{Baroque Sculpture [continued (4)]}[8th May 1991]

[Redbook9:298][19910508:0903d]{Baroque Sculpture [continued (4)]}[8th May 1991]

19910508:0903

[continued]

‘In the statue of St. Longinus in St. Peter's in Rome, Bernini created the characteristic formula of Baroque sculpture by throwing the draperies into a violent turmoil,* the complicated and broken involutions of which are not rationally explained by the figure's real bodily movement but seem paroxysmally informed by the miracle itself.

The passion with which he continued his sculptured figures, capturing the most transitory states of mind, reached its apogee in the representation of the ecstasy of St. Teresa** in the Cornaro Chapel, Sta. Maria della Vittoria, Rome (1645-52[ce])*** and in the figure of the expiring Ludovica Albertoni (Figure 62)**** in the Altieri Chapel, S. Francesco a Ripa, Rome (c.1674[ce]).# The former is generally considered the masterpiece of Baroque religious sculpture and shows how Bernini could organize the arts of architecture, painting & sculpture in an overwhelming assault on the senses that depicts the resistance of the intellect.#* This ambitious plan was typical of the mature Bernini, whose spiritual and artistic aspirations exceeded the scope of his early secular salon statues.

His later works were largely religious and unprecedentedly vast in scale, as in the dazzling “Cathedra Petri”, which covers the whole end of St. Peter's in Rome with a teeming multitude of figures.

#**

*?cf the Byzantine ‘Agitated’ Style of the 1180’s

ref VIII: [[Redbook8:281][19910221:1142i]{Byzantine Art [continued (6):] Byzantine Agitated Style}[21st February 1991],] 281

(& Romanesque, ref VIII: [[Redbook8:312][19910306:0930s]{Romanesque Art [continued (16)}[6th March 1991],] 312)

**See illus[tration,] E[ncyclopaedia of] V[isual] A[rt]

[A representation of this work must be seen; it is key to this writer’s understanding of the Baroque, as energy breaking#*** out through form]

***64G~1648[ce]

****See illus[tration,] E[ncyclopaedia] B[ritannica] 27:99

#64r~|S~1672[ce]

#*NB G~

#** – [From] Encyclopaedia Britannica 27:98-100

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#***[Or sometimes, as this writer initially misremembered it, bursting]

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