<Tr> <Th> Years active </Th> <Td> 17th - 18th century </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Country </Th> <Td> Europe and Latin America </Td> </Tr> <P> The Baroque (US: / bəˈroʊk / or UK: / bəˈrɒk /) is a highly ornate and often extravagant style of architecture, art and music that flourished in Europe from the early 17th until the late 18th century . It followed the Renaissance style and preceded the Neoclassical style . It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well . The baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, grandeur and surprise to achieve a sense of awe . The style began in the first third of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to France, northern Italy, Spain and Portugal, then to Austria and southern Germany . By the 1730s, it had evolved into an even more flamboyant variant, called rocaille or Rococo, which appeared in France and central Europe until the late 18th century . </P> <P> The word baroque was a Portuguese term for a pearl (barocco) with an irregular shape . Cognates for the term in other Romance languages include: barroco in Portuguese, barrueco in Spanish, and barocco in Italian . It was used in French to describe pearls in a 1531 inventory of Charles V's treasures . </P>

When did the baroque period start and end