Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini) (December 7, 1598 – November 28, 1680), who worked chiefly in Rome, was the pre-eminent baroque artist. Eminent as a sculptor and architect, he was also a painter, draftsman, designer of stage sets, fireworks displays, and funeral trappings.

Bernini's Marble Portraiture

Bernini also revolutionized marble busts, lending glamorous dynamism to once stony stillness of portraiture. Starting with the immediate pose, leaning out of the frame, of Monsignor Pedro de Foix Montoya (1621) at Santa Maria di Monserrato, Rome. The once-gregarious Cardinal Scipione Borghese http://www.thais.it/scultura/image/sch00345.htm (1632 (Galleria borghese) appears to still speak to us. The portrait of his alleged mistress, Costanza Buonarelli (1635), does not portray divinity or royalty; this is a women, in a moment of disheveled privacy, captured in conversation or surprise http://www.scultura-italiana.com/Galleria/Bernini%20Gian%20Lorenzo/imagepages/image20.html.

Related Topics:
Santa Maria di Monserrato - Scipione Borghese - 1632 - (Galleria borghese)

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In more formal portraiture, the marvelous windswept marble vestments and cascades of hair in Louis XIV's portraint(1665, Palace of Versailles)would suffice to elevate any face to royalty http://www.scultura-italiana.com/Galleria/Bernini%20Gian%20Lorenzo/imagepages/image13.html. Similar exuberance glorifies the bust of Francesco I d'Este, duca di Modena (Modena, Galleria Estense, 1650-1651)http://www.scultura-italiana.com/Galleria/Bernini%20Gian%20Lorenzo/imagepages/image11.html.

Related Topics:
Louis XIV - 1665 - Palace of Versailles

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