Bernini. Art and Theatre

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) is celebrated as a sculptor, architect and painter, but it is less known that he also was a playwright, scenographer, actor and director. In the Baroque period opera and ballet became increasingly popular, as did elaborate scenographic technologies for court and religious theatre. Bernini drew from this lexicon of theatrical effects, deploying light, movement and the porous boundary between fictive and physical space to forge a language of Baroque illusion for both his scenographies and his sculptural ensembles.
Bernini: Art and Theatre explores the different types of cultural space for the staging of his art, from court settings to public squares and church interiors. Drawing parallels between the visual and theatre arts, and highlighting the dramatic amplification of religious art in the period, this provocative study provides a model that can be extended beyond Bernini to enable us to reconsider 17th-century visual culture as a whole.