Notes - Chpt 1 B2 P1

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Bernini created Baroque Rome.

In contrast to more modern notions about the value of art as being something quite autonomous and self-referential, Bernini’s art directly responded to and sought to make an impact on its context. That context was Rome as both an urban space and the epicentre of the Roman Catholic Church.

Bernini family commission Baldinucci;s biography 1682

Bernini son Domenico writes a second bio in 1713

Lot's of written evidence on Bernini but it's also subjective and biased

1. Methods and innovations he used to make his art and architecture so effective

2. What is Baroque? and how is Bernini's style synonymous with it.

Rome had remained the spiritual and cultural capital of western Christendom – the umbilicus mundi (literally, the world’s navel) – and the popes had retained their role as protectors of the Latin culture of the ancients.

Catholic Reformation, 1550-1650

Bernini’s work in Rome spanned this important period, from the triumphalism of the Catholic Reformation to the entrenchment of the papacy in Rome, both of which were catalysts of urban renewal.

Bernini served all six popes elected during his adult working life.

Pope Urban VIII (reigned 1623–44) - St Peters Basilica, Popes Barberini family and Bernini's father both from Florence.

Strategies he used to construct the Baroque city through the manipulation and refinement of existing spaces and the creation of new ones.

Baldacchino project - 1624-33 St Peters Basilica

Decorative altar canopy - Set within the crossing under the dome, the Baldacchino rises over the most sacred area of the basilica, the papal altar with the tomb of Saint Peter below it (Plate 1.4). Bernini’s challenge was to fill the enormous void created by the dome, and bring the disparate parts of the building together in a coherent whole.

Innovative design. He based his design on a baldachin, a temporary structure, often cloth, suspended from a ceiling or supported on four poles so that it could be carried in processions.

At 30 metres, the height of a five-storey building, Bernini’s structure is neither ciborium nor baldachin and yet both at the same time.9 The angels standing at each corner on top of the twisted columns delicately hold garlands of leaves that are attached to the volutes of the canopy’s crown. The canopy, edged with tassels and a scalloped fringe, is therefore meant to be understood as hanging in mid air, supported only by the forces of heaven. The four twisted columns are conceived of as separate elements, referencing the forest of freestanding columns that in Constantine’s basilica stood around Saint Peter’s shrine. These in turn were believed to have come from Solomon’s temple, thus claiming for Rome the status of a new heavenly Jerusalem. Almost every surface of the Baldacchino is decorated with symbols of the pope’s family, the Barberini, picked out in gilding: bees, laurel leaves (which should more correctly have been the Eucharistic symbols, vine leaves) and, on the underside of the canopy, the sun burst.10 The structure was cast in sections in bronze, a material that was particularly significant because, forged in fire, it was believed to have a mystical life-force of its own. While the scale, casting technique and symbolism of the Baldacchino are innovative, its form is deeply rooted in long-established liturgical furniture and processional apparatus. Here and elsewhere, Bernini combined familiar elements and symbols in a new synthesis, amplifying their effect through scale and technical ingenuity.

Pope Alexander VII in 1655 - Bernini's best friend, opportunity to work at an unprecedented level

Cathedra Petri seen through the Balducchino, the square outside revamped with

Bernini's colonnade in the Piazza San Pietro.

Baroque art appealed to all the senses

Whereas Protestant art could be said to tell (see chapter 2), Catholic art shows. Bernini’s work was designed to capture his viewers on every level – physical, emotional and rational.

What is Baroque art? a derogatory term meaning irregular pearl to describe the odd, outlandish, extravagant and theatrical works of art and architecture whose main proponent was Bernini. Rome and ‘Baroque’ were synonymous as the focus and expression of Catholic power.

Anton Raphael Mengs criticised Bernini’s ‘excessive appeal to the senses’.

Johann Winckelmann believed that art should appeal primarily to the mind. Artists s should find inspiration in the forms of classical – particularly Greek – sculpture, which represented nature perfected, not in the study of nature itself, which they believed to be a retrograde step. Critical of Bernini.

Heinrich Wölfflin offered a more positive definition of ‘baroque’. show the shift from Classical (Renaissance) style to the Baroque style.

Demonstrate the difference between Renaissance and Baroque art and architecture: 1. From linear to painterly 2. From plane to recession 3. From closed form to open form 4. From multiplicity to unity 5. From absolute clarity to relative clarity of the subject. Explaining 1. painterly painting is much less precise, and more suggestive than descriptive, blurry rather than sharp: Renaissance ‘art loves quiet and baroque restless surfaces’, Wölfflin.

Bernini's David - each viewing position brings a completely different aspect, so that the action of the narrative seems to unfold before the viewer’s eyes. Moving from the left- hand side of the sculpture to the right takes the viewer through the development of the narrative encapsulated by the figure, rather like the still frames of a film: from the loading of the sling, to the moment just before the launch of the stone, and David leaning back ready to let the stone fly. Bernini used contrapposto to achieve a more exaggerated effect by twisting his figure like a corkscrew: when the right leg is in view the figure appears more firmly rooted, but as the left leg comes into view, it seems more precarious, lifting off the ground as the figure swings back into action. There is also a sense that David is aiming at Goliath, who is therefore an invisible part of the group, further enhancing its impression of boundlessness. Bernini’s David charges the space around it with impending action, the power and movement spiralling out of it. Inspired by the Apollo Belvedere,

Wölfflin used Bernini’s David as the epitome of the ‘baroque’ in his second pair of terms, from plane to recession, because in order to appreciate the sculpture, the space around it has to be entered. Wolfflin - ‘painterliness, grandeur, massiveness and movement’.

Cardinal Scipione Borghese - Villa Borghese

Apollo and Daphne (1622–25) - flattered patrons who knew their classical sources: in this case the Apollo Belvedere and Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Apollo, the sun-god, tries to abduct the wood-nymph Daphne. She prays for help and is transformed into a laurel tree as soon as Apollo touches her.42 Apollo refuses to give up and adopts the laurel as his emblem.

Narratives, such as that concerning Apollo and Daphne relied on the thrill of the chase for effect, more often attempted in paintings, not in sculpture.

Daphne is lifted off the ground as roots grow from her toes and the bark consumes her skin. Her head swings back and she cries, either still calling to her father, the river-god to whom she prayed, to help her, or breathing her last mortal breath.

The swirl of Apollo’s cloak, more than 3 metres long, is caught in the energy of the chase, while Daphne’s hair swings back transforming into foliage. Like the David, the twisting composition invites the viewer to move around the statue to reveal different aspects of the narrative.

Apollo and Daphne is life-sized.

Preparatory studies of posed models and terracotta bozzetti (small-scale clay mock- ups) before lifting a chisel for his portrait busts.

Bernini was styling himself as a creative intellectual, rather than a messy craftsman. Had many sculptors working for him.

Sketched his subjects moving around in everyday life, not immobile and posed, this

way he captured the true person, their character, gestures, their essence.

Bust of Cardinal Sciopone Borghese and Louis the XIV

Louis bust - ‘the grandest piece of portraiture of the baroque age’.

Criticised by Winckelmann, who accused him of creating distortions, rather than accurate or even idealised portraits.

Bust of King Charles I of England, made from a portrait painting by Anthony Van Dyck. Bernini put the weak King in military attire to flatter and display power.

The unity of the visual arts: Wolfflin's definition of the Baroque emphasised how all parts must serve the whole.

Bernini was the first to attempt to unite architecture with sculpture and painting in such a manner that together they make a beautiful whole [bel composto]

Interweaving of painting, sculpture and architecture.

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515–82) in the Carmelite church of Santa Maria della Vittoria (c.1644– 52), commissioned by Cardinal Federigo Cornaro.

Bernini used all the arts at his disposal to display a spiritual experience.

Bernini’s theory of beauty: ‘the various parts are not only beautiful in themselves but in their relationship to other parts’.

Bernini uses coloured marble to claim these painterly effects. In the Cornaro Chapel, the lateral walls contain fictive balconies from which sculpted portraits of family members past and present seem to lean out and discuss the vision of Saint Teresa before them, like an audience at a play. This ‘audience’ reinforces the lines of sight created by the balconies in directing the viewer towards the vision of Saint Teresa and the angel. Set into a deep recess in the rear wall of the Cornaro Chapel, Teresa and the angel are lit from above by a hidden window. The columns framing the niche enclose the statue as though it were a painting. Like the invisible light source in a painting, which is only visible as a result of the effects it creates, the light from the hidden window illuminates the deeply carved draperies. The comparative darkness of the chapel and church make this ‘spotlight’ appear all the more dramatic. Bernini made a ‘chapel within a chapel’ at San Francesco a Ripa, breaking through an existing altar wall to add a new space behind, into which he could insert the architectural, sculptural and painted elements that make up his bel composto.

Controversial aspect of the interpretation of Teresa, is she n sexual ecstasy?

Sexualised representation of Teresa, Bernini’s controversial innovation was to depict Teresa with her head thrown back, submitting totally to the divine, not kneeling in prayer or elegantly swooning as was more usual. However she is amply clothed and was accepted by the patron.

The Four Rivers Fountain: Patron Innocent X, Pamphilj family (reigned 1644–55), Piazza Navone. Obelisk, at the base is a huge fountain.

Water a symbol of power and control in Rome, Fountains were publicity, showing how the patron, Popes family the Pamphilj, were bringing water into the city through the aquaducts.

Competition, Bernini excluded but still created a design, rivalry with Borromini. Bernini won.

Obelisk as a transmitter of divine light that had the potential to send the Christian message to the four corners of the earth, an important key to the fountain’s meaning.

The large, 24-metre diameter central basin at ground level symbolises the sea, out of which, in the centre, rises a 6.7-metre ‘grotto’, which ‘is tunnelled through so that from all four sides one can see through to the other side of the piazza. Four figures represent the rivers and the continents, The Nile - Africa, The Danube - Europe, The Ganges - Asia and The Rio de la Plata - America.

The fountain stands for papal Rome, represented by the rocky outcrop and the obelisk, as the source from which all the rivers of the world flow. Christian symbolism.

Bernini was later ashamed of the work.

Wolfflin and the zeitgeist - capturing the mood of the era, Bernini and Rome. art contributing to shaping the mood also.

Function, autonomy:

'Function’ refers to the various uses that works of art and other artefacts may serve (e.g. religious); ‘autonomy’ to the special status of the work of art as something to be appreciated and valued for its own sake. The period covered by Art and Visual Culture 1600–1850: Academy to Avant-Garde can be understood broadly in terms of a shift from one to the other, as the fine arts come to be distinguished from mere ‘craft’. However, this process is not complete since artists continue to perform practical functions throughout this period.

Style based approach:

The concept of style is useful for analysing the visual features that distinguish particular works of art and can also be used to characterise broader tendencies in the art of the period. However, most of the style labels discussed in this section originated at a later date, as terms of abuse, so that using them is somewhat anachronistic and potentially misleading. Reliance on style labels can also involve downplaying the actual diversity of artistic practice at any one historical moment.

From function to autonomy:

An art world in which artists typically work on commission for a known patron, as in the early part of this period, is also one in which art still tends to serve definite functions. By contrast, an art world in which artists typically work on the open market, for anyone who will buy their work, is one in which art has become autonomous, no longer tied to any definite function. The central institution of the modern art world, the art museum, displays art for its own sake and thereby upholds its autonomy; by these means, as noted in section 1, art becomes a quasi-religious cult in its own right.

Reader texts: Baldinucci and Lavin.

The kind text you are reading dictates the sort of approach each author takes. Baldinucci’s is a biography so he is concerned with Bernini’s character and personal achievement: ‘his fine qualities … were always and everywhere the inseparable companions of his deeds’ (p. 134). In short, an excellent character leads to excellent achievement. Baldinucci enlivens his text, and tries to make it more intimate, by claiming repeatedly that Bernini ‘used to say’, ‘strove’, ‘wanted’ certain values to appear in his work, but whether he did or not is unknown. On the other hand, while Lavin is concerned with Bernini’s art, not his biography or character, he begins his essay by associating ‘Bernini’s challenge to the viewer’ (p. 141) as closely as he can with the artist, using phrases such as ‘Bernini’s own view’ and ‘Bernini’s position’. But much of the evidence of Bernini’s ideas comes from his biographers and, in the end, Lavin admits that ‘Bernini … was not a theoretician’ (p. 144). The sources for the biographies were largely a mixture of contemporary fashion and theory, hearsay and family memoir.

Baldinucci says that ‘the opinion is widespread’ (p. 135) that Bernini brought painting, sculpture and architecture together in a beautiful whole. Baldinucci then gives some examples of the kinds of strategies he employed to achieve this end (e.g. by varying the poses of figures). He cannot be any more specific than this. Lavin uses this and the biography by Domenico Bernini as the starting point for his discussion. Bernini is more explicitly connected with other ideas through Baldinucci’s use of phrases such as ‘Bernini used to say …’, but there is no proof that he did actually say these things. The mention of Cardinal Pallavicini later in the text (p. 136) is important. He was an influential churchman and art critic and Baldinucci has made Bernini accord with some of his ideas so that, in the end, Bernini and his art represent some of the most influential ideas of his day. Pallavicini is also described as Bernini’s ‘intimate friend’, which says a great deal about the social status being claimed for the artist.

You could argue that Lavin has taken what is a very small part of Baldinucci’s biography too far. But it works. The ‘beautiful whole’ does seem to sum up what a great deal of the art described as ‘Baroque’ seems to do. Nevertheless, it is important to be aware of the status of such claims because there may be other features that should also be brought into consideration. What these are is constantly debated in the art-historical literature. To date, theatricality, global reach and the links with the Roman Catholic Church are important contenders, or at least participants.

Bernini and Rome

Bernini and Rome 2

Study Guide