The Amazing Bernini

I was putting Kennedy to sleep last night and I started to tell her about all of the wonderful things that I want her to see, places I want her to go, and all the great art that I love. I decided to post a blog about an art master. I thought about doing Van Gogh, but he is so popular that many people already know much of his art. I might do one about him later, but today I'm going to talk about Bernini, who some people may not know as much about.

Bernini is fantastically talented. Out of the arts, even though I enjoy them all, I have always particularly appreciated the difficulty of sculpting, especially out of something like marble. How is it possible for someone to take a chisel and create a beautiful work of art that is almost flawless? One wrong move and your whole block of marble has been wasted. Bernini is one of the masters of marble. His mastery of the technique is nothing short of miraculous. Look at this sculpture titled Apollo and Daphne. He has actually chosen to depict the moment where she is turning into a tree. Her leg has already become part of the trunk and her fingers and hair are turning into leaves. He also did his own version of David, and other than Michelangelo's David, it is by far the most beautiful that I know of.

Bernini is famous for his Counter-Reformation sculpture St. Theresa in Ecstasy. I have been wanting to find this sculpture in the small church outside of Rome since I first saw a picture of it in 9th grade. It is so incredibly beautiful. It is based on a story of a nun who felt an almost inappropriate elation during a vision of an angel who pierced her heart with an arrow. Bernini included as much emotion in this sculpture as was possible. He even put a window into the side of the building that is invisible when looking at the sculpture straight on so that it would have an ethereal glow. Absolutely beautiful.

I am sure that I have probably bored you to death with this post, but I think that Bernini is worthy of a post. He is an incredible artist with as much talent as any of them, but outside of art and humanities students I would wager that not many are familiar with him. Please learn more about him and his work at St. Peter's Basilica (better known as the Vatican). To entice you to do so, I am going to leave you with a detail from his sculpture The Rape of Proserpina. Look at the detail where his hand indents her skin. I am amazed every single time I see it.