According to Benjamin, the immediate threat to Christianity is represented by secularism and paganism, to which the Renaissance gave birth. The Baroque allegory is a reactionary instrument born out of the theological crisis of that epoch. Baroque allegory opposes synthesis and coherence. However, as Kluge explains, the transformation of the historical world into a graceless state of sin and the emphasis on the ephemeral nature of earthly reality form only the first step in the dialectic processes on the way to salvation, a way of revealing the illusionary nature of renaissance vitality, of its earthly hedonistic vitality. Only by affirming the gap between history and grace, and by finally representing it as temporary or illusionary, does the Baroque allegory triumph over the non-transcendent worldview, which it opposes, and integrate it into a restitutive Christian universe.8 The Baroque allegory is, therefore, a Christian art that incorporates and transfigures the non-transcendent worldview it opposes.9
Wolfflin Renaissance Baroque.pdf
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