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¶ … cultural movements of European art after the Renaissance, namely those style periods of Mannerism, Baroque, and Rococo. In the late sixteenth century, Mannerism was a unique artistic technique that made use of distortions of scale and viewpoint. The Baroque movement in art and architecture enhanced Europe between the early seventeenth and middle eighteenth centuries as it emphasized dramatic and at times tense affects. The Baroque artists and sculptures consistently used very bold, curving forms, and extremely elaborate ornamentation. However, unlike Mannerism, they emphasized balance of incongruent parts. The Baroque musicians of the period also flourished throughout Europe and were known for their expressive dissension and complex embellishment of tones. Rococo, which originated early in eighteenth century France and may be considered by some experts as merely an extension of the Baroque movement, was an artistic approach used to create beautiful architecture and art works that were often based on flora and animal forms and often adorned by extremely complicated prettification. Even Rococo musical composition was characterized by its elevated degree of embellishment.

To truly understand some similarities of these cultural movements, it is best to understand why they came to be in the first place. They each represented change and sprang out of desires to be free of the previous movement's restrictions or limitations. Just as the Renaissance was in itself an effort to escape the dead period called the Middle Ages, Mannerism stormed away from the innate order and balance of the Renaissance. Mannerism promoted new ideas like imbalance and it allowed for works that were crowded, jumbled and used bold harsh colors. People wanted to revolt against the self-contained spatial arrangements of the Renaissance -- they wanted to be a little more playful.

Consider the origins of the Baroque movement which was also a shift away from control. Control in this sense came from political and religious upheaval with the 30 years war, conflicts between Catholics and Protestants, Puritans being forced to flee religious persecution and new parliamentary rule in England after the beheading of Charles I. Although it was a time of great turmoil, it was also a period of great cerebral advancement. For example, in science there were the discoveries by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, William Harvey and Newton all of which made people question what they had always taken for granted. There was also world expansion as European powers aimed to gain control in the Americas and the Far East, opening up new worlds, wants and desires. Those desires transformed into a late shift away from the Baroque movement and eventually into an even newer Rococo culture. Rococo ended the Baroque movement just as Mannerism had filled the void to end the flow of the Renaissance.

There are some obvious differences between Mannerism, Baroque and Rococo as well. The different motivations of the artists themselves define these movements. Baroque artists were very different from Mannerism artists in that they were able to produce extremely detailed works, but to promote the Church and State. For example, Rembrandt worked primarily for Protestant patrons which helped to alleviate any promotion of inner turmoil. Rococo was then an adjustment in the ways the artist themselves felt and they became disenchanted with the Baroque thinking. Mannerism came about because of the new ideas that moved away from God and the church and more towards the universe, the world and self as the artists therefore also sought to emphasize the sometimes tormented feelings of self.