James S. Ackerman, Harvard University
"...each page has something interesting to think about. The illustrations are a feast in themselves."
Book Description
Gianlorenzo Bernini was the greatest artist of the seventeenth century. Sculptor, painter, architect, he created the Baroque--defining a style, and a culture, in a decisive era in European history. In this brilliantly conceived book, Robert Petersson offers an intimate encounter with Bernini's major works--from sensous marble statues that burst with life to such monumental works as the piazza of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Petersson looks closely, carefully, and freshly at the making of each masterpiece captures Bernini's world--emotional, exuberant, alive, and engaging.
Bernini and the Excesses of Art FROM THE PUBLISHER
"The vitality of Petersson's book is drawn directly from the sculpture of Bernini, an artist now regarded as the true successor of Michelangelo. It differs from others by bringing the reader inside the sculptural process, from genesis to completed form. Frequently Bernini had to solve uniquely interesting problems and his innovative talents never faltered." As well as presenting the brilliant, flamboyant Bernini, the book simultaneously displays Rome in the throes of its Counter-Reformation renewal, the second birth of the city with the full panoply of its arts, culture, and aberrant activities during Bernini's years in the service of eight popes. In later life he expanded his fame by spending an eventful half year in Paris at the invitation of Louis XIV. The proud and touchy Bernini, then the most celebrated artist in Europe, was in a pitched battle with the arrogant and aggressive French. Yet in Paris as in Rome it is the artistic works that have lasted and are widely known as having redirected the course of European sculpture.
Art & Photography
Book Info
