Bernini Lorenzo: biography, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In its scope, the work of Lorenzo Bernini is comparable only to the works of the great masters of the Renaissance in Italy. After Michelangelo, he was the largest architect and sculptor in this country, and also one of the creators of the Baroque style - the last truly "grand style" in the history of all European art.

Origin and first works

Bernini Lorenzo was born in Naples in 1598. He was born in the family of Pietro Bernini, a famous sculptor. At the beginning of the 17th century, Giovanni moved to Rome with his father. Since that time, his life and work have been connected with the "eternal city". Many works were created here by Lorenzo Bernini. Photos of some of them are presented below.

The first mature works of Bernini include the following: sculptural groups "Pluto and Proserpina", "Aeneas and Anchises", "Apollo and Daphne", as well as a marble statue of David. The years of their creation are 1619-1625. Bernini completed these works by order of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, an amateurarts. In the creations of Lorenzo, there is a connection with ancient and Renaissance plastics. And the image of Apollo can be seen as a direct borrowing from Hellenistic sculpture. However, in general, Bernini almost completely rethought the classical traditions. His contemporaries were amazed by the feeling of living flesh and the extraordinary illusion of vitality inherent in his sculpture. I also admired the exciting dynamism of these works.

Flourishing creativity

The heyday of Bernini's creativity refers to patronage already higher, namely Cardinal Maffeo Barberini. He became Pope Urban VIII in 1623. In the art of Bernini of this period, the ideas of the counter-reformation, which nourished the entire European Baroque and, in particular, Italian, are fully expressed. In them, medieval religiosity seemed to be rethought in a secular way. Genuine greatness was inseparable from external pomposity. Bernini, subsidized by the church, erected majestic architectural structures. He created altar compositions, fountains, monuments, sculptural portraits, tombstones (including the famous tombstone of Urban VIII).

The versatility of Bernini's talent

In the person of Bernini, an architect and a sculptor were combined; the head of a large workshop who carried out various projects; theater decorator, painter, performer and comedy writer and art theorist. He figuratively compared his work with the powerful jets of the fountains he created. But sculpture was still the main form of artistic activity of Bernini. The most important principles of the Baroque style were most fully embodied in it.

Sculpture by Bernini

Bernini's sculpture combined the spiritual and sensual principles, theatrical pathos and "ex altation" with inner grandeur, mysticism with concrete psychologism, the desire for resemblance to nature with a vital impulse that gave organic integrity to plastic forms. To solve the diverse tasks facing him, Bernini seemed to lack the natural properties of the material and the expressive means of sculpture. It makes marble melt, bend and flow like wax. This unyielding material in his hands perfectly conveys the texture of the fabric and the tenderness of human skin. In addition, Lorenzo Bernini makes extensive use of light and color effects. A brief biography, unfortunately, does not allow dwelling in detail on the features of his sculpture. And you can talk about them for a very long time…

Church of St. Peter

In the work of Bernini, painting becomes one of the methods of sculpture, and the latter becomes part of an architectural structure. In turn, it is included in the surrounding space, in infinity. The picturesqueness and grandiosity of the Baroque vision is expressed with the greatest force in the "Chair of St. Peter" for the Roman Cathedral of St. Peter. Peter. The years of its creation are 1656-1665. On a massive plinth made of red-yellow jasper and black-and-white marble, the sculptor erected 4 bronze statues of the "fathers of the church", discussing among themselves. Above them rises a bronze throne and the "chair of St. Peter". The clouds swirl even higher, a host of golden rays is movingbronze angels. And in the center of this burst of matter, of cosmic help, there is a real light pouring from the round window of the cathedral. He brings the whole composition together, balances it.

Ecstasy of St. Teresa

However, the most famous works of sculpture by Bernini include a modest and much simpler sculptural group. It is called "The Ecstasy of St. Teresa". This group was created between 1645 and 1647 for the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, commissioned by Cardinal Carnaro. The sculptor depicted the mystical vision of a Spanish nun who lived in the 16th century with the same authenticity with which it was described in letters. As if from the theater boxes, from the niches of the church wall, statues of representatives of the Carnaro family seem to "look" at Bernini's creation.

St. Teresa, seized with languor, and an angel with a fiery arrow, and sunlight, which Bernini materialized in golden rays, and a cloud on which figures soar. With psychological sharpness and striking realism, Bernini Lorenzo conveys a state of religious ecstasy. At the same time, he achieves a sense of unreality and weightlessness of his characters. It seems that the clothes of the figures are picked up by a gust of some cosmic wind.

"Secular" sculptures by Bernini

Lorenzo Bernini, whose works are diverse, is also known as a "secular" sculptor. He is the author of many portraits. They also embody the Baroque concept. MainThe peculiarity of the portrait in this style is a paradoxical combination of the illusory plausibility of the model's appearance, instantaneous state, and a sense of timeless grandeur, eternity behind them. It seems that the characters created by Bernini Lorenzo live, talk, breathe, gesticulate, and sometimes “leave” their frames. We see not bronze and marble, but the silk of their shirts, the lace of the jabot, the fabric of the cloaks. However, all of them are elevated above everyday life, imbued with a special impersonal energy. This applies to many works, even such intimate ones as the bust of Bernini's beloved Constance Buonarelli. And this fully applies to ceremonial portraits, reminiscent of solemn odes. This, for example, is a portrait of Louis XIV or the Duke d'Este. For Louis, he created not one, but two great works. This is, firstly, a marble bust, as if flying on a pedestal (pictured below).

And secondly, this is an equestrian statue resembling a burst of flame.

Bernini architecture and fountains

Lorenzo Bernini has the main merit in the creation of the so-called baroque Rome. In such masterpieces of architecture as the Church of Sant'Andrea al Quirinal, the colonnade of the Cathedral of St. Petra (pictured below), the "Rock of Reggia" staircase located in the Vatican, the master seems to blow up the entire architectural system.

His main task was not just to create some separate monuments, but to organize the space of the city. Bernini Lorenzo thought in terms of squares and streets. He used both plastic and architectural means of expression. The famous fountains ("Moor", "Barkaccia", "Four Rivers" (pictured below), "Triton", as well as "Trevi", made after the death of its author) are a synthesis of these funds. They embodied the life-affirming and spontaneous-natural beginning of the Baroque with the greatest force.

The death of Bernini and the transformation of the Baroque

Lorenzo Bernini died in 1680. Biography (creative) of the master almost coincided with the chronology of this style. At the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. the powerful energy of baroque gives way to tinsel and superficial rhetoric, or it turns into rococo, striving for decorative elegance.