He learned to sculpt in the workshop of the Florentine Ridolfo Sirigatti, and to paint in the one in Rome of the Cavalier d’Arpino, a well-known mannerist.<\/p>\n
In 1596 he was called by the viceroy of Naples to sculpt figures for the Certosa di San Martino. And it was in Naples that in 1598 his wife Angelica Galante gave birth to Gian Lorenzo.<\/p>\n
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, self portrait Uffizi <\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n
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Gian Lorenzo Bernini, self portrait, 1625, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n
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Gian Lorenzo Bernini, self portrait, Galleria Borghese<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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But in 1606 Pietro was called by Pope Paul V to work on the construction site of the Pauline Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, where he moved with his wife and son Gian Lorenzo, who already at a young age was acting as his father’s shop boy.<\/p>\n
Papa Paolo V Borghese, Caravaggio, 1606, Palazzo Borghese<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n
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Cappella Paolina, Santa Maria Maggiore a Roma<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
[\/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Gian Lorenzo e Pietro in Rome<\/b>” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”titolo-articolo”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n
In those first decades of the 17th century, Rome was a point of reference in painting and sculpture for the nascent Baroque art, an art in which Caravaggio had opened a new narrative and figurative style by creating lively and realistic characters inspired by the common people, playing in an exceptional and new with light and darkness.<\/p>\n
Caravaggio, Judith and Holofernes, 1602, National Gallery of Ancient Art, Palazzo Barberini<\/em><\/p>\n
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But soon, already in 1609, Gian Lorenzo Bernini began working on the marbles that his father Pietro sculpted, which increasingly became works made by four hands, demonstrating an unlikely talent for his age; the group of the Faun with Cupids which remained in Gian Lorenzo’s house for many years after his death is famous. In this work the sixteenth-century mannerist imprint due to Pietro’s hand is still visible, as is the inspiration taken by looking at Michelangelo in the composition and softness of the shapes and surfaces, but with new poses and new movements of the bodies.<\/p>\n
Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Faun with Cupids, Metropolitan Museum, New York, detail<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n
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Pietro and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Faun with Cupids, Metropolitan Museum, New York, detail<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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His father Pietro introduced Gian Lorenzo Bernini to the Florentine cardinal Maffeo Barberini, Pope Urban VIII, for whom Gian Lorenzo executed some figures for the family chapel in Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome between 1617 and 1618.<\/p>\n
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, portrait of Pope Urban VIII, 1632, National Gallery of Ancient Art, Rome<\/p>\n<\/td>\n
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Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Bust of Pope Urban VIII Barberini, bronze, 1658, Louvre<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
[\/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Gian Lorenzo meets Cardinal Borghese<\/b>” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”titolo-articolo”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n
But it is with his cardinal nephew Scipione Borghese that Gian Lorenzo Bernini had the opportunity to express all his power and ability; not yet twenty years old he set about sculpting the large group of Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius fleeing from Troy.<\/p>\n
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius fleeing from Troy, 1619, Galleria Borghese<\/p>\n<\/td>\n
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Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Aeneas, Anchises and Ascanius fleeing from Troy, detail, 1619, Galleria Borghese<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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And in 1621, again for Cardinal Borghese, he performed the well-known group of the Rape of Proserpina, which the cardinal donated shortly afterwards to Ludovico Ludovisi, nephew of the new Pope Gregory XV. With this group Bernini highlights his great skill in sculpting groups of figures in movement and in complex poses.<\/p>\n
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, bust of Cardinal Montalto, 1623, Hamburg<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n
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Gian Lorenzo Bernini, David, 1624, Galleria Borghese, Rome<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
[\/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=”Gian Lorenzo and his David<\/b>” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:18|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”titolo-articolo”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n
For this masterpiece, Bernini chose the moment of very high tension in which David is about to throw the stone on the head of the giant Goliath and not in the moment of triumph after Goliath has been beheaded, as happens in the two bronzes by Donatello and of Verrocchio; nor before the clash, as in Michelangelo, where David is concentrated before the launch. For all three of these earlier Renaissance figures a static and hieratic pose was chosen. \nInstead, Bernini was able to highlight all the tension and effort of the shot in the twisting of his hero’s torso, which is also expressed with his frowning eyebrows and his forcefully squeezing his lips. On the ground is the armor that was hindering him and which he took off before the launch.<\/p>\n
Posthumous lost wax bronze casting by the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry on an original cast for the Pietro Bazzanti & Figlio Gallery in Florence.<\/em><\/p>\n
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With his David, Bernini manages for the first time to make the spectator feel surprise and fear, to involve him as if he were present in the challenge and action of overthrowing the giant Goliath, to make the biblical hero dramatically alive.<\/p>\n
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Terracotta sketch by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for the equestrian monument of Louis XIV<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n
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Posthumous casting by the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry of the terracotta sketch by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for the Equestrian Monument of Louis XIV, Louvre Museum<\/em><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Posthumous lost wax bronze casting by the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry on an original cast for the Pietro Bazzanti Gallery in Florence<\/em><\/p>\n
[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row” css=”.vc_custom_1696349662945{padding-top: 300px !important;padding-bottom: 300px !important;background-image: url(https:\/\/www.galleriabazzanti.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/blog-bernini-david-sfondo-01.jpg?id=15145) !important;}”][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row”][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”The Bernini’s David” font_container=”tag:h1|text_align:left” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”titolo-articolo”][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text] Pietro Bernini was born in Sesto Fiorentino in 1562. [\/vc_column_text][vc_images_carousel images=”15150″ img_size=”post-slide” hide_pagination_control=”yes” hide_prev_next_buttons=”yes”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1696350365297{margin-top: -30px !important;}”] Pietro Bernini [\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text] He learned to sculpt in the workshop of the Florentine Ridolfo Sirigatti, and to paint in the one in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15271,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-articolo.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
The Bernini's David - Bazzanti Art Gallery Florence<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n