In today’s class, we continued our discussion on Italian baroque art. We analyzed a variety of different works such as Gianlorenzo Bernini’s “David” as well as his “Ecstasy of St. Teresa.” Bernini was one of the most influential artists at the time. Born in Naples, he moved to Rome and spent his entire career there commissioning a variety of different works. He was multi-talented: a painter, stage designer, an architect, and more. By age 17 he was already commissioning sculptures for the Pope. His “David” sculpture was made entirely out of marble in just seven months, a remarkably short amount of time for such a creation. The sculpture represented an important symbol for Florentines, which was the Goliath being defeated with a slingshot. Bernini’s “David” shows David getting ready to slingshot the rock. He is twisted in one direction, and the depiction represents a split-second stop right before David is about to release the shot. His facial expression is very focused, as he is looking directly at the target. This architecture represents instantaneous action. David is just about to throw the sling shot at the giant, with the viewer being apart of the action. The viewer is apart of this illusion and “real time” experience that is associated with Italian baroque art. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bernini’s “The Ecstasy of St. Teresa” is another fascinating display. Constructed from 1645 to 1652, the scene depicts St. Teresa, a Carmelite nun in Spain, having a clear vision. The Bernini family is also viewing this vision on the sides of the scene, and the viewer also has a view of the saint having a vision. The central group of the scene is very light compared to the darkness surrounding it. This paints the illusion that the central figures are supernatural with a heavenly light honing down on them. The viewer can not see that there is actually a secret window that is letting light in to the white marble. There are many images portrayed throughout this scene, which is very important for contemporary times. Images was used as a way of fighting against Protestantism, and was thus apart of the Counter Reformation. Bernini depicts Teresa being spiritually and physically affected by this saint next to her, and the levitation of Teresa makes it look very real, creating an illusion. This persuasion of reality is a defining feature of baroque art in Italy. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In today’s class, we continued our discussion on Italian baroque art. We analyzed a variety of different works such as Gianlorenzo Bernini’s “David” as well as his “Ecstasy of St. Teresa.” Bernini was one of the most influential artists at the time. Born in Naples, he moved to Rome and spent his entire career there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11923,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11923"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2050,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049\/revisions\/2050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}