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work of the month

Bust of the Savior, 1679-80
Gianlorenzo Bernini
Italian, 1598-1680
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
© Chrysler Museum of Art

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Gianlorenzo Bernini is celebrated as the greatest master of the High Baroque style in Italy during the seventeenth century. Bust of the Savior, 1679-80, is the artist's final work, completed in 1679 when Bernini was 80 years old.

Illusionism, theatricality, emotionalism, and mixed-media installations are hallmarks of the Baroque style. In Bernini's hands, these characteristics of the Baroque were taken to their pinnacle with earlier masterpieces such as The Ectasy of St. Teresa (1647-52, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome). Scholars Irvin Lavin and Charles Avery have argued that late in Bernini's career, the artist moved to an even deeper level of spiritual purpose with his art as he contemplated his own mortality and salvation.

…In his early days Bernini may have pursued illusionism for its own sake-deception as an end in itself-but in [his] last works it has a much more serious purpose: to express a deep inner conviction of a particular kind of religious truth.

In what ways do you think Bernini achieves a heightened illusionism with Bust of the Savior?

Do you feel this work engages the viewer on a spiritual level? If so, what devices does Bernini use to accomplish this effect?

Bust of the Savior was intended to stand atop an ornately decorated seven foot pedestal designed by Bernini. Chrysler Museum Chief Curator, Jefferson C. Harrison notes, "…the pedestal was composed of a gilded wooden socle, stepped at the top, that supported a pair of kneeling angels, also in gilded wood. The angels, in turn, upheld the bust on a base of Sicilian jasper."

If you could see this bust with all the installation elements Bernini intended, how might your experience of this work of art be intensified?

Interpretations of Bernini's last work vary among scholars, but all seem to agree that it has a mysticism and reverence that marks a different state of mind in the artist at the close of his earthly existence. Charles Avery and David Finn claim that "the gesture of Christ's hand, his upturned solemn face, the eyes (staring as in a vision) and the pathetic hand (seemingly warding off some evil) suggest that Bernini was thinking of Jesus on the Mount of Olives on the eve of the Crucifixion, when he prayed to God to be spared. 'Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will but thine, be done.'" Jefferson C. Harrison has noted, "Turning his head heavenward and raising his right hand in blessing, Bernini's Christ proclaims his role as intercessor between God and man, his divine mission as Salvator Mundi. Though universal in its spiritual message, the bust remains an intensely personal creation, Bernini's very private tribute to the deity on the eve of his own demise. It is Bernini's last will and testament as an artist, an embodiment of his faith and hope for salvation."

Bernini's long and celebrated career as a master of the Baroque finds definition in the words of Filippo Baldinucci in 1682, and his own words:

The opinion is widespread that Bernini was the first to attempt to unite architecture with sculpture and painting in such a manner that together they make a beautiful whole.

Those who do not sometimes break the rules never transcend them.

- John S. Welch

Mount of Olives - Refer to Bible, Luke, Chapter 22, verse 42.

Exalted Provenance - Bequeathed to Queen Christina of Sweden at Bernini's death in 1680. Passed to Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi at Queen Christina's death in 1689. Remains with Odescalchi family until 1713.

Salvator Mundi - "Savior of the World."

Illusionism - The endeavor of artists to represent visual phenomena as completely as possible within the limitations of their particular medium (or media) and the conventions of the time.

St. Teresa of Avila - The Ectasy of St. Teresa (Coronaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome) is Bernini's most famous sculpture. It was commissioned by a Venetian cardinal, Federico Cornaro (1579-1653), who acquired the patronage of the empty left transept of the newly-built church of the Discalced Carmelite brothers in Rome, Santa Maria della Vittoria, in 1647.

The drama that Bernini depicts from St. Teresa's autobiography focuses on her statements that: "I would see beside me, on my left hand, an angel in bodily form… He was not tall, but short, and very beautiful, his face so aflame that he appeared to be one of the highest types of angel who seem to be all afire… In his hands I saw a long golden spear… with this he seemed to pierce my heart several times so that it penetrated my entrails. When he drew it out, I thought he was drawing them out with it and he left me completely afire with a great love of God." To an unbeliever this may seem far-fetched and to a Protestant, then or today, distasteful, while its sexual overtones invite a psychological interpretation. Yet, at the time, it must be remembered that Teresa of Avila was an important figure in the International Catholic Church. She had founded a reformed order of nuns, the Discalced Carmelites (i.e. barefoot, so-called on account of her renewed emphasis on poverty), with sixteen monasteries in Spain to her credit by the time of her death in 1582. She was canonized by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. She was thus, to someone of Bernini's generation, a very real person, with palpable earthly achievements quite apart from her mystical qualities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Charles Avery and David Finn. Bernini: Genius of the Baroque. London: Thames & Hudson, 1997.

Shirley Blum and Carole F. Lewine, eds. Gianlorenzo Bernini: New Aspects of His Art and Thought. University Park & London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1985.

Jefferson C. Harrison. The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections, ex. cat. Norfolk: Chrysler Museum, 1991, p. 46.

Irvin Lavin. Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts. New York & London: Oxford University Press, 1980.

James Smith Pierce. From Abacus to Zeus: A Handbook of Art History. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1987.