Bernini, Gian Lorenzo (1598-1680), Arquiteto italiano:Ampliação do Palácio Pontifício Quirinale (1656);
Colunas da praça da Basílica de São Pedro (1656-1665).
Early life and work
Bernini was born in Naples to a Florentine family and accompanied his father Pietro Bernini, a capable Mannerist sculptor himself, to Rome. Here the young prodigy's capabilities were soon noticed by the painter Annibale Carracci and by Pope Paul V, and Bernini could therefore begin work as an independent artist. His first works were inspired by Hellenistic sculpture of ancient Greece and imperial Rome he could study in the new seat.
Bernini's maturation into a master sculptor are evident in the Galleria Borghese
Under the patronage of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, a member of the then reigning papal family, young Bernini rapidly rose to prominence as a sculptor. Among these early works developed for the cardinal, were decorative pieces for the garden such as The Goat Amalthea with the Infant Zeus and a Faun and several allegorical busts such as the Damned Soul and Blessed Soul. In the 1620 he completed the bust of Pope Paul V. Scipione's villa chronicles his secular sculptures, with a series of masterpieces:
1) Aeneas, Anchises, and Ascanius (1619) depicting three ages of man from various viewpoints, borrowing from a figure in a Raphael fresco, and perhaps an allegory reflecting the moment when son attains the skill of his father.
2) Abduction of Proserpine, (1621-22) where the young artist creates a monument recalling Giambologna's Mannerist Rape of the Sabine Women, and masterfully dimpling the woman's marble skin.
3) Apollo and Daphne (1622-25) shows the most dramatic moment in one of Ovid's metamorphosis tales. In the story, Apollo, the god of light, scolds Eros, the god of love, for playing with adult weapons. Eros is angered and wounds Apollo with a golden arrow induces Apollo, upon sight of Daphne, a water nymph who had declared her perpetual virginity, to fall in love. Eros also wounded Daphne with a lead arrow that induces her to reject Apollo's advances. Apollo pursues Daphne. Just when he captures her she cries out to her father, the river god, to destroy her beauty in order to quell Apollo's advances. Her father responds by mutating her into a laurel tree. If representative sculpture of human figures metamophoses a person into a depiction in lifeless stone, this statue doubles the conceit, depicting in marble a life changing to inanimate tree, the moving woman freezing into a tree.
4) David (1623-24) by Bernini was a revolutionary statement in the history of art. The biblical youth is taut and poised to rocket his projectile. Famous Davids sculpted by Florentine predecessors to Bernini had been static after the event; for example, the triumphant reposed of the famous Michelangelo's David or the haughty effeteness of Donatello's or Verrocchio's Davids. The twisted torso, furrowed forehead, and granite grimace of Bernini's David epitomize Baroque fixation with dynamic movement and emotion over High Renaissance stasis and classic severity. Michelangelo expressed David's heroic nature; Bernini captures the moment where he becomes a hero.
