according to Januszczak, was ‘the single most exciting architect there’s ever been, a genius, a man of twisted brilliance’. You saw his point, too. The church of San Carlo he designed in Rome is not only stunningly beautiful, but also thrillingly unorthodox, with rebellious details like the curious balusters on the balustrade which bulge in different places.
Then, for his coup de théâtre, he took us to the church of Sant’Ignazio in Rome, whose painted ceiling is such a sine qua non of baroque that it pretty much defines the term. And again, you could not but share Januszczak’s mad enthusiasm. It was done by a master of perspective called Andrea Pozzo, whose fresco of St Ignatius Loyola being received into heaven manages on a flat ceiling to convey such a dizzying impression of figures soaring into space it’s like watching a 17th-century version of a climactic scene from Doctor Who. So that’s my next trip to Rome buggered, then. No leisurely strolls in the sunlight; no long lunches. Just church interior after ruddy church interior. Thanks for nothing, Waldemar.
Mongrels (BBC3, Tuesday), created by Adam Miller, is a trendy new comedy about the fortunes of a bunch of mangy animals (played by puppets) who live in south London. There’s Nelson, a Boggle-playing, internet-surfing, well-spoken fox (he introduces himself at dinner parties as ‘an urbane fox’), his revolting psychopath of a cousin Vince, a spiteful pigeon called Kali, a kind of WAG-style pedigree poodle called Destiny, and a catnip-addicted moggy called Marion.
It’s gloriously sick. The opening two minutes set the tone with a dear old lady (played by a real actor, as all the humans are — with cameo appearances from minor celebrities like Paul Ross and Chris Packham of Springwatch) lovingly greeting her affectionate cat, only to tumble down the stairs seconds later. Cut to a scene four weeks later, where the cat and his friends are feasting on her rotting body.
Quite often this kind of grotesquerie can be a sign of desperation. Not with Mongrels, though. It’s sharp, witty, surprising, clever and refreshingly un-PC. And, if you watch it with your kids, it will make them think briefly that you’re almost cool.
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