Cartilage Baroque

Cartilage Baroque - bruskbarokk in Norwegian and Danish, Knorpelbarock in German - names an ornamental style centered on the mid-17th century in Northern Europe, above all in Denmark-Norway and northern Germany. Its name comes from the forms themselves: swollen, lobed, interlocking scrollwork that seems modelled on cartilage or the folds of an ear, closely related to the contemporary Auricular style further south. It spread through carved wooden church furnishings - pulpits, altarpieces, canopies and galleries - as well as furniture, silver and heraldic decoration, where frames dissolve into fleshy, fluid ornament. The style gave Scandinavian Baroque interiors their exuberant, restless surface and survives best in the carved churches and museum collections of Norway and Denmark.

Defining characteristics

• Fleshy, cartilage-like scrollwork: swollen lobed curves and interlocking volutes
• Auricular (ear-shaped) motifs dissolving into organic, fluid forms
• Deeply undercut wood carving with restless, near-abstract ornament
• Cartouche frames dissolving into flesh-like folds around inscriptions and heraldry
• Dense, near horror-vacui surface coverage

Sources

• Cartilage Baroque - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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