Gian Lorenzo Bernini

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Image:Gianlorenzoberniniselfportrait.jpeg Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini) (December 7, 1598 – November 28, 1680), who worked chiefly in Rome, was the pre-eminent baroque artist. Eminent as a sculptor and architect, he was also a painter, draftsman, designer of stage sets, fireworks displays, and funeral trappings.

Contents 1 Early Works 2 Early Sculpture 3 Mature sculpture 4 Bernini's Architecture 5 Bernini's Fountains in Rome 6 Bernini's Marble Portraiture 7 Other works 8 See also 9 External links

Early Works

Bernini was born in Naples by a Florentine family and accompanied his father Pietro Bernini, a capable Mannerist sculptor himself, to Rome. His first works were inspired by Hellenistic sculpture of imperial Rome

Early Sculpture

Among these early Roman works are "The Goat Amalthea Nursing the Infant Zeus and a Young Satyr" (redated 1609, Galleria Borghese) and several allegorical busts such as the "Damned Soul" and "Blessed Soul" (ca 1619, Palazzo di Spagna, Rome). Under the patronage of the Cardinal Scipione Borghese the young Bernini rapidly rose to prominence as a sculptor. In the 1620s he came to maturity with the bust of Pope Paul V (1620). Many of his early works mainly dealt with secular themes, and can be seen at the Galleria Borghese in Rome, starting with:

• 1) the statue of Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius [1] depicting three ages of man from various viewpoints(1619) and perhaps reflecting the moment when son surpasses the skill of his father, Pietro.
• 2) the "Abduction of Proserpine" (1621-22)[2], where the young artist creates a monument recalling Giambologna's mannerist Rape of the Sabine Women and experiments with creating dimpling skin with marble.
• 3) The masterful "Apollo and Daphne" (1622-25) shows the height of the action in Ovid’s Metamorphosis tale. In the story, Apollo, the god of light, scolds Eros, the god of love, for playing with adult weapons. Eros is angered and wounds Apollo with a golden arrow that induces Apollo to love Daphne – a water nymph who had declared her perpetual virginity – on sight. Eros also wounds Daphne with a lead arrow that induces her to reject Apollo’s advances. Apollo pursues Daphne and right when he is about to capture her she cries out to her father, the river god, for help. She asks her father to destroy her beauty in order to quell Apollo’s advances. Her father responds by turning her into a laurel tree.[3]. If sculpture is the depiction of life using inanimate stone, his conceit depicts in marble life changing to lifeless wood.
• 4) Finally the revolutionary "David" (1623-24), illustration below left.

Mature sculpture

Bernini depicts David (illustration, left) in motion, in contrast to the famous Florentine David by Michelangelo who reposes in confidence or the effete David by Donatello. The twisted torso and furrowed forehead of Bernini's "David" is symptomatic of the baroque's interest in dynamic movement over High Renaissance stasis. Michelangelo expresses David's whole heroic nature; Bernini captures the heroic moment. In political terms, it can be said Michelangelo's David epitomizes a Florence that will not allow defeat; Bernini's David, a Reformation Rome anxious for a fight. The sculpture brought Bernini his first fame, was commissioned from the twenty-five year old Bernini by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, his great patron.

His first architectural project was the magnificent bronze baldachin (1624 - 1633), the canopy over the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica [4], and the façade for the church of Santa Bibiana (1624-1626), Rome. In 1629, before the Baldacchino was complete, Urban VIII put him in charge of all the ongoing architectural works at St Peter's. He was given the commission for the Basilica's tombs of Pope Urban VIII (1628-1647 [5] and, years later, Pope Alexander VII Chigi 1671-1678 [6]. The Chair of Saint Peter (Cathedra Petri) 1657-1666), in the apse of St. Peter's [7], is one of his masterpieces.

Among his other best-known sculptures: the "Ecstasy of St Theresa" (1645-1652, in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome).

Bernini's Architecture

Bernini's architectural conceits include the piazza and colonnades of St Peter's he planned several famous Roman palaces: Palazzo Barberini (from 1630 on which he worked with Borromini); Palazzo Ludovisi (now Palazzo Montecitorio, 1650); and Palazzo Chigi (1664). In 1665, at the height of his fame and powers, he traveled to Paris to present Louis XIV with (ultimately rejected) designs for the east front of the Louvre; his adventurous concave-convex facades was discarded in favor of the more stern and classic proposals of native Claude Perrault.

Bernini embellished more churches, including the St Peter's (see Carlo Maderno), than he built. He fufilled three full commisions; his stature allowed him the freedom to design the structure and decorate the interiors in a coherent designs. Best known is the the small oval baroque church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinale (1658-70) which includes the statue of St. Andrew the Apostle soaring high above the aedicule framing the high altar. In Castelgandolfo (San Tomaso di Villanova, 1658-61) and Ariccia (Sta. Maria dell'Assunzione, 1662-64), towns under papal control, Bernini also designed churches. The facade of Santa Bibiana (1624-26) in Rome is by Bernini.

Bernini's Fountains in Rome

True to the decorative dynamism of baroque, Roman fountains, part public works and part Papal monuments, were among his most gifted creations. Bernini's fountains was the Fountain of the Triton (1640). The Fountain of the Four Rivers (Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi) (1648-1651)[8] in the Piazza Navona is a masterpiece of spectacle and political allegory. One anecdote is that of the Bernini's river gods, shields his gaze in horror from at the adjacent facade of Sant'Agnese in Agony church designed by his equally talented, but less politically successful, rival Francesco Borromini. Bernini supervised for Pope Clement VII the decoration of the Pont Sant'Angelo with statues of angels holding the materiels from the Passion; he personally contributed two of the statues.

Bernini's Marble Portraiture

Bernini also revolutionized marble busts, lending glamorous dynamism to once stony stillness of portraiture. Starting with the immediate pose, leaning out of the frame, of Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya (1621) at Santa Maria di Monserrato, Rome. The once-gregarious Cardinal Scipione Borghese is frozen in conversation (1632,Galleria Borghese).[9]The portrait of his alleged mistress, Costanza Buonarelli (1635), does not portray divinity or royalty; but a women in a moment of disheveled privacy, captured in conversation or surprise.[10]

In his sulpted portraiture for more regal patrons, Bernini fashioned the marvelous windswept marble vestments and cascades of hair of Louis XIV's portrait (1665, Palace of Versailles) would suffice to elevate any face to royalty.[11]Similar exuberance glorifies the bust of Francesco I d'Este (Modena, Galleria Estense, 1650-1651).[12]

Other works

Another of Bernini's sculptures is known affectionately as Bernini's Chick. It is located in the Piazza della Minerva, right in front of the church Santa Maria sopra Minerva. Pope Alexander VII decided that he wanted an ancient Egyptian obelisk to be erected in the piazza and commissioned Bernini to create a sculpture to support the obelisk. The sculpture was finally carried out in 1667 by one of Bernini's students. One of the most interesting features of this elephant is its smile. To find out why it is smiling, one must head around to the rear end of the animal and one notices that its muscles are tensed and its tail is shifted to the left. Bernini sculpted the animal as if it were in the middle of defecating. The animal's rear is pointed directly at the office of Father Domenico Paglia, a Dominican friar, who was one of the main antagonists of Bernini and his artisan friends, as a final salute and last word.

The death of his constant patron Urban VIII in 1644 released a horde of Bernini's rivals and marked a change in his career, but Innocent X set him back to work on the extended nave of St Peter's and commissioned the Four Rivers fountain in Piazza Navona. At the time of Innocent's death Bernini was the aribiter of public taste in Rome. He died in Rome in 1680, and buried in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore.

Two years after his death, Queen Christina of Sweden, then living in Rome, commisioned Filippo Baldinucci to write his biography, (translated in 1996 as "the life of Bernini" a work which is still well worth reading.

Bernini's works are featured in Dan Brown's novel Angels and Demons as markers and Altars of Science.

See also

• List of painters
• List of Italian painters
• List of famous Italians
• Saint Peter's Square

External links

• Checklist of Bernini's architecture and sculpture in Rome