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| Jan Philip van Thielen Angel in Garland ca. 1650-1700 oil on panel Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Jacob Jordaens Cleopatra's Feast 1653 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Simon de Vos Death of Decius Mus 1641 oil on copper Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
"When Heinrich Wölfflin constructed formal stylistic categories to oppose Baroque and Renaissance art he did much to create a positive image of seventeenth-century art, but it is nonetheless significant that "Baroque" was still seen as the contrary of something else. Writing at a time when Impressionism was gaining acceptance, Wölfflin introduced the idea of a perpetual cycle of styles in which a classical phase is followed by a Baroque phase. Thus "Baroque" became an ahistorical term that defined the style that arose when the rules of art were broken and transformed, bringing dynamism to Renaissance forms. This was a notion coined in an enthusiasm for anti-academic Impressionism that turned out to be extremely efficacious for the description of some seventeenth-century works, but it failed to grasp the transformation in content that necessarily accompanied changes in form."
– from The Artist by Giovanni Careri, published in Baroque Personae, edited by Rosario Villari (Italian edition, 1991), translated by Lydia G. Cochrane (University of Chicago Press, 1995)
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| Gotfried Maes Holy Family ca. 1675-1700 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Victor Wolfoet Hercules and Minerva expelling Mars ca. 1630-50 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Theodor van Rombouts Cephalus and Procris ca. 1610-20 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Peter Paul Rubens Venus and Adonis 1610-11 oil on panel Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Jan Davidz. de Heem Still-life with Oysters and Grapes 1653 oil on panel Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Michiel Sweerts Portrait of a man - Tempus fugit before 1664 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Pieter Thys Portrait of a man holding a letter ca. 1640-60 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| David Teniers Dull Grief - Mad Meg 1640s oil on canvas private collection |
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| follower of Anthony van Dyck Andromeda chained to the Rock ca. 1638-39 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Anthony van Dyck and Paul de Vos Rest on the Flight into Egypt, or, Madonna with Partridges ca. 1630-32 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg from Sir Robert Walpole's collection at Houghton Hall |
The Van Dyck above – Madonna with Partridges – hanging as it does in the Hermitage, happens to be the centerpiece of a sequence in Russian Ark, Alexander Sokurov's film of 2002 set entirely within the Hermitage. The art galleries were shot in ambient light, providing period murk. At that time the Van Dyck was still living under a coat of old brown-yellow varnish – from the photograph above it has obviously been cleaned since then. But the dirt on the picture served Sokurov's purpose very well – the infant dancing angels made to loom, one by one, out of dimness. The ghost-protagonist-narrator spoke to them – ". . . so live on, live on . . . you'll outlive them all, eternal people . . ."
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| Anthony van Dyck Self-portrait with Sunflower (both a standardized symbol of love and the artist's personal emblem) ca. 1632 oil on canvas private collection |