The beginning of the seventeenth century

The beginning of the seventeenth century was the time when the arguments betwixt naturalism and classicism were to preoccupy oft of the Baroque age. Perhaps the most successful integration of these ideas came in the die of the sculptor-architect Gianlorenzo Bernini. No other artist during the Baroque era so all dominated his discipline as did this virtuoso, whose sculpted common fig tree works came to make up the very(prenominal) spirit of the Counter-Reformation. Born in Naples, from an early age he possessed tremendous technical skill in modeling.His David (Fig. 1), of 1623-24, sculpted between ages of twenty-five and twenty-six, evokes comparison with the Davids of Donatello and Michelangelo. Each work encapsulates the ideal and aspirations of its days. The sinuous consistence and graceful gesture of Donatellos bronze speak of the break with the cruelness and grim determinism of the medieval age. Michelangelos David is quintessentially heroic, his gigantic body and sensuo us musculature the very idiom of human self-confidence in the High Renaissance.By comparison, Berninis sculpture, neither complacent nor particularly grand, takes on combativeness and an offensive effectiveness here the body appears to attack and defeat. Christopher Baker argues that Bernini revolutionized sculpture by Contorting facial nerve expressions and bodies, endowing skin and drapery with tactile sensuousness, making hair and features seem to move, and differentiating textures for colorist make (21) Indeed, the agitation of the argona around the figure was in fact very new to sculpture, and its provocative engagement of the lay amplified the viewers race to the art.This was the very essence of the Baroque. Berninis technical skill is also quotable of consideration, for here we can see the influence of Caravaggio (Loh). Berninis captivating physical exertion of ignite and shade with the technique of undercutting gave his cold stain figure an emotional vitality on a par with the very go around chiaroscuro in painting. And to appreciate fully such an advance in sculpture, it is demand to consider in greater depth pock carving as it was practiced in the seventeenth century.Michelangelo likened carving to liberating a figure from its stone captivity. If this was indeed a feeling shared by sculptors of the day, then perhaps, as Varriano suggests, Berninis figures leapt from their prisons (73). The emotional gestures and agitated come out of the closets give one the impression that the figures are indeed flesh and blood. The drama of the scene is caught entirely by the persuade portrayal of movement, produced by a series of deep cuts into the marble surface that catch and reflect light.These deep places of tush are produced by a technique called undercutting a method of manipulating the descriptive character of light on stone. Undercutting is a technique of creating deep cuts in stone which produce shadow (Rothschild, 72) the result suggest s movement and dynamism, as the surface is transformed by light and shade capable of expressing the most dramatic of gestures. In Berninis scarce The Ecstasy of St. Teresa (Fig. 2) we are witness to the dramatic potential of such a development.Noteworthy is the way the draperies of the enraptured saint take on the lightness of textile and the way scene itself is wrapped within a turmoil of lines created through the intensive use of shadow. Bernini was also well aware of coloristic possibilities afforded by marble and used impinging variation of the pink, white, green, and black varieties to produce spectacular results. i such example is his execution of the Tomb of Alexander VII (Fig.3) of 1671-8, where traditionalistic white marble figures are juxtaposed against colored marble drapery, striking black pedestals and the every present symbol of death the skeleton. This is the Baroque impressibility in all its glory. Considering Berninis rather formidable skill in benignant spa ce and working materials, it was perhaps inevitable that he would address architecture as well. The most notable of his achievements was his design for the piazza of St. light beams in capital of Italy. Relying on many of the techniques and innovations of Renaissance architects, Bernini nevertheless allowed his engaging sense of novelty to guide him.As a result, the unorthodox combination of doric and Ionic orders and the dramatic sweep of the colonnade, which psychologically heightens the pilgrims anticipation of the perform (Marder, 112), appear very much in keeping with his quintessentially Baroque sensibility. Here, space is arranged for what can be described only as kinesthetic ends Berninis deliberate manipulation of the viewers sense of musical rhythm and motion as they progress towards the steps of St. Peters is and so a logical extension of his sculptural strategy space as a psychological tool.It is this notable departure in the construction of space from the relativ e stasis of Renaissance that perhaps epitomizes the rise of specifically Baroque architecture. gauge 1 Gianlorenzo Bernini David 1623-24 White marble 170 cm Galleria Borghese, Rome double 2 Gianlorenzo Bernini Ecstasy of St. Teresa, 1642-52 Marble Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome Figure 3 Gianlorenzo Bernini Tomb of Pope Alexander (Chigi) VII 1671-78 Marble and cheap bronze, over life-size Basilica di San Pietro, Vatican Bibliography Baker, Christopher.Absolutism and the Scientific Revolution, 1600-1720 A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 2002 Loh, Maria H. untested and Improved Repetition as Originality in Italian Baroque Practice and Theory. The Art Bulletin. 86. 3. (2004) 477+ Marder, T. A. Bernini and the Art of Architecture. New York, London and genus Paris Abbeville Press, 1998. Rothschild, Lincoln. Sculpture through the Ages. New York Whittlesey House, 1942 Varriano, John. Italian Baroque and Rococo Architecture. New York Oxford University Press, 198 6