Part 3
Perfect as they are, there is something more than anthropomorphism in Bernini’s angels. Earlier artists, even the best of the Florentines, when representing these heavenly messengers, almost always make them so solid and human that the wings are utterly inadequate, or else they suggest the body by a thin and shapeless swirl of drapery topped by a perfectly substantial head. In either case the result is unsatisfactory, for though the figures conform to the usual idea of angels as effeminate human forms with wings, the chief impression they make is of inconsistent and impossible anatomical combinations.
They fail just as the archaic Greek centaurs with human feet fail. When one looks at Bernini’s angels, the two done in his youth for the altar of Sant’ Agostino, or the two for instance which he carved in later years for the Ponte Sant’ Angelo, but which were considered too beautiful to be exposed in the open air and are now sheltered in Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte (Plates VII, VIII), or at the one which kneels on the left hand of the _Ciborio_ in the _Cappella del Sacramento_ in Saint Peter’s, one has no sense of unreality. The bodies are human in form, but spiritual in their lightness and grace. The wings are strong and large, and yet so feathery as to seem almost transparent. The drapery falls and clings to and fits the body as a cloud might, and the face and
## action express a perfect and soul-filling adoration that finds
expression in tireless worship and unending song of praise. These are the true “sexless souls, ideal quires.”
This same strong religious feeling is shown with equal certainty in other figures by Bernini which are better known than his angels. These are the figures of saints which he made in his middle and later years. The earliest of them, that of Santa Bibiana, done in 1626, when he was still a young man, shows in the arrangement and pose of the figure the influence of the antique. The technique exhibits the same magnificent ease and the same power of reproducing the various qualities of drapery and flesh and hair that we saw before in the Borghese groups, and there is in the face and gesture the expression of self-effacement in religious ecstasy that is the most noticeable quality of the later figures of this kind. As he grows older, these two characteristics of technical differentiation of surface and of ecstatic expression altered. While he lost no atom of technical power he tended to lay less stress on the appearance of the mere surface of his figures and to pay more attention to and show forth more clearly their mental condition. In doing this he brought into being figures as truly representative of the religion of his time as those of Michael Angelo or any other sculptor of any epoch.
Religious emotion must always call forth strong feeling, but the strength is sometimes shown in terms of apparent restraint, at others it shows itself in violent action. Athena Parthenos is as emotional as the Santa Theresa and Savonarola, and Luther is as violent as the Crusaders. The seventeenth century was a time when men thought it no shame to show their feelings. The Puritans showed them as clearly as the Italians, though in a less pleasant form. If to-day it is difficult to realize and sympathize with the sentiment shown in Bernini’s Sant’ Andrea, or Daniel, or Maria di Magdala, it is not because of our superiority, but rather because we have lost a very precious sense and power of spiritual levitation. Look at the Habakkuk. Is it not a splendid presentation of the prophet who was burdened with the grievance which he beheld, who saw for so long the righteous compassed about by a “bitter and hasty” race that he felt the Lord would never respond to his cry? But even as he complains the visible answer of the Lord appears, and the Angel with playful tenderness pulls at his hair so that his face is upturned to the light of Heaven, not any longer dark with earth’s despair, as he bids him write the vision of the Lord’s judgment that shall not tarry—write it so that he may run who readeth. And Habakkuk still points to the iniquity that blackens the world and the angel points to the inevitably approaching woe. It is superbly original. It is deeply felt.
The St. Jerome in the Duomo at Siena is another very striking figure; if it seems to most observers unpleasant, this is mainly because it does not conform to the conventional and uncharacteristic way they are accustomed to see Jerome represented. As a subject for artists he has been treated far more often by painters than by sculptors, and in the paintings the mere beauty of colour and of surroundings adds charms which are uncharacteristic of, and distract from, the real interest of the figure. When carved by Bernini, there is nothing but the figure to consider—whether it be suggestive of the real man as we know him by his writings or not. Probably most people if asked what image the name of the saint brought to their minds would recall the print by Dürer or some painting such as that by Catena in the National Gallery. But splendid as the print and the painting are, it is only by a pleasant fiction and by refusing to regard the truth that they can be thought to represent in any way the Saint as he was among men. They show a very gentle old man in the neatest and quietest of surroundings, peacefully writing his comments on the scriptures.
It can hardly be supposed that his contemporaries regarded Jerome primarily as a peaceful and abstracted scholar. Surely Bernini did not, but instead shows us the unhappy wanderer and ascetic monk. Scholarship was only one phase, and among the people with whom he lived scarcely the most important phase of St. Jerome’s life. To his contemporaries he showed himself chiefly as an acrid controversialist taking a leading
## part in the “strife of tongues.” Unhappy in his Pannonian home, he spent
a restless youth wandering over Europe, but instead of peace found only momentary forgetfulness in pleasures, the remembrance of which brought deep sorrow in his later years. Then he turned to asceticism and sought by living as an anchorite in the desert to conform himself to the teachings of his Lord. But the degradation of such a life, the unnatural and disgusting view it took of the image of his Maker and the temple of his soul, the morbid introspection and sterility of selfish self-mortification, brought him trouble and pain, not calm, till, at last, an old man, he died in Bethlehem thoroughly disheartened with the iniquity of the world and the horrors resultant on the destruction of Rome by the barbarians.
Such is the man Bernini sets before us. The battered, wayworn feet; the strong, coarse body; the ragged, unkempt hair show the life he led. The face bending with closed eyes dreamily over the figure of the crucified Christ betrays his holy, misdirected zeal. What he was, and what he stood for, could not be shown more clearly than our sculptor has shown it here.
Equally fine, and in certain ways more beautiful, is the statue of Daniel in the lions’ den, which Bernini made in 1656 for Cardinal Chigi, who placed it with the Habakkuk in Santa Maria del Popolo. The youthful and splendidly built figure rests on one knee, his hands upraised in attitude of prayer, his head bent back with eyes wide open gazing upwards. From one shoulder, beside his body and over his legs, falls in wind-blown folds a single heavy mantle. A great lion crouches behind him, licking his foot. In its perfect physical beauty, in its not over-emphasised anatomy and in its entirely successful composition, by which great movement is given the appearance of completeness and stability, the figure is more closely allied to Bernini’s earlier works than to the mystical passionate figures such as the Jerome or Mary of Magdala or others of this period. It is unnecessary to dwell on the beauty of the figure and the technical skill it displays, for these can be seen by anyone whose eye and hand have been trained at all.
There is one less obvious point, however, to which I wish to draw attention, for it is as good an example as could be of what I have mentioned above. I refer to the way the legs show through the heavy drapery that covers them. The mantle does actually clothe the leg. It is not a mere addition. It takes its shape and movement from the leg beneath it. The one cannot be thought of without the other. Were the statue destroyed, and did only the right hip or left knee remain, one would instantly recognise what parts of the figure these were. But classic though the figure is in general appearance—it might almost be one of the Niobids—the feeling of absolute ecstatic faith is very clearly given in the upturned face and the reaching arms.[11] Now there have been times—great and noble times—when men did believe that God would send angels to shut the mouths of lions, and when men felt no fear, but only a carefree trust in His help if true innocency could be found in them.
Such work is not baroque, nor decadent, nor over-emotional, as it is commonly and thoughtlessly said to be, but it is a very adequate and convincing representation of a powerful and uplifting spiritual condition. It is just as fine as the graver and more sombre figures of Greece, or as the sad and ponderous figures of Michael Angelo.
Of all the figures of this period in Bernini’s development the most famous is the Saint Theresa (Plate IX). It is hopeless to express in words the great beauty of this figure. This can no more be done than the full perfection of any great poem can be rendered in a translation. The work is perfect in itself, and what of this kind can be shown in sculpture is here expressed with complete and ultimate adequacy. That most people are startled and shocked when they first see the figure is due to the fact that they do not think of what the scene really means, and they are not accustomed to seeing scenes of divine significance treated with perfect simplicity and pure faith.
[Illustration: PLATE IX.]
Not that such scenes ought not to be so treated, but few are the artists who feel deeply enough or whose technique is finished enough to enable them to represent a scene of this sort so clearly and beautifully. As a result, the artist falls back on forms which have been repeated so often that they have become conventional and no longer can give the beholder the full impression of their meaning. No one is offended on seeing the Son of God bleeding on the cross around which surges a host of idle spectators, or at seeing Him in the manger before which all the nobles of Florence kneel in various theatric attitudes. But Saint Theresa is a figure new to them, and to have her shown in the crisis of her ecstasy with other figures looking on from the walls of the chapel, offends their “sense of propriety” and seems “paradoxical,” “perfervid” and “inconsequent.”[12]
Were this a fair criticism, a large number of the most beautiful works of Christian art would fall under the same condemnation. Far more paradoxical than Bernini’s figure are the representations of the Marriage of Saint Catharine, and they are quite as unpleasing if thought of in their literal sense. As for the figures looking at the Saint from the “opera boxes” at the sides of the chapel, it must be remembered that at this time most of the drama in Italy was founded on religious subjects, and such dramatic representation made a very deep appeal to men’s minds. The critics who find the Saint Theresa in bad taste do not hesitate to form part of the audience when Christ’s Passion is played among the hills of Oberammergau, and they will no longer be afraid to render Bernini the homage that is his due when they cease lazily to measure his work by conservative standards. The glory of a comet is not measured by the Eddystone Light nor a miracle by the conventions of ordinary society.
One other point concerning this statue remains to be considered. A recent critic[13] says that “there are many ecstasies, and Bernini has chosen something that borders closely on the most displeasing.” In this he expresses a common opinion, based, I believe, on a misconception, and on ugly, puritanical prudishness. Possibly there are many ecstasies, but religious ecstasy, the ecstasy of the Saint in joining herself to the spiritual existence of Christ, and the pure and natural ecstasy of love when self is lost in the future of the race, are as nearly as possible identical. The Venus de Medici is far more displeasing than the Saint Theresa.
In one portion of the group Bernini certainly did fail, and in a way that is surprising. Usually his figures of angels are successful, but the one standing over Saint Theresa is assuredly very bad. Its figure is unconvincing, and its face, with tilted nose and silly smile, is more that of a Greek _paniskos_ than of a heavenly messenger. But notwithstanding this blemish, no work by Michael Angelo or any other sculptor ever made the beholder forget so completely the substance out of which it is carved, and think only of the scene represented as Bernini has done here. He has given the softness of life to the snow-white stone. His hand and mind worked in perfect accord and produced a work unrivalled in technique and of very great beauty.
Another statue of similar character is the Beata Albertona. It is a little less delicate in treatment and more emphatic in expression than the Saint Theresa, but is, none the less, of very great beauty and power.
Were a man’s failures as worth study as his successes, I could mention works by Bernini which are distinctly bad. The Maria di Magdala is one. Though full of feeling, the figure of the Saint is coarse and clumsy. But though a man’s defeats show, of course, the principles for which he stood, his victories are more worth considering and are the fairest test of him. A very false estimate of Michael Angelo would result if one considered the Rondanini Pietà, the David, or the Christ in Santa Maria sopra Minerva as of equal importance with his other works.
It was not only in works in marble that Bernini showed his power as a sculptor. He handled dark, impressive bronze with the same complete understanding of its qualities and possibilities that he showed in carving the gleaming Carrara marble. Such a work as the _Baldacchino_ in St. Peter’s is beyond any words to praise. It is enormous, but not clumsy, and sumptuous without being ornate. The most stupendous of his bronze works is not, however, the _Baldacchino_, but the Throne, the _Cattedra_ in the apse of St. Peter’s. It was in 1657, during the pontificate of Alexander VII, that Bernini was ordered to carry out his design for this work, and eight years later it was finished and uncovered to the admiration of all Rome.
This monument is too well known to need detailed description here, but it is well here to recall its purpose, which was not for actual ceremonial use by the Popes, but to serve as a frame, or strong-box, for the ancient chair of carved ivory on which tradition said, and the whole Catholic world then believed, St. Peter had himself sat. There in the heart of the greatest Christian Church, raised above the soiling earth, high in air for the thronging worshippers to behold, was to be the visible and material sign of infallibility. Bernini alone had the feeling that made him capable of such a task. Four magnificent figures of Doctors of the Church support the chair—two of the Western church, Saint Augustine and Saint Ambrose, and two of the Eastern, Saint Chrysostom and Saint Athanasius. Stately great figures; on their outstretched hands they hold the Throne with the ease that comes of perfect faith, raising it up even as sixteen hundred years before the Apostles had raised up this earth for the glory of God.
In all these religious works by Bernini there is beside the expression of the faith that begot them the expression of a decorative sense, something dramatic. He delighted in movement and expression for the mere sake of beauty of active form, and this feeling of joy in life, in the spirit of movement, whether in Nature or in Man, Bernini reproduced in a series of works which by themselves would make him unique among all sculptors and which give Rome a distinction and character far more decisive than her ruins or palaces and set her alone and apart from all other cities. These are the fountains.
The list of fountains is of amazing length. The Barcaccia in the Piazza di Spagna, one in the Villa Mattei, one in the Vatican Gardens, another in the Barberini Gardens, the Triton in the Piazza Barberini; the lovely shell which used to be on the corner of the Via Sistina, but has been destroyed to make way for modern improvements so called; in the courtyard of the Palazzo Antamoro, in the Piazza Navona, and the broad pool of the Fountain of Trevi. They have the infinite variety and infinite pleasantness of Nature herself. By the side of the placid pool whence the _ciociaras_ draw the water for their flowers, or where the sparkling stream of the Triton shoots heavenward from the gray pavements like a white crocus from the frosty ground in Spring; where the Nile, the Ganges, the Plata and the Danube pour forth their incessant floods, or where Neptune shepherds his foaming steeds over the rocks as they dash down into the pool that if we once drink from our hearts evermore yearn for the Eternal City—by each and all of his fountains our ears are filled with the pleasant voices of the waters and our eyes with the sight of the nymphs and nereids who gambolled among the watercourses when the world was young.
What the secret of their charm? No one ever understood the artistic value of water as Bernini did. No one else ever held in check the full stream and gave it back again the ripples, and spurts and sudden rushes of its upper course and of its source. The angels must have washed his spirit in the fountain of eternal youth to enable him to express the joy which flowed through his veins in the undying music of the waves, moulding and combining them to his intention as a musician makes the rough strings of his instrument sing of the life that lies hidden in them till his knowing touch gives them voice.[14]
I have spoken of the groups representing classic myths, of the innumerable statues motived by religion and of the fountains, but even this huge mass of work does not come near completing the list of Bernini’s output. The numerous portraits remain to be considered. Some, such as the Constantine in St. Peter’s, were ideal, but most were of his patrons and friends and were of very varied types. There were colossal equestrian statues, ordinary busts, full-length figures and groups for tombs, and they show that he possessed just as great skill in direct portraiture as in more purely imaginative work.
To carve or paint a successful portrait, two powers are absolutely essential to the artist. On the one hand he must have the sympathy that will enable him to comprehend the sitter’s character, and to see what lines and expressions of the face express that character most clearly; on the other he must have the power of suppressing his own individuality and of lending his hand and eye, as it were, to the sitter to make the portrait himself. If the artist lacks sympathy, he will produce a work which may be correct in all detail of colour, line and modelling, but it will only be a sort of mask; if he lacks the power of self-suppression, the work will be unlike the sitter, even though true in detail, because it will show not his character, but that of the artist. Bernini illustrates these points with perfect precision, and as a result his portraits are unsurpassed by those of any other artist of the Renaissance and are far finer than the quaint efforts of the earlier sculptors which many students of art admire with the enthusiasm of decadence and a fatuous misunderstanding of both the value of art and the aim of the artist.
Just as it was fortunate for Turner that in his early years he was forced to draw with painstaking accuracy, so was Fate kind to the young Bernini in giving him to do, when he was but fourteen or fifteen years old, the portraits of two well-known Prelates. Success in these meant fame and an assured future for the boy. Like every genius he must have felt, with perfect simplicity, with no conceit, his power; but what must have been his feelings of tremulous satisfaction when, the busts unveiled, the crowd of Cardinals and Prelates who were gathered to see his work, broke into enthusiastic applause? The cheering words of those long since silent voices echo again in our hearts as we look at these busts of the Bishop Santoni and of Monsignor Montoya, for two more perfect portraits can hardly be found.
A mere child made them; a boy whom one could more easily think of playing at marbles in the sunlit street; but instead his playground is the Temple of the Lord and his toys the souls of men. The mere knowledge of anatomy and the technical skill they show is most unusual for one so young, but what shall be said of the spiritual insight of the artist who carved these two bowed heads with their sweet, strong, grave faces? The excellence of the ancient Greek, in certain forms of sculpture, has given us his name as an adjective to express one kind of superlative merit and these two busts can, with perfect accuracy, be called Greek. They are as like as can be to the bronze bust by some unknown Grecian sculptor which in the Museo dei Conservatori bears the name of Brutus.
As in his other work, so in the making of portraits Bernini soon broke away from traditional methods and gave his own spirit full sway. This is evident in the bust of Costanza Buonavelli, his mistress, which is one of the treasures of the National Museum in Florence. It is not only the technical skill with which he gave the different qualities of the pleated dress, the round soft neck and cheeks and the blown tresses of waving hair that make this portrait so remarkable, but beyond this one sees in it the artist’s own human love for the actual woman and his delight in her as a suggestion of a beautiful work of art. This bust is unique among his works, for the woman who inspired it then, with thoughtless animal selfishness, killed the inspiration she had begotten. The bust is the tombstone for the most sensitive part of Bernini’s heart.