CARAVAGGIO – BERNINI. BAROQUE IN ROME

We try to visit Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum every year.  Last Wednesday we toured the Caravaggio-Bernini exhibition that opened on February 14 and runs until June 7, 2020.  We decided to make the trip on the spur of the moment, not wanting to miss the exhibition if and when the Covid-19 virus makes travel within Europe dicey, if not impossible.

We’ve seen the best of both artists in Rome, and while the Rijksmuseum gathered together some fine exemplars from various private collections and museums, once you’ve seen Caravaggio's and Bernini's masterworks, anything less than the sublime can’t help but be a little disappointing.  That said, I would not discourage anyone from seeing Caravaggio-Bernini. Baroque in Rome, described by this Rijksmuseum press release:

This joyous Italian counterpart to the reserved and austere Protestant Dutch culture of the 17th century was overlooked in the Netherlands. Elsewhere, however, it sparked an artistic revolution, and its impact was felt throughout Catholic Europe. The leading lights of Baroque in Rome were Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) and the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), two geniuses around whom many other talented artists flocked. The arts in Rome were booming in the first decades of the 17th century, and in the space of just a few years the eternal city was transformed into an international pressure cooker bursting with new artistic ideas and initiatives. This vibrant climate formed the ideal conditions for the birth of a new style, one that would only be named ‘Baroque’ much later – from the Portuguese barocco, for the irregular form of a natural pearl. More than ever before, painters teamed up with sculptors, and the central figures in this exhibition – Caravaggio, Bernini and their kindred spirits – embody this artistic fraternalism. Together, their works tell a story of immense artistic vigour in Rome and radical renewal in the arts in the approximate period from 1600 to 1640. The exhibition will be guided by key terms in the artistic vocabulary of the time, such as wonderment (meraviglia), vivacity (vivezza), motion (moto), jest (scherzo) and horror (terribilità).

Perhaps the most novel (for me, anyway) insight into the origins of the artistic vocabulary of Roman Baroque came from this curatorial wall text:

After the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the Catholic church-- in response to fierce criticism from Protestant quarters--looked for new ways to reach believers emotionally with the core values of faith.  Theologians such as Cardinal Gabriele Paleotti drew up new regulations for artists in art treatises.  According to Paleotti, well composed depictions of the passione, suffering, of Christ and the Christian martyrs could greatly encourage compassione, compassion, and devotion among believers.

Artists in Rome, the center of Christianity, therefore had to devise new visual strategies at the beginning of the 17^th century in order to engage the viewers’ emotions and incite their compassion.  In the Baroque era the emotional eloquence of works of art became an important criterion for artistic quality.

There is some debate among art historians as to the effect of Paleotti's treatises.  The curators suggest that Caravaggio and Bernini, as well as other artists working in Rome during the early 17th century, were constrained in their creative efforts by Paleotti's regulations for religious art.  Others would say that the creative efforts of these artists fortuitously and coincidentally embodied his standards.  Regardless of which interpretation is correct, what is clear is that both Caravaggio and Bernini were 17^th century “expressionists” of emotional eloquence and both had important clerical patrons. 

Caravaggio lived and worked in Rome between 1591 and 1606.  He had numerous Vatican patrons during that time, among them Monsignor Pandolfo Pucci, the brother of a cardinal; Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, who later became Pope Urban VIII in 1623; and Pope Paul V.
It was during his stay at Monsignor Pucci’s villa that Caravaggio created A Boy Bitten by a Lizard (c. 1597-1598) pictured below.   

This work exemplifies one of the key terms in the artistic vocabulary of the Baroque:  motion (moto), which includes the concept of emotion.  For the first time in painting, a moment of movement and shock was caught and recorded. From the catalogue:

A boy is suddenly bitten by a lizard and pulls back his hand in fear.  The shock is reflected in his pose, his retracted frowning head, raised shoulder and the tension evident in the splayed fingers.  The swirling folds of his shirt underline the general sense of horror.  Here the young Caravaggio successfully explored the effects of extreme emotions.  One of his contemporaries even wrote that you could almost hear the boy scream.

In the same year Caravaggio left Rome, Bernini arrived with his father and family at age 8; he lived and worked there until his death in 1680.  His most powerful patrons were Cardinal Scipione Borghese and Pope Urban VIII (Caravaggio’s patron when he was still a cardinal).   

The Elephant with an Obelisk (1632 or 1658) above exemplifies another term in the Baroque vocabulary, this one related to motion; namely, lifelike verisimilitude (vivezza).  From the catalogue:

The finished terracotta statue served as a presentation model for the famous “elefantino,” the elephant with an obelisk on its back, for the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome.  Bernini transformed the concept of the pedestal—usually only an austere, architectural base—into a ‘living” sculpture. He probably made it after studies from life, as real elephants were actually in Rome in 1630 and 1655.

 

Another tour de force of vivezza or vivacity is Bernini’s sculpture of Thomas Baker (1637-1638, above, with detail below) and Cardinal de Richelieu (1640-1641, below).  From the catalogue on Thomas Baker:

At the end of 1636, the English Thomas Baker sojourned in Rome, probably to ask Bernini to make a portrait bust of King Charles I. Baker also had himself immortalized. The eye-catchers of this portrait are the lace collar and the curls—not a wig—testifying to his bold use of the stone drill.

And on Cardinal de Richelieu:

Bernini made this bust after a painted portrait.  Nevertheless, he succeeded in an accurate character study of France’s cunning prime minister. Because of the spiked shape of his face and clothing, the cardinal seems untouchable.

The Baroque vocabulary includes marvel, stupefaction, and astonishment (meraviglia).  Caravaggio’s Narcissus (c. 1600, below) and Bernini’s Medusa (1630, also below), which open the exhibition and are perhaps the finest pieces on display, elicit this response of wonder.  From the catalogue on Narcissus:

In Greek mythology, the beautiful Narcissus cruelly rejected his adorers. When Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, heard of this, she decided to punish him by making him fall in love with himself. Here, enchanted by his reflection in the pond, he caresses the surface of the water, as if to seduce his mirror image. In doing so, Caravaggio changed the original meraviglia, marvel, to an ill-fated love that will never be reciprocated.

 

From the catalogue on Medusa:

Bernini’s Medusa can also be seen as a tribute to meraviglia and stupore.  The mythical woman who could turn anyone to stone with her gaze is now herself made of stone and harmless. Yet she can still petrify us, but then out of amazement....

 

The exhibition also explores the Baroque fascination with horror (terribilità).  The word is personified in Bernini’s Four Grotesque Heads (1650-1655) and in his unflinching drive to accurately express human emotion. From the catalogue:

In an attempt to represent the expressions of pain as realistically as possible, the master sculptor studied his own face as he burned himself with red hot coals.

Bernini designed these four grotesque heads to decorate his own coach. They belong to the realm of the topsy-turvy world, from which ironic commentary was delivered on the seriousness of everyday life. Perhaps Bernini made the heads for his arrival by coach at the inauguration of his Fountain of the Four Rivers at Piazza Navona in Rome in 1651, a grand spectacle in the presence of the pope.

Passion (passione), another artistic term in the Baroque vocabulary, was employed to elicit compassion in the viewer.  Two works by Caravaggio and one by Bernini, both having religious subjects, hit their mark in this regard.  Caravaggio’s The Sacrifice of Isaac (1612, below) and The Crowning with Thorns (1603, also below) are overflowing with emotion and grief.  From the catalogue on The Sacrifice of Isaac:

In this decisive moment of high drama, Abraham is on the verge of sacrificing his son Isaac as God has asked of him. Just as Abraham is about to kill the boy, an angel grabs his arm, for Abraham has proven his devotion. The angel points upwards, to God, who manifests himself in the light falling upon them.

 

And on The Crowning with Thorns:

Two executioners press the crown of thorns on Jesus’ head firmly with sticks. It is remarkable that Caravaggio placed the hand of the 17th-century armored soldier close to that of Jesus and gave it a similar shape. In this way he expressed the compassione, emotional involvement, of this anachronistic figure seen from the back, who in turn served as an exemplar to the 17th-century public.

Similarly, Bernini’s sculpture of Saint Sebastian (1617-1618, below), a Roman centurion born in Gaul and martyred in Rome for refusing to renounce his Christian beliefs during the reign of Diocletian, evokes religious suffering.  In this smaller than life size sculpture, Saint Sebastian is depicted pinned to a tree, his flesh pierced by arrows. 

 

But the exhibition wasn’t all meraviglia, vivezza, moto, terribilità and passione.  It was also about fun and games, or scherzi.  As the catalogue notes:  

The art of the Baroque is not only about the grand gesture, fierce emotions and weighty drama. There is also plenty of room for the light-hearted genre of scherzo (joke, jest): witty puns, amusing exaggerations, contradictions and inversions, but also figurative jokes and mocking caricatures. Scherzi have their origins in the literature of classical antiquity, were rediscovered by Italian poets in the 16^th century and around 1600 were also adopted in the sister arts. The embodiment of scherzo in Baroque visual art are the numerous chubby toddlers (putti) involved in all kinds of adult—and therefore misplaced and entertaining—activities, such as fighting wild animals, playing with oversized stage masks or participating in drinking feasts. 

Bernini’s Boy with a Dragon (c. 1617, below) is a charming example of scherzo.  

Beyond these key artistic terms defining the Baroque in Rome, the curators also advanced related artistic conceits:  visioni (religious visions), antiquità (classical antiquity), and amore (love) that figure in this artistic style.  Among my favorites from the exhibition illustrating these terms are Caravaggio’s Saint Francis of Assisi Meditating (1605-1606, religious visions, immediately below) and Bernini’s Personification of Autumn (1615-1616, classical antiquity, middle below) and his Eros and Anteros (1630, sacred and profane love, bottom). 

 

 

Any day at a museum is a good day, and I really enjoyed this one.  Thanks go out to my husband for the photos that made this armchair virtual tour possible.  Plus, he drove the entire way to and from Amsterdam.  What a Mensch!

Keep it real!

Marilyn