Giovanni lorenzo bernini

(1598-1680)

(1) Bernini was born in Naples, son of the Flo­rentine sculptor Pietro Bernini, but he moved to Rome early in his career and worked there for most of his life. Much of his work was com­missioned by members of the Borghese family, including three popes, Urban VIII, Innocent X, and Alexander VII. Many of his sculptures are in Rome's Villa Borghese, among them his first large sculpture, Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius. This was commissioned by Scipione Borghese in 1619. Three other masterpieces, also in the Villa Borghese and representing a new realistic form of sculpture, are Pluto and Persephone, David, and Apollo and Daphne. Neptune and Triton, from this same period, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

(2) Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian sculptor, architect, and painter, and probably the most important artist of the 17th century. He founded the Baroque style, noted for its high spirits and grandness, which it combined with attention to harmony and balance. Few of Bernini's paintings have survived; most of his sculp­tures are in Rome.

(3) For Urban VIII, Bernini did his first architectural work, the entrance facade of the church of San Bibiana in Rome, and carved his first major religious sculpture. This led to more commissions, including what was his greatest architectural work. This was a huge canopy, or baldachino, over the site of the tomb of St. Peter. It is regarded as one of the richest monuments of Baroque art. Pope Inno­cent X then invited Bernini to build the Foun­tain of the Four Rivers in the Piazza Navona. The fountain supported an ancient Egyptian obelisk, and was surrounded by four marble figures symbolizing the four major rivers of the 17th-century world: Danube, Nile, Plate, and Ganges. Bernini's last major architectural piece was his grandest: the piazza in front of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

(4) Bernini was a very charming man, greatly respected by his contemporaries. The English diarist, John Evelyn, summed up his gifts in his description of an opera given by Bernini "wherein he painted the scenes, cut the stat­ues, invented the engines, composed the music, writ the comedy, built the theatre".

(5) Bernini spent a brief period in Paris (1665-6) at the invitation of King Louis XIV, who wanted him to design a new facade for the Louvre gallery. The work was never finished, though he did complete a portrait bust of the king, which is in the Louvre, before returning to Rome. By this time Bernini was old and frail, and the papacy was poorer and could no longer pay for large-scale commissions. He was not very productive in his latter years.

Exercise 2: Read through the text “The Baroque”. Find evidences that “…the art, music and writing of the Baroque reflect the world in which they were created”. Make notes for your composition (see Reference Section, p. ).

Exercise 3: Most paragraphs have a key sentence (or part of a sentence) that summarizes the essential meaning of the whole paragraph. This is called the topic sentence. It is usually the first sentence of the paragraph, but not always. Find the topic sentences for the paragraphs of the text “The Baroque”.

Exercise 4: Make up a writing plan of a composition on the topic “The art, music and writing of the Baroque reflect the world in which they were created”; follow the instructions of Step 5 in Part III.

Exercise 5: Write a composition. Follow your plan. Make use of your evidences and topic sentences.