Gianlorenzo Bernini

Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), the outstanding artist of the Italian Baroque. Although most significant as a sculptor, he was also highly gifted as an architect; painter; draughtsman; designer of stage sets, fireworks displays, and funeral trappings; and playwright. His art is the quintessence of High Baroque energy and robustness. In sculpture his ability to suggest textures of skin or cloth as well as to capture emotion and movement 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 masters as Pierre Puget, Pietro Bracci, and Andreas Schlüter.

The life of Bernini was dominated by his work, and his biography is defined by the immense number of projects he undertook. His career developed almost entirely in Rome, although he was born in Naples, on December 7, 1598. His father, Pietro Bernini, a talented sculptor in the late Mannerist style, was his first teacher. Gianlorenzo soon surpassed his father in excellence, however, as is known from the principal sources of information on Bernini, the biographies by Filippo Baldinucci in 1682 and by the artist's son Domenico in 1713. Many of Bernini's early sculptures were inspired by Hellenistic art. The Goat Amalthea Nursing the Infant Zeus and a Young Satyr (redated 1609, Galleria Borghese, Rome) typifies the classical taste of the youthful sculptor. Group sculptures by earlier masters such as Giambologna were noted for the fact that they were conceived in the round and intended to be viewed from many different angles. Bernini's sculptural 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. From the 1620s also date Bernini's first architectural projects, the façade for the church of Santa Bibiana (1624-1626), Rome, and the creation of the magnificent baldachin (1624-1633), or altar canopy, over the high altar of St Peter's Basilica. 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 St Peter's. Bernini later created the tombs (1628-1647 and 1671-1678, respectively; St Peter's Basilica) 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 St Peter, 1657-1666), in the apse of St 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 centre 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 Ecstasy of St 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, be they allegorical busts such as the Damned Soul and Blessed Soul (both c. 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 also designed three churches. His church at Castelgandolfo (1658-1661) is built on a Greek cross plan, and his church at Ariccia (1662-1664) on a circular plan. His third church is his greatest achievement in religious architecture. Sant' Andrea al Quirinale (1658-1670) in Rome was constructed on an oval plan with an ovoid porch extending beyond the façade, echoing the interior rhythms of the building. The interior, decorated with dark, multicoloured 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 St Peter's, and the magnificent Piazza San Pietro (designed 1667), framing the approach to the basilica in a dynamic oval 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.

Bernini remained a vital and active artist virtually up until his death on November 28, 1680. His final work, Bust of the Saviour (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 towards death.