Jan Lorenzo Bernini Biography

Complete name: Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini Date of birth: December 7, Date of Death: November 28, Art Movement: Baroque Home City: Naples, Italy, the world of art will never be the same after the star of the sculptor Lorenzo Bernini. During the life, marked by dizzying heights, including chivalry and close friendship with dads and members of the royal family, as well as the most gloomy falls, dramatic professional failures and murderously violent love life, Bernini forever changed the face of the city of Rome, and solely launched a style that will dominate the Italian sculpture of the age of age.

Jan Lorenzo Bernini, proclaimed by many during his lifetime the heir to Michelangelo, worked mainly with constant success with critics. Being one of the outstanding architects of the Baroque style, Bernini, of course, had many devoted followers. From contemporaries who worked directly under his leadership or competed with him for orders, to contemporary artists who were inspired by his use of emotional multimedia design, many artists can thank Bernini for the development of their own styles.

However, in a response to Baroque, which occurred with the advent of neoclassicism, praise was replaced by a sharper criticism. Bernini’s reputation was restored only in the second half of the age, and today it was recognized as one of the most striking geniuses in the history of Western art. The artistic von Von Career Bernini covers the top of Italian Baroque.

The art of Baroque is closely connected with the religious and political context of the Italy of the Century of the Century: after the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church began its own counter -reformation in order to confirm its power and attract more followers to faith. For this, the leaders of the church called for artistic spectacles that would captivate attention, excited feelings and exalted the soul.

Therefore, the art of baroque gravitates to mass, drama, theatricality. Bernini's sculptures are recognizable due to their attractive drama, dynamism, tension, texture and naturalism. The last two criteria for texture and naturalism are perhaps the most characteristic of Bernini: no one can force the stone to transmit soft skin, curly hair or wrinkled tissue as Bernini does.

His sculptures are also unique in that he pays close attention to the effects of light and shadow, the effects that are traditionally more important for the artist than for the sculptor. Many elements of Bernini's style show the influence of mannerism and Hellenistic sculpture. The early years almost since his birth in Naples in the year, Pietro Bernini, the sculptor and the father of the future genius, was determined to convey his art to his son.

At the age of 8, Jan Lorenzo was taken by his father to Rome, where they were awarded the audience with Pope Paul V, who, according to legend, declared the boy the next Michelangelo. Bernini has already established himself as an outstanding artist by late adolescence, when he received his first major orders from the art lover of Cardinal Shipione Borghese. Early works performed for the cardinal, Bernini gained such a confession that praise and orders rained down.

In the year, Bernini was dedicated to the knights, and in the year he was called the official architect of St. Peter's Cathedral, which is one of the highest awards that an artist of that time could wish. Lorenzo rotated a lot in papal and royal circles, and they were warmly admired even outside Italy. The middle years have changed for the worst when a series of events in his personal and professional life led to the fact that the artist tried to kill his own brother and brutally mutilated the face of his married mistress in the year, after he discovered that these two had a novel.

In addition, in the year, the bell tower created by Bernini for the facade of the Cathedral of St. Peter had to be demolished after the cracks causing anxiety formed, and the shame of this failure turned out to be almost overwhelming for the artist: modern sources say that Bernini took a vow and fasted almost to his death. The advanced age of the frantic success of the “ecstasy of St.

Teresa” immediately revived Bernini’s career, and the artist continued to enjoy success and popularity until his death in the year. Bernini’s style and technique, both due to the religious zeal of Bernini himself, and because most of his orders were given to religious figures, most of his works were religious themes.

However, perhaps due to the influence of the classical collections of Scipio Borgeze, one of his first patrons, Bernini also showed a persistent interest in mythological characters. In addition, thanks to the patronage that he was guided, Bernini performed a series of portraits, both in drawn forms and in the form of sculptural busts.The determining characteristics of the composition - relying on the influence of maneering artists, Bernini created twisted, dynamic compositions in his sculptures, which should have been considered from all sides, inviting the viewer to become part of the stage.

The dramatic plan - Bernini is known for depicting the most acute moment in history and conveys this event as dramatic as possible, with the help of violent movements, emotional facial expressions and technical skill. The texture - whether it is the rising swirls of fabrics, luxuriously curly strands of hair, carefully drawn leaves, roughness of the tree bark or the supplies of skin softness, Bernini paid great attention to the texture in his sculptural work.

Naturalism - although his figures are always somewhat idealized, as an improved version of reality, Bernini manages to endow them with individual features and fill them with human emotions, and he never neglects thorough details that help to revive his sculptures. The movement is from the spiral columns of the canopy, rushing the gaze to the sky, to the trepidation of the fabric on its portrait busts, all his work creates a feeling of stopped moment of immobility in the madness of movement.

Distinctive features - thanks to a combination of sculpture, architecture and painting, he created a new idea of ​​what can include a work of art. The style and technique although Bernini and Baroque went out of fashion for a long time, in the 20th century Bernini was “re -open” as a real master of realism and emotions, gaining new respect and influence on the new generation of artists, which continues to this day.

Tadao Ando, ​​in particular, judging by Bernini’s architectural works, we can say that he has significantly ahead of his time, combining painting, sculpture and the architectural work itself into one multimedia, multimedsencing work intended for playing the viewer’s feelings. This concept of architecture can be considered as an influence on modern architects, such as Tadao Ando, ​​who is known for its own works that study the idea of ​​architecture as artistic creation.

Using the effects of natural lighting and geometry, Ando strives, moreover, the comprehensive emotional effect that Bernini made in his works, such as “ecstasy of the Holy Teresa”. Lee Bontecu is one of the first female artists to achieve great recognition in the 10th years, the sculpture of Bontecu takes an example with Bernini in his richly decorated details, giving a modern shade of Baroque.

Created from multimedia materials, ranging from wire and mesh to plastic, its work acquire an emotional depth, whether it be abstract or realistic stories. The followers of Francesco Keirolo impressed by Berninin's virtuosity in the image of various textures in sculpture, Keirolo raised realism to dizzying new heights. Many artists in Italy at that time either studied or imitated Bernini's style, although none of them could compare with his individual brilliance and unique abilities.

The saturation of the market inevitably led to the response to the restrained values ​​of neoclassicism inevitably led to excessively complex sculptures. Giovanni Battista Fojini, who was born in Florence, but received an education in Rome in the X, Fojini demonstrated the deep influence of the Barnini style style. In its reliefs for chapels throughout the city, the same smoothness is visible and attention to decorative details, which is clearly a by -product of Berninin's influence.

Alessandro Algardi is another outstanding Baroque sculptor who worked at the same time as Bernini was Alessandro Algardi. Demonstrating the same emotional style of sculpture, with the intensity of dramatic action in facial expressions and tension in physical poses, Algardi's compositions were filled with the same naturalism and obsessive attention to details. Unfortunately, in the last few decades of his life, he tried his best to comply with Bernini, who was still received by most important orders for the grace of the families of Borgez and Barberini.

A critical technique during the life of Bernini was a star in the world of art, without lacking in orders, to the great displeasure of other artists and imitators. It was said that he reached a new concept of reality thanks to his intensive details and jewelry and was considered "new Michelangelo." He was one of the most respected and sought -after artists with the highest reputation.

Italian and French contemporaries praised him with detailed biographies, confident that a genius lives among them. Nevertheless, with the rise of neoclassicism at the end of the X - X years, a certain anti -bank mood was in the air, when critics of that era pounced on the seemingly decadence, excessive eroticism and what was considered insincere emotions of movement. Neoclassicism is based on the principles of purity and return to the ideals of form and suppression of emotions, an example of which are works of ancient Greece and Rome.The history of art, as it is known today, was mainly formed by a German historian and archaeologist Winkelman.

His significant prejudice against Baroque as a whole and Bernini in particular was transmitted to subsequent generations of art historians. The English artist and thinker Sir Joshua Reynolds accused Bernini of the “cheap sorcerer”, who misled and deceived the viewer with his technical skill and “betrayed” the internal qualities of the stone, forcing him to look like leather, fabric or leaves.

Reynolds believed that such illusionist effects are more suitable for painting than for sculpture. The poet, art critic, influential thinker and compatriot John Raskin described Bernini's work as devoid of religious feelings and roughly sensual. He said about the "ecstasy of St. Teresa" that "it is impossible to fall below false taste and low -ended feeling." Only in the second half of the Great century, such important art historians as Howard Hibbard and Donald Pozner revised the Baroque period, and the critical wave was excited again, this time in favor of Bernini.

The influential art critic Rudolf Wittkover, perhaps, most of all contributed to the revival of interest in Bernini's work. Having published the book “Bernini: the sculptor of the Baroque era” in the year, he convincingly substantiated the influence and artistic merits of the artist, who was ridiculed and even forgotten over the course of several previous centuries.

This aroused a new interest in Bernini, and many exhibitions, lectures and publications about Bernini and his innovative sculpture in the Baroque style were created. Due to this, tourism in Rome only intensified, and its work began to attract a large number of people. You may also be interesting.