Bernini was capable of very erotic sculpture;  see the classical pieces on
Villa Borghese's main floor.  Do we know whether the patrons selected the
representation of themselves - and whether they though this made them
special witnesses to the vision?

Tom Izbicki 

At 11:09 PM 3/30/2000 -0800, you wrote:
>      <[log in to unmask]>  writes:
> >Porn and other simplicities shoot for  the lowest common 
>>   >On the other extreme 
>>is Bernini (well maybe not that extreme)               >whose talent masks
>certain 
>>intentions     Sounds like a report card i got in art class back in high 
>school     >"" to the audience in a  number of 
>>  
>>  
>>Actually at that point I have no  problem with the combination or its
>position 
>>  A  bit unusual, just like the Song of Songs, but still 
>>  If I  could find fault at this stage is that the centerpiece is too 
>>       Bernini channels his regrets; next time  he'll be more restrained,
>he promises.     >But, we are dealing with another ages artistic 
>>criteria so I'll  let that go.     Yes, thank you; please hold that 
>thought.     
>>        No response noted.     >The 
>>  In my mind 
>>you would get a more subtle  response by yelling fire in a crowded
>building.      ""; subtle they  didn't want, didn't need.   
>>The private contemplation is nothing more than a stage show;  the whole is 
>>  
>>So paradoxically, while the  illusion of a private viewing was upon me, I
>felt 
>>  When I turn to find it is being shared, profanity sets in.         
>""""""""  you are encouraged  to be both personally contemplative and
>communally contemplative.   
>> If I must analyze it further, I get the impression that Bernini is  being 
>>very cynical: Theresa's mystical experience is just theatre; the  church is 
>>  So in the end, the mystical vanishes and  all that remains for 
>>me is erotic.      ""  Let's consider first what Baroque art means and
>where it  comes from; then, let's consider how Baroque art unites the
>Divine and the  sensual in its understanding of love; and then let's read
>about Bernini himself  and his scurrilous little sexpots.   "   Protestant
>countries, on the other hand, had just completed an appalling  destruction
>of religious images, and permitted no resurgence of them in their 
>white-washed church interiors...    "  Although religious outpourings on
>the order of those of the  Counter-Reformation mystics were a thing of the
>past, artists in every sphere  turned toward these great figures of the
>recent past and contrived, so to speak,  rationally planned stage sets for
>the experience of the irrational, so that the  worshiper could achieve at
>least the illusion of that union with the Divine that  had been granted to
>Saint Theresa, Saint John of the Cross, and other Catholic  and also
>Protestant mystics of the sixteenth century.   "Rather than the miracles of
>saints (as in  medieval and Renaissance art), their martyrdoms, transformed
>to heavenly bliss  at the very moment of agonized death, and their
>ecstasies, interpreted as an  earthly form of martyrdom, were the themes
>set before the Baroque  artists...   "   Even more, it is essential for our
>understanding of  the Baroque that Divine love, conceived as the principle
>at the heart of the  universe, should be the motive power that draws
>together all the elements of the  ceiling and resolves all conflicts in an
>unforeseeable act of  redemption...   "  the extraordinary transformation 
>sculpture underwent at Bernini's hand in total opposition to statues on the
>same  subject by Donatello and Michelangelo... The intensity of Bernini's
>personal  identification with the subject [a statue of David] can be felt
>in every detail  of the vibrant body... Evanescent effects of melting
>texture, translucency, and  sparkle so dissolve the [Apollo and Daphne]
>into the surrounding space that it  is as if Bernini had been able to carve
>light and air as well as marble... When  his friend Cardinal Barberini
>ascended to the Throne of Peter as Pope Urban  VIII, Bernini entered on the
>parade of commissions for Saint Peter's and its  surroundings that was to
>occupy him on and off from youth to old age, and that  was to determine
>more than any other single factor the relation of the immense  structure to
>the individual pilgrim and tourist...   "       (In this respect it  should
>be remembered that Bernini not only attended Mass daily but also  practiced
>every day the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola,  intended to
>induce in the worshipper exact physical and visual counterparts of  the
>experiences of Christ and the saints.)   "   "   Thus, Hartt in his big
>book (approx. pp 209 -  223, vol ii).   And now, me: ""      "" 4:12),
>where blissful and blessed communion with God occurs - - this  enclosed
>space is hidden from the view of mundane earthly dwellers (even the  monied
>Cornaros), but the glory and beauty and power of the Vision is such that 
>it cannot truly be enclosed in a mere physical space, and so it breaks
>through,  toward the altar, revelaing to us the beauty of Divine Communion.
>     Therefore, we are mixing the intensely  personal, interior and
>transforming taking in of the Host, with a structured,  communal, and
>public (and somewhat theatrical) act - - yet we do not begrudge  others
>their presence, do we?.          We are all just spectators at Mass, for
>that matter, until we  truly give ourselves over to it.     >Sorry, but
>this fish won't nibble on that bait. 
>>     You were probably never  intended to.  
>>mark   best, jmichael 



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