The artistic style of Baroque is primarily known for its opulence, the use of exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, and music. The style started around 1600 in Italy and spread throughout Europe. Its success was encouraged by the Catholic Church, which at the time supported the idea that the arts should communicate religious themes in direct and emotional involvement.
The aristocracy also perceived the dramatic style of Baroque architecture and art as a measure of impressing visitors and expressing triumphant power and control. Baroque palaces are built around entrances of courts, grand staircases and reception rooms of sequentially increasing opulence.
In Baroque architecture, new emphasis was placed on bold massing, colonnades, domes, light-and-shade, ‘painterly’ color effects, and the play of volume and space. In interior design, by constructing monumental staircases that seemed to twist around and through a void, Baroque movement achieved visual impact that had no parallel in previous architecture.
The other Baroque innovation in worldly interiors was the state apartment, a processional sequence of increasingly rich interiors that culminated in a presence chamber, throne room or state bedroom.