Video: Why the Vatican forgave any sins of the sculptor Lorenzo Bernini
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
His mother was Neapolitan, and his father was Florentine, but only Rome became for the sculptor and architect Lorenzo Bernini a real home, a true homeland, and eternal love. For seventy years - an incredible period for those times - he designed fountains and churches, painted pictures, created sensual, sculptures and austere busts of popes. For this love Lorenzo was forgiven everything …
He was born at the end of the 16th century in Naples, the sixth of twelve children of the successful sculptor Pietro Bernini. His father taught him from an early age. When Lorenzo was eight years old, his father brought him to Rome. The boy's works were appreciated by many famous artists, including the founder of the Bologna Academy of Arts, Annibale Carracci. Pope Paul V promised to patronize the young talent.
Under the auspices of Cardinal Spizione Borghese, twenty-four-year-old Bernini created his masterpieces, The Rape of Proserpine and Apollo and Daphne. In the Vatican, Bernini studied the works of Michelangelo and at the first stages of his career tried to imitate him, but rather quickly overcame the Renaissance influence and developed his own style. He worked with marble so masterly that the sculptures seem to be alive. In the same years, Bernini created the canopy in St. Peter's Basilica.
As a sculptor, Bernini introduced a lot of new things into the art of sculpture. First, he introduced a vortex-like dynamics into the sculptural composition, thanks to which the sculpture looks spectacular from any angle. This approach strongly influenced the entire artistic language of the Baroque style. He brought extreme emotionality and drama to his work. Bernini refused to follow the ancient tradition - or rather, significantly revised it. The sculptural bust, which previously existed only as a funerary portrait, he used to depict his living contemporaries - politicians, religious leaders, ordinary people.
Lorenzo Bernini loved to observe living human facial expressions and tried to embody the person being portrayed as emotional, speaking, sad or joyful. If the Renaissance strove for antique poise, the Baroque embodied extreme states of mind. Bernini's sculptural diptych "Sinful and Righteous Soul" became an example of baroque expression.
Lorenzo Bernini loved theater. This love was embodied not only in the pomp and drama of his works. He worked extensively for the theater, creating sets, props and mechanical devices for the stage. In addition, there is information that Bernini wrote plays and was not even averse to going on the stage. Once he even staged, as they would say now, a performance, during which he publicly painted and sculpted sculptures. He especially loved to take part in satirical performances during the Roman Maslenitsa carnival - with their rude, obscene humor. Bernini himself knew how to joke. His elephant on in front of Santa Maria sopra Minerva faces the Dominican monastery where one of Lorenzo's enemies lived …
Bernini said goodbye to any antics. Even the chilling story of the attack on his mistress did not damage his reputation. Bernini, in a fit of insane jealousy, ordered his servant to cut the face of a married woman - her name was Constance - with whom he had a whirlwind romance with a razor. He suspected Constants in a relationship with his brother Luigi. Luigi also got it - already from Lorenzo himself. But Bernini got off with just a fine, and soon received a pardon from the Vatican. The heroine of the story ended up in prison for adultery, but later recovered from all these monstrous events and even built a dizzying career for a woman of those years in the art trade. Bernini himself considered himself a righteous Catholic in those years, was friends with the head of the Jesuits, regularly attended church and prayed earnestly … At the same time, Bernini's religious sculptures evoke ambivalent feelings. His ecstatic saints are so sensual and erotic that doubts arise about the religious nature of their emotions.
Bernini started his own family, being already middle-aged by the standards of his time. By this time, the passions in his soul had already subsided. At forty, he married Catherine Thesio, who was half his age. Eleven children were born in the marriage. But the years of family happiness were unexpectedly unsuccessful for his career - two bell towers designed by him had to be demolished in order to avoid a sudden collapse. However, this time Bernini quickly restored his reputation - he erected the stunning Fountain of the Four Rivers on Piazza Navona, which still amazes tourists today.
But, perhaps, Bernini's main gift to his beloved city is St. Peter's Square, designed in the shape of a key (the keys to paradise, which were given to St. Peter). The square is framed by two colonnades. It is there that the faithful gather to hear the address of the pontiff. St. Peter's Square has become a model for European urban planning, but Bernini's masterpiece remains unsurpassed in its expressiveness and emotional impact on citizens and visitors.
Since his arrival in Rome, Bernini left him only once - he went to Paris, to the court of Louis XIV. Lorenzo had to do some work for the Louvre, but … Bernini did not like Paris terribly. He wrote that he was surrounded by barbarians and, apparently, managed to arrange several scandals there. His projects were never used by customers. However, he managed to create an expressive sculptural bust of Louis, which Louis himself did not like - so much so that he sent this portrait to the farthest corner of Versailles.
Lorenzo Bernini lived a long - eighty-two years - and creatively rich life, entirely devoted to Rome. He was patronized by six popes. It was thanks to Bernini that the Baroque style gained such popularity, and Rome received many of those sights, without which it is impossible to imagine the Eternal City today.
Today even atheists are interested in the secret of the Tiara of the Pope - why on the headdress of the pontiffs there were three crowns at once.
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