Baroque Art

The first Baroque artist we are going to look at is Bernini (1598-1680). Bernini is similar to his Italian Renaissance predecessors in that he practiced architecture and sculpture, painting, stage design, and playwright. He is the last of the dazzling universal geniuses. He is a prodigy, his first works date from his eighth birthday. He had his first commission from the papal family when he was only 11. The first work of Bernini's that we are going to look at is his David, sculpted for Cardinal Borghese in only 7 months. It is strikingly different than its Renaissance predecessors. By comparing it to Michelangelo's David, we can immediately ascertain the differences between the Renaissance and the Baroque periods. The essence of Baroque art is displayed in Bernini's David. Bernini chose the most dramatic moment to convey the event, which in turn created a dynamic, theatrical energized work which occupies our space. Bernini's theatrical masterpiece is his work in the Cornaro Chapel in Rome. Here Bernini not only designed a theatrical altarpiece, with the sculpture of St. Teresa, but provided the sculpted audience as well, he sculpted members of the Cornaro family, and six Cornaro Cardinals of the preceding century to witness (or view) the ecstasy of St. Teresa.Teresa of Avila is one of the great saints of the Counter Reformation, how claimed an angel pierced her heart with a flaming golden arrow.The group of St. Teresa and the Angel is revealed in celestial light within a richly articulated niche over the altar. Again Bernini chooses the most dramatic moment, the transport of ecstasy. The angel prepares to pierce St. Teresa as he gently pulls aside her drapery. St. Teresa is leaning back with closed eyes and slightly opened mouth.The diagonal composition adds to the drama.The gilded rays of light add to the drama, but also, a mysterious light falls on the group, which comes from a hidden window, obstructed from the viewer's view.This mysterious light from heaven adds to the already heightened drama.We no longer are speaking of sculpture in the conventional sense but of a pictorial scene framed by architecture that includes us as worshipers in a religious dram that is not so much acted as revealed. Bernini used painting, sculpture, architecture, and added the natural source of light to create a hallucinatory revelation.