During the baroque period, architecture and the other fine arts were the instruments of a staging of "world theater" on a grand scale. The baroque art of the popes in Rome, the displays of power and opulence in the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV, and Dutch painting - they all reflect different aspects of the underlying tension between pleasure in life and fear of death that was such a prominent feature of the baroque world view. This volume portrays the entire span of the fine arts of the baroque era, from rich splendor to religious asceticism.