Part 4
Among the other busts of his early years are one of his great patron Paul V (Borghese) and two of his steadfast friend Cardinal Scipio Borghese.[15] They are all of them noteworthy, but the finest is the first one he made of the Cardinal. In this the growth of Bernini’s dramatic feeling is very plain and is shown in a technical way which he repeated many times thereafter. It is this. He carves not alone the head and a small portion of the breast, but he gives the whole upper part of the torso and arms and skilfully suggests by the turn and position of this part the action of the whole body, so that as one looks at this bust of Scipio Borghese, one has the feeling of seeing not his head alone but his whole figure. The wonderful realism with which Bernini has rendered the crinkly silk cape and the rolling flesh of the fat face with the lips just parted as though the burly Cardinal were whistling for breath is obvious to the most casual observation; but realistic though the bust is, Bernini was skilful enough to give chief emphasis to the character of the sitter so that the impression that one takes away with one is not of the external appearance of the figure so much as of his nature and quality as a man. In many ways it closely resembles the portrait of Pope Innocent by Velasquez.
[Illustration: PLATE X.]
Other portraits are to be seen not only in Rome, but in Modena, at Versailles and even at Windsor; for, as Bernini’s fame spread, the great people all sought him and even Louis XIV and Charles I were delighted to have the artist give them that immortality which neither their deeds nor position could assure them. One of the quieter and less dramatic works is the beautiful bust of Monsignor Francesco Barberini. It is realistic like the Cardinal Borghese, but the realism is made subordinate to a higher aim and only used to emphasise the ideal character of the work.
Numerous as are these effigies by Bernini of Popes and lesser men, there are two which stand out above all the rest as unsurpassed in art and as combining and illustrating more fully than any others the character of the time, of the sitter and of the artist which, all together, made them possible. They are of Francis I of Este, now in Modena, and of Louis XIV (Plate X), at Versailles. The first was made in 1651, the second during Bernini’s visit to Paris in 1665. Only Bernini was capable of representing these two proud princes in all their splendour of ornamental wig, and lace and armour. It demanded technique such as his to make anything but a great lump of complex and ugly form out of such settings for the head as these; and he succeeded, to the unquestioned admiration of all time.
That was an epoch when men liked theatrical display of all sorts, when what in these colder days seems exaggerated expression was natural and pleasing to people. Bernini knew and understood this, had often himself been employed in writing plays or arranging stage scenery, and has represented the two rulers just as they delighted to show and think of themselves, adorned with all that was rich and splendid, haughty and disdainful as was the nature of those endowed with the divine right of Kings. Even more than in the case of the portrait of Cardinal Borghese do these two busts seem to make us see the whole figure and yet they have an appearance of lightness that is most surprising. Not to be made again such busts—nor such men. Democracy, and a belief in equality as absurd as that in Kingship was overweening, have snuffed out all such pretensions, and have snuffed out the art too. But thanks to Bernini we have the record of them. We see them in their moment of splendid satisfaction and self-confidence, and made beautiful through mere enjoyment of their bubble reputation.
The final value of portraiture is that it should be characteristic of the person depicted. No matter how great the skill shown in giving Napoleon the appearance of a Greek athlete or Washington that of Olympian Zeus, such works are only folly and waste. Bernini made no such mistake, but with deep insight and unrivalled skill proved himself one of the greatest portraitists of all time.
I have spoken of Bernini’s versatility. I have considered in some detail the sculpture by which he is best remembered. Of his painting not much is left, and what remains is naturally not of any great value as art. Still less is left of his work as an organiser of plays and arranger of processions or carnival displays. A few drawings and engravings and some slight accounts by contemporaries give us an idea of this work of his, but it was the occupation of his more idle hours and is of little moment. Of his architectural work a good deal is still to be seen, though in many instances later workmen have added to or altered the original structure, which was almost always skilful and big in conception, though occasionally he made a mistake, as when he put the towers—asses’ ears his contemporaries called them—on the Pantheon.
The structure by which Bernini is best known is the double colonnade of the Piazza of St. Peter’s. Of this his original sketch book still exists.[16] It is an intensely interesting record of the different schemes and plans which Bernini worked at till in the end he produced the splendid simple and grand design which gives Rome the finest public square in the world.
There are several sheets of drawings in the book, some showing Leonardesque studies of the relations between the proportions of the human figure and those of architecture, others show views down the Borgo from the church or looking up towards St. Peter’s with plans for the rearrangement of the district, and some are views and designs of various types of colonnade showing deep study of their perspective appearance. But of all these sketches, there is one of far greater interest than all the others, for it shows that insight into the deeper meaning of things which made Bernini the supreme genius he was (Plate XXX).
On this sheet are two similar drawings showing St. Peter’s and the colonnade. Over these, as though they formed the head and arms of a cross, is drawn a bearded figure, his head crowned by the dome of the church, his arms outstretched on the colonnades and with his feet crossed slightly one above the other and resting just where, at the beginning of the Borgo, Bernini intended, as another of the sketches makes plain, to put a building. There can be no doubt, after seeing this drawing, that Bernini’s intention was to make the Piazza symbolic of Christ and the Crucifixion. Evidently not a mere builder of houses this man Gian Lorenzo Bernini, but somehow, and somewhence, he has got a poet’s vision and he makes his mark in the world not merely by moulded clay and shaped stones, but by shaping men’s hearts and moulding their ideas.
Such was Bernini, one of the great artists of the world. It is true that he was revolutionary, but he destroyed not through ignorance or envy. He destroyed merely that he might then create. The arts in his day were strangled by academic rules and had become cold and lifeless. The intensity with which he felt things gave him strength to break these bonds and to make sculpture once more a means of conveying living thoughts and emotions. He was like the butterfly which tears away the stiff-plated chrysalis before it can spread its wings in the free air. It is useless to try to explain his technical skill; he was born with it, just as others are born with a keen sense of colour or a musical ear, but it is certain that without it he could never have carved such figures as the Saint Theresa or the portrait of Fonseca[17] which show intense emotion brought on by loss of all sense of self in the contemplation of the mystical meaning of the Passion. Such feeling could not be shown by restrained action and quiet faces. Much movement was necessary and the works are successful and beautiful because the feeling shown is perfectly simple and natural and not forced and put on for the sake of effect.
Bernini’s technical power made him, however, a bad master for others to imitate. Not that the work of his followers is any more inane than that of the copiers of Michael Angelo or of those of any other great man, but his peculiarities were such as are at least superficially easy to see. Where he quite easily and simply distinguished between the appearance of silk or flesh, his imitators wasted their energies on elaborate arrangements, the only object of which was to show technical dexterity. Where he carved figures that are racked and torn with feeling, the imitators gave forms that are contorted and as unemotional as gymnasts. But he is not to be blamed for their work. By no means was he one of the blind leading the blind. He was the seer, the prophet, by odd chance honoured in his own home, whose visions were so believed by his followers that they vainly tried to see the like. What their eyes strained towards and failed to see, his heart yearned for and gained. To them praise was a prize to win, to him it was a spur to renewed effort and further advance. He had faults, as who has not, but they were due to his being a pathbreaker and having to find out for himself ways to carve and show figures such as no sculptor before him had ever dreamed of; they were not the faults of ignorance or stupidity. If it be well for us that we judge not lest we be judged, so too is it well, should we judge Bernini or other men, to judge not what there is in him of weakness or failure, but what there may be of noble intention and high endeavour. Doing this we shall see that Bernini, working always with bowed heart, but with uplifted spirit, broke down the middle wall of partition between art and life.
II. A COLLECTION OF SCULPTOR’S MODELS BY BERNINI
The clay models by Bernini, descriptions of which follow, form one of the most interesting artistic records left us of the sculpture of the Renaissance. Drawings made by the painters of that period to serve as studies for their pictures are not uncommon, but the sketch-models made by the sculptors are rare.
This is because sculptors carved the marble without any previous models, as Michael Angelo frequently did, or else that the models, being cumbrous and of material that was easily destroyed, have, in the course of years, been got rid of either intentionally or by accident. It may seem strange to suggest that the clay of which the sculptors may have made their studies is more liable to destruction than the paper used by the painters, but it must be remembered that while nothing is more durable than baked clay, air-dried clay is extremely perishable. Wax was also used by the sculptors for their preliminary sketches, but this, owing to expense, could never have served for work of any great size or quantity; and even if less apt to complete disintegration than unbaked clay, it is very liable to injury.
[Illustration: PLATE XI.]
[Illustration: PLATE XII.]
[Illustration: PLATE XIII.]
What precisely was the origin of this collection of Bernini’s models we cannot tell; but it is our great good fortune that when they were made there was some one, perhaps one of Bernini’s pupils, who cared for them and saw to their being properly dried or baked so that they have preserved their pristine freshness. It is also extremely fortunate that their present owner realized their great beauty and extreme interest and added them to the artistic treasures stored in America, where they will serve in the ages to come to show students and sculptors a clear reflection of the mind of one of the world’s greatest artists.
In the Museum at Berlin are other models by Bernini, but there is, so far as I know, no other collection, either public or private, that approaches the Brandegee Collection in number, variety or excellence of these works. In America I know of but one other model purporting to be by Bernini. It is in the Morgan collection and represents Pope Urban VIII, but it does not show a single touch by the master; it is an imitation, copied from the statue in the Campidoglio at Rome. In the collection of the late Mme. Edouard Aynard, sold in Paris, December 1–4, 1913, were two terra-cotta models of angels (lot 307) “attribuées au chevalier Bernin, d’après les originaux du port Sant Ange, à Rome,” and one equestrian statuette in the same material (lot 308), said to be the “esquisse originale de la statue en marbre de Louis XIV, dans le parc de Versailles, par le chevalier Bernin.” The two angels are certainly not by Bernini; the portrait may be.
From the artistic point of view these models are of the highest importance, for they show with startling clearness the great fertility of invention which characterized Bernini and the vivid way in which he visualized the creations of his brain. There is not a trace of effort in them, there is not a sign of rubbing out or doing over, but each group or figure was obviously seen by him with the sharpness of a dream and reproduced by his skilful fingers in the fresh clay while the impulse and uplift of the vision was still on him.
The knowledge of the purely technical side of the art of sculpture which the models reveal is magnificent. The way, for instance, in which the various planes are treated in the oval relief of the Virgin and Child (Plate XXVI) is as subtle as, and very similar to, that of the reliefs on the ancient vases from Arezzo, while the relation of draped portions of the figures to the parts left nude, and the manner in which the body beneath gives life and meaning to the covering drapery, is as fine as any work by Pheidias.
But the most fascinating and interesting characteristic of these terra-cotta figures is that one sees in every least portion of them how Bernini’s fingers, trained by long years of hard practice, played over the wet clay like wavering flame and moulded the dead material to enduring forms of beauty. Once more the old mythology comes true, and Pygmalion, taking the rough material offered him by Mother Earth, fondled it, and, warming it with the fires of his brain, gave it back the life that lies asleep till the lover’s kiss wakes it once again.
DESCRIPTION OF THE MODELS
No. 1.—PLATE XI
Seated female figure in high relief, wearing helmet, and heavily draped; the left cheek rests on the back of the raised left hand. Feet missing.
For the tablet in memory of Carlo Barberini in Santa Maria d’Aracoeli, Rome.
Width 10 inches.
No. 2.—PLATE XII
Figure of Longinus, in St. Peter’s. In the round, and gilded.
Height 20¾ inches.
[Illustration: PLATE XIV.]
[Illustration: PLATE XV.]
[Illustration: PLATE XVI.]
[Illustration: PLATE XVII.]
[Illustration: PLATE XVIII.]
No. 3.—PLATE XIII, _a_
Two _putti_, for the decoration of the piers in St. Peter’s. High relief. The scale of measurement is scratched on the right edge. The wings are broken from the lower figure.
Height 11⅛ inches.
No. 4.—PLATE XIII, _b_
Another two _putti_, also for St. Peter’s. The scale of measurement is scratched on the left edge. The wings are broken from the upper figure.
Height 11⅜ inches.
Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8.—PLATES XIV, XV
Four heavily draped bearded male Saints, for the _Ciborio_ in the _Cappella del Sacramento_ in St. Peter’s.
The figures stand on thin, square plinths, one of which (Height 10⅜ inches; PLATE XIV, _a_) is unmarked, but on the other three are the names _Bartolomeo_ (Height 10¼ inches; PLATE XV, _b_), _Tomaso_ (Height 10⅜ inches; PLATE XIV, _b_), and _Filippo_ (Height 10 inches; PLATE XV, _a_).
The heads of all four are turned to the left, and the figures rest their weight on the right leg. The left arm of the Bartolomeo is gone, but was outstretched; the others all stretch out their right arm.
No. 9.—PLATE XVI
Bas-relief with half-figures of four men, and traces of architectural background.
For the side wall of the _Cappella Borghese_ in Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome.
Width 17¼ inches.
No. 10.—PLATE XVII
Half figure of a Triton holding a draped woman on his shoulders.
For a fountain. The head and arms of the woman are gone.
Height 19½ inches.
No. 11.—PLATE XVIII
Front part of the head of a bearded man.
For the Saint Jerome in the _Cappella Chigi_ in the Duomo of Siena.
Height 13½ inches.
No. 12.—PLATE XIX, _a_
Model (head missing) for the kneeling Angel on the left of the _Ciborio_ in the _Cappella del Sacramento_, St. Peter’s.
Height 11 inches.
No. 13.—PLATE XX, _a_
Another model for the same figure. Tip of right wing missing.
Height 11¼ inches.
No. 14.—PLATE XX, _b_
Angel on the right of the _Ciborio_ in the _Cappella del Sacramento_.
Other models for these two Angels are mentioned by Fraschetti (p. 394), who also suggests that this angel on the right is not by Bernini, but “perhaps by Paolo Bernini, touched up by his father.”
I do not feel tempted to agree with this idea of Signor Fraschetti; there is no doubt whatever that this model of the right-hand angel is by Gian Lorenzo himself. Height 13⅛ inches.
No. 15.—PLATE XXI
Nude figure of an Angel holding the Crown of Thorns. The head and feet are gone. The weight rests on the right leg.
Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte, Rome.
Height 13¼ inches.
No. 16.—PLATE XXII
Angel holding the Crown of Thorns.
This is the final model of the figure in Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte.
The action of the legs is the reverse of that in 15. Height 17½ inches.
No. 17.—PLATE XXIII, _a_
Model for the Angel holding the Scroll. The tips of the wings are missing.
In Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte.
Height 11¾ inches.
No. 18.—PLATE XIX, _b_
Another model for the same figure as No. 17; lacks the right leg, the head and most of the wings.
Height 11⅛ inches.
No. 19.—PLATE XXIV, _a_
Angel, perhaps for the ecstasy of Saint Theresa in _Santa Maria della Vittoria_, Rome. Right hand missing.
Height 11½ inches.
No. 20.—PLATE XXIII, _b_
Angel, draped, right leg bare, turning to the left. Part of right wing missing.
Height 11½ inches.
[Illustration: PLATE XIX.]
[Illustration: PLATE XX.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXI.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXII.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXIII.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXIV.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXV.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXVI.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXVII.]
No. 21.—PLATE XXIV, _b_
Angel, draped, kneeling, head turned to right, right arm (hand missing) raised, left arm with open hand stretching downwards and outwards.
Height 11¾ inches.
No. 22.—PLATE XXV
Standing male figure, in high relief. Drapery hangs from the right shoulder, leaving torso bare but covering the legs with heavy folds. The left arm hangs down, and there was a palm branch in the now missing hand. The right arm is bent up with the hand over the chin. The head bends down and to the right. The figure rests its weight on the left leg.
The right side of the plaque is curved; the left side is straight, and on it is scratched a scale of measurements.
Height 16⅝ inches.
No. 23.—PLATE XXVI
Oval bas-relief of the Virgin seated and looking down to right while holding the Child in her lap. High relief.
Very sketchy, but the most masterly of all these models.
Height 11 inches.
No. 24.—PLATE XXVII, _b_
Draped, standing female figure. She bends forward, turning to the left with arms (right arm missing) raised to support a slab that rests across her shoulders. The weight rests on the left leg. At her feet suggestion of a cuirass.
Study for the base of some monument such as the obelisk in the Piazza della Minerva. (Cf. Fraschetti, pp. 300–303.)
Height 8½ inches.
No. 25.—PLATE XXVII, _a_
Standing angel, heavily draped; the left knee is bent sharply backwards. The right arm is bent across the breast, the left arm (forearm missing) bent across the body lower down. The wings are missing.
Height 8⅝ inches.
No. 26
The Magdalen kneeling, and grasping the foot of the Cross.
This figure is not by Bernini, and shows clearly the difference between the work of a master and that of an imitator.
Height 10 inches.
No. 27
Study of a hand.
Length 8 inches.
III. BERNINI’S DESIGNS FOR THE PIAZZA OF ST. PETER’S
The pen and ink sketches by Bernini for the construction and adornment of the piazza in front of the Vatican, together with the surrounding buildings, deserve to be more widely known than they are at present.[18] Any details regarding the history and growth of this part of Rome are of the deepest interest to those who study the intellectual development of mankind. Did we possess any record of the reasons why Pericles and his advisers placed the temples and other buildings on the Acropolis of Athens just as they did, we should have a clearer understanding of the character and ideals of Athens than we now have. So a study of these drawings by Bernini will show very distinctly that the present form of the piazza is due to no mere thoughtless and haphazard erection of colonnades and fountains, but is the result of a deeply considered plan and illustrative of a very large idea.
The drawings are carefully done with pen and ink on fourteen sheets of paper which were numbered by some old-time owner. These sheets have had the edges trimmed. Ten are, with slight variations, 14 by 6¾ inches. The others are, as will be noted later, of different sizes. All, however, judging by the paper and method of drawing, belong unquestionably to the same series. The drawings were mounted and bound together by the previous owner.
[Illustration: PLATE XXVIII.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXIX.]
[Illustration: PLATE XXX.]
The history of the drawings can only be guessed at. In this connection the following facts are to be noted. Bernini was officially appointed architect of the _Fabbrica_ of St. Peter’s in 1680. After him Luigi Vanvitelli was head architect. With Vanvitelli there worked Andrea-Vici. In 1817 Vici left by his will to his friend the sculptor Canova drawings by Bernini representing the burial of the Countess Matilda, and Louis XIV on horseback. This legacy shows Vici to have owned original drawings by Bernini, and it is not improbable they had been given him by Vanvitelli. By the same will Vici left to his grandson Busiri his name and his studio, with all the original drawings by various masters therein contained. Consequently it is not a rash hypothesis that these drawings of the piazza came from Vanvitelli to Vici, and so to Busiri-Vici. Finally they were sold at auction in Rome in 1903. They are now in the Brandegee Collection.
DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
No. 1.—PLATE XXVIII
This drawing shows the Orb; the Christian symbol of the world, surmounted by a cross.
The cross with the head and arms ending in curves like apses suggests the plan of a church, and the following drawings show clearly that the Orb and Cross were the fundamental idea in Bernini’s mind when he planned the _piazza_.
No. 2.—PLATE XXVIII