After the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic church regained dominance in both politics and culture. The pomp and circumstance of the imperial court, Sunday mass, burial processions, and other such events were entrenched in ceremony and worship are very much were characteristic of the Baroque as the Habsburgs claim to divine-right absolutism reached a climax.
The architecture of this period almost seems to create the image of the imperial palaces such as the Belvedere and Schönbrunn being a sort of bastion of heaven on earth, with their beautiful high domed ceilings, intricate stucco mouldings, and heavenly frescoes depicting scenes of angels and divine ascension. These buildings were were constructed to resemble the major Baroque churches from the era as well, two of which in Vienna include the Karlskirche and the Peterskirche, furthering the comparison of the Habsburgs to the divine. A central tenet of divine-right absolutism is to draw parallels between earthly rulers and divine-rulers. An emperor presides over his his earthly kingdom much as the Lord presides over his eternal kingdom. The Habsburgs worked hard through most of their dynasty to strengthen this parallel.
These two entities, church and state, represent the political and cultural powerhouses of the time. The exorbitant displays of wealth by these institutions are as though to say to the common people, "we are powerful enough to recreate the empire of the Lord on Earth."
The Upper Belvedere is a beautiful example of "Gesamptkunstwerk" of the Viennese Baroque in an imperial palace. Peterskirche and Karlkirche are similarly baroque churches constructed in the early eighteenth century.
Information on the history of baroque period in music can be found here.
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| A ceiling fresco in the Upper Belvedere |
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| The Karlskirche as seen opposite its reflection pool |
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