Bernini,
Gianlorenzo
Contributed By:
Edward J. Sullivan
The single most important artistic talent of the Italian
baroque. Although most significant as a sculptor, he was also
highly gifted as an architect; painter; draftsman; designer of
stage sets, fireworks displays, and funeral trappings; and
playwright. His art is the quintessence of high baroque energy
and robustness (see Baroque Art and Architecture). His
ability to suggest textures of skin or cloth as well as to
capture emotion and movement in sculpture was uncanny. Bernini
reformed a number of sculptural genres, including the portrait
bust, the fountain, and the tomb. His influence was widespread
throughout the 17th and 18th centuries and was felt by such
European masters as Pierre Puget, Pietro Bracci, and Andreas
Schlüter.
Bernini's life was dominated by his work, and his biography can
be traced through the immense number of projects he undertook.
His career developed almost entirely in Rome, although he was
born in Naples. His father, Pietro Bernini, a talented sculptor
of the late Mannerist style, was his son's first teacher (see
Mannerism). Young Gianlorenzo soon surpassed his father in
excellence, however, as is known from the principal sources of
information on Bernini: the biography by Filippo Baldinucci in
1682 and the biography by the artist's son Domenico in 1713.
Many of Bernini's early sculptures were inspired by Hellenistic
art (see Greek Art and Architecture). The Goat
Amalthea Nursing the Infant Zeus and a Young Satyr (1609,
Galleria Borghese, Rome) typifies the classical taste of the
youthful sculptor. Group sculptures by earlier masters such as
Giambologna were noted for their Mannerist multiple views.
Bernini's sculpture groups of the 1620s, however, such as the
Abduction of Proserpina (1621-1622, Galleria Borghese, Rome)
present the spectator with a single primary view while
sacrificing none of the drama inherent in the scene. During the
1620s, Bernini also executed his first architectural projects,
the facade for the church of Santa Bibiana (1624-1626) in Rome,
and the creation of the magnificent baldachin (1624-1633), or
altar canopy, over the high altar of Saint Peter's. The latter
commission was given to Bernini by Pope Urban VIII, the first of
seven pontiffs for whom he worked. This project, a masterful
feat of engineering, architecture, and sculpture, was the first
of a number of monumental undertakings for Saint Peter's.
Bernini later created the tombs (1628-1647 and 1671-1678,
respectively; Saint Peter's) of Urban VIII and Alexander VII
that, in their use of active three-dimensional figures, differ
markedly from the purely architectural approach to the
sepulchral monument taken by previous artists. Bernini's immense
Cathedra Petri (Chair of Saint Peter, 1657-1666), in the apse of
Saint Peter's, employs marble, gilt bronze, and stucco in a
splendid crescendo of motion, made all the more dramatic by the
golden oval window in its center that becomes the focal point of
the entire basilica.
Bernini was the first sculptor to realize the dramatic potential
of light in a sculptural complex. This was even more fully
realized in his famous masterpiece Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
(1645-1652, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome), in which the
sun's rays, coming from an unseen source, illuminate the
swooning saint and the smiling angel about to pierce her heart
with a golden arrow. Bernini's numerous busts also carry an
analogous sense of persuasive dramatic realism, whether they are
allegorical busts such as the Damned Soul and Blessed
Soul (both 1619?, Palazzo di Spagna, Rome), or portraits
such as those of Cardinal Scipione Borghese (1632, Galleria
Borghese) or Louis XIV of France (1665, Palace of Versailles).
Bernini's secular architecture included designs for several
palaces: Palazzo Ludovisi (now Palazzo Montecitorio, 1650) and
Palazzo Chigi (now Palazzo Odescalchi, 1664), in Rome, and an
unexecuted design for the Louvre presented to Louis XIV in 1665,
when Bernini spent five months in Paris.
Bernini did not begin to design churches until he was 60 years
old, but his three efforts in ecclesiastical architecture are
significant. His church at Castelgandolfo (1658-1661) employs a
Greek cross, and his church at Ariccia (1662-1664), a circle
plan. His third church, Sant' Andrea al Quirinale (1658-1670) in
Rome, is his greatest. The church was constructed on an oval
plan with an ovoid porch extending beyond the facade, echoing
the interior rhythms of the building. The interior, decorated
with dark, multicolored marble, has a dramatic oval dome of
white and gold. Also dating from the 1660s are the Scala Regia
(Royal Staircase, 1663-1666), connecting the papal apartments in
the Vatican Palace to Saint Peter's, and the magnificent Piazza
San Pietro (designed 1667), framing the approach to the basilica
in a dynamic ovular space formed by two vast semicircular
colonnades. Bernini's most outstanding fountain group is in the
spectacular Fountain of the Four Rivers (1648-1651) in
the Piazza Navona in Rome.
Bernini remained a vital and active artist virtually up to his
death. His final work, Bust of the Savior (Chrysler
Museum, Norfolk, Virginia), presents a withdrawn and restrained
image of Christ indicative of what is now known to have been
Bernini's calm and resigned attitude toward death.
Main Page