Artistic genius is a mysterious phenomenon. No matter how much one practices, they may never accomplish what masters like Bernini did. It’s a combination of skill along with passion, pain, vulnerability, and abandoning oneself to one’s art. Gian Lorenzo Bernini‘s mindblowing and sensual sculpture was part of the inspiration for Oblivion Black and the rest of The Sculptor Series. It was my aim to show how this magic synergy occurs, how an artist distills the totality of their human experience into one creation of beauty.
Who is Bernini, the man behind this exquisite sculpture? And how did such provocative art end up in a church?
The documentary above about the Bernini’s life, the stories behind his works, his rivalries, and scandals, is one of the most fascinating and entertaining I’ve seen. If you think his art was about lofty religious devotion, think again. Like a classic Italian opera, his story is full of drama.
Grab a cappuccino or glass of chianti and enjoy.
Simon Schama’s Power of Art – Bernini
BBC – Documentary series in which historian Simon Schama recounts the story of eight moments of high drama in the making of eight masterpieces. He looks at how Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Ecstasy of Saint Teresa shows a nun in the state of orgasmic bliss and wonders how it was ever allowed.
Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
From Wikipedia:
“The two central sculptural figures of the swooning nun and the angel with the spear derive from an episode described by Teresa of Avila, a mystical cloistered Discalced Carmelite reformer and nun, in her autobiography, The Life of Teresa of Jesus. Her experience of religious ecstasy in her encounter with the angel is described as follows:
I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.”
More works:
