Poverty, Charity and Medicine: The Magnificent Age of the Baroque

In this lecture on POVERTY, CHARITY AND MEDICINE, we will explore from Caravaggio’s aesthetic to Ribera’s ‘Club-Footed Boy’ to La Tour’s fighting beggars to Murillo’s street children to Valdo Leal’s paintings for the Church of the Hospital de la Caridad in Seville, and discover how artists explored the themes of poverty and charity.

In this series on the age of Baroque, we explore how Martin Luther published his 95 theses in 1517. This was not only a challenge to the perceived corruption of the Catholic Church, it was an act which prompted the transformation of the religious, socio-political, and artistic landscape of Europe. One of the most dynamic styles to emerge in the wake of the Counter-Reformation, the Baroque, lasted a century and manifested differently in Italy, Spain, and France, where it produced the most extraordinary artists and architects including Caravaggio, Bernini, Velasquez, Poussin, and Borromini.