Bringing together established and emerging specialists in seventeenth-century Italian sculpture; Material Bernini is the first sustained examination of the conspicuous materiality of Berninirsquo;s work in sculpture; architecture; and paint. The various essays demonstrate that material Bernini has always been tied (whether theologically; geologically; politically; or in terms of art theory) to his immaterial twin. Here immaterial Bernini and the historiography that sustains him is finally confronted by material Bernini. Central to the volume are Berninirsquo;s works in clay; a fragmentary record of a large body of preparatory works by a sculptor who denied any direct relation between sketches of any kind and final works. Read together; the essays call into question why those works in which Berninirsquo;s bodily relation to the material of his art is most evident; his clay studies; have been configured as a point of unmediated access to the artistrsquo;s mind; to his immaterial ideas. This insight reveals a set of values and assumptions that have profoundly shaped Bernini studies from their inception; and opens up new and compelling avenues of inquiry within a field that has long remained remarkably self-enclosed.
#3981071 in eBooks 2013-11-26 2013-03-10File Name: B01E40XY3G
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