28 December 2009

Life out of stone


"Gianlorenzo Bernini, on the other hand, cared a great deal about likeness, to the point where he redefined it as more than appearance. True likeness - the kind he wanted to capture in his sculptures - was the animation of character, expressed in the movements of bodies and faces. Bernini took the stat - the Latin for their usual condition of "standing" - out of statues. His figures break free from the gravity pull of the pedestal to run, twist, whirl, pant, scream, bark or arch themselves in spasms of intense sensation. Bernini could make marble do things it had never done before. His figures charge into hectic action. Most of them are naturally yeasty, on the rise, and their natural drift is into the air and light."

Read the rest here.

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