Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture
by Andrea Bacchi
from Getty Publications
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was the greatest sculptor of the Baroque period, and yet--surprisingly--there has never before been a major exhibition of his sculpture in North America. Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture--on view from August 5 through October 26, 2008, at the J. Paul Getty Museum and from November 28, 2008, through March 8, 2009, at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa--showcases portrait sculptures from all phases of the artist's long career, from the very early Antonio Coppola of 1612 to Clement X of about 1676, one of his last completed works.
Bernini's portrait busts were masterpieces of technical virtuosity; at the same time, they revealed a new interest in psychological depth. Bernini's ability to capture the essential character of his subjects was unmatched and had a profound influence on other leading sculptors of his day, such as Alessandro Algardi, Giuliano Finelli, and Francesco Mochi.
Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture is a groundbreaking study that features drawings and paintings by Bernini and his contemporaries. Together they demonstrate not only the range, skill, and acuity of these masters of Baroque portraiture but also the interrelationship of the arts in seventeenth-century Rome.
Bernini (Penguin Art and Architecture)
by Howard Hibbard
from Penguin (Non-Classics)
The Genius in the Design: Bernini, Borromini, and the Rivalry That Transformed Rome
by Jake Morrissey
from Harper Perennial
The rivalry between the brilliant seventeenth-century Italian architects Gianlorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini is the stuff of legend. Enormously talented and ambitious artists, they met as contemporaries in the building yards of St. Peter's in Rome, became the greatest architects of their era by designing some of the most beautiful buildings in the world, and ended their lives as bitter enemies. Engrossing and impeccably researched, full of dramatic tension and breathtaking insight, The Genius in the Design is the remarkable tale of how two extraordinary visionaries schemed and maneuvered to get the better of each other and, in the process, created the spectacular Roman cityscape of today.
The Life of Bernini
by Filippo Baldinucci
from Pennsylvania State University Press
Filippo Baldinucci is best known today as the author of the first history of figurative art that was European rather than national or regional in scope. His life of Bernini is basic to an understanding of the greatest artist that Italy has produced since the end of the Renaissance.
Since the biographer was a contemporary of his subject and like him deeply immersed in Catholic mysticism and the concepts of the Counter Reformation, the book also provides an insight into the spirit and flavor of the age. Translated into English for the first time.
Bernini: Flights of Love, the Art of Devotion
by Giovanni Careri
from University Of Chicago Press
In the Fonseca Chapel, the Albertoni Chapel, and the church of Sant' Andrea al Quirinale, all in Rome, Careri identifies three types of ensemble and links each to a particular spiritual journey. Using contemporary theories in anthropology, film, and reception aesthetics, he shows how Bernini's formal mechanisms established an emotional dynamic between the beholder and a specific arrangement of forms. As an inquiry into the ways art in a certain historical context transformed and was transformed by its audience, Bernini: Flights of Love, the Art of Devotion is also a penetrating investigation into the aesthetic principles of multimedia composition.
World of Bernini 1598-1680 Time-Life Library of Art
The Bernini Bust
by Iain Pears
from HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
After British art historian Jonathan Argyll sells a minor masterpiece to an American museum for an exorbitant price, the museum's owner is murdered, a disreputable art dealer disappears with a Bernini bust, and Argyll discovers his life is in danger.
Masters of Art: Bernini (Masters of Art Series)
by Charles Scribner
from Harry N. Abrams
Bernini: Genius of the Baroque
by Charles Avery
from Thames & Hudson
A beautifully illustrated testament to this great Baroque sculptorCharles Avery.
Gianlorenzo Bernini was one of the greatest artists of all time. World-famous for his uniquely powerful works of sculpture, he was also a virtuoso draftsman, a pioneering caricaturist, and a designer of gorgeous fountain displays. He even wrote plays.
Bernini virtually created Baroque Rome. Without his contributions, we could not walk across the Ponte Sant'Angelo escorted by the angelic statuary that he designed for its balustrades. The Basilica of St. Peter would not have the sonorous crescendo of Bernini's bronze Baldacchino over St. Peter's tomb. We could not enjoy the huge splashing water display and vigorous drama of the figures on his Fountain of the Four Rivers in the Piazza Navona.
Using much previously unpublished research, Charles Avery traces Bernini's career from his brilliant beginnings to his last mature works, including his architecture, and pays special attention to his techniques in drawing, modeling, and carving. 400 illustrations, 80 in color.
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