Gian Lorenzo Bernini was born in Naples in 1598, the son of a sculptor who recognized the boy's talent early, and died in Rome in 1680, aged 81, after working for seven consecutive popes over almost sixty years. He was a sculptor, architect, painter, playwright and set designer, and in each of these areas he would have been, alone, the best of his time.
The project that hired him
Bernini was born at a time of crisis for the Catholic Church: the Protestant Reformation had split papal authority, and the response came on two fronts. A doctrinal one, the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Another aesthetic: building Rome in such an overwhelmingly beautiful way that any visitor would understand, with their eyes, that it was the center of the world. From this second response, Baroque was born, and Bernini was the man chosen to write it on stone, square and colonnade.
Not sculptures, experiences
What separates Bernini from any other sculptor of his time is the ambition of the project. A beautiful sculpture was not enough: it was necessary to calculate the light that would illuminate it, the angle from which the viewer would approach it, the exact moment in which they would be left speechless. St. Peter's Square, with its colonnades in the shape of open arms, is the most visible example of this method applied to the scale of an entire city.
The sculptor who read
Bernini's three most studied sculptures, the group of Apollo and Daphne, that of Aeneas with Anchises and Ascanius, and The Rape of Proserpina, now housed in the Galleria Borghese, in Rome, were not born of free invention. They were born from direct reading: Ovid's Metamorphoses and Virgil's Aeneid. Bernini carved specific scenes from these poems, and the result is an art with two layers: the surface, visible to any visitor, and the depth, available only to those who know the source text.
This is the invitation that runs through Bernini's work to this day: art without reading is surface. With reading, it's bottomless depth, which explains why, four hundred years later, we keep turning that corner in Rome and running out of words.
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Who was Bernini?
Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) was an Italian sculptor, architect and set designer, born in Naples and trained in Rome. He worked for seven consecutive popes over almost sixty years and is considered the main creator of the Baroque visual language.
Why is Bernini important?
Because he did not limit himself to sculpting isolated figures: he projected the entire space around the work (the light, the angle of view, the path of those approaching) to produce a complete emotional experience. St. Peter's Square is the most visible example of this method.
What is Bernini's relationship with literature?
His most famous sculptures, such as Apollo and Daphne, Aeneas with Anchises and Ascanius and The Rape of Proserpina, were born from direct readings of Ovid (Metamorphoses) and Virgil (Aeneid). Bernini carved specific scenes from these poems, and knowing the text changes what you see in the stone.
Continue on the Bernini cluster: Apollo and Daphne, by Bernini, and Ovid · Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius, by Bernini · The Abduction of Proserpina, by Bernini
Source class (YouTube): Quem foi Bernini? (NousCast)