Through contemplation and re-elaboration of the model, he or she is created anew in the fantasia; to be sure, as we have also seen in the previous chapter, the
artist creates an original, not a copy.46 Whereas we may think of these workings
of the fantasia as preceding in time the actual physical creation of the image—
indeed, a parto or giving birth as it is sometimes alluded to in contemporary 44 Chantelou/Stanic 2001, p. 98 [30 July]: ‘…ne les [dessins] avait-il faits que pour s’imprimer plus particulièrement l’image du Roi dans l’esprit et faire qu’elle y demeurât inzuppata e rinvenu- ta, pour servir de ses propres termes;’ trans. Chantelou/Blunt & Bauer 1985, p. 92; similar accounts at Chantelou/Stanic 2001, p. 96 [29 July] & p. 115 [12 August].
45 Bernino 1713, p. 134: ‘…i Modelli gli erano serviti per introdurre nella fantasia le fattezze di chì egli doveva ritrarre…’ Cf. Fehrenbach 2005, p. 4, Delbeke 2002, p. 327, Delbeke 2000, pp. 216-218.
46 Chantelou/Stanic 2001, p. 98 [30 July]: ‘…s’il avait travaillé d’après ses dessins, au lieu d’un original il ne ferait qu’une copie…’ Cf. Chantelou/Stanic 2001, p. 96 [29 July] & p. 115 [12 August]. A very similar idea is expressed by Bellori/Borea 1976, p. 14 (with my italics): ‘Que- sta idea, overo dea della pittura e della scoltura, aperte le sacre cortine de gl’alti ingegni de i Dedali [i.e., the sculptors] e de gli Apelli [the painters], si svela a noi e discende sopra i marmi e sopra le tele; originata dalla natura supera l’origine e fassi originale dell’arte, misurata dal compasso dell’intelletto, diviene misura della mano, ed animata dall’immaginativa dà vita all’immagine.’
texts—Guidiccioni’s letter suggests otherwise.47 Let us turn back to the letter and see how he describes the actual act of creation.
I will never forget the delight I took in intervening all those times at your work, see- ing you every morning, always making a thousand opposing movements with extra- ordinary gracefulness; chatting away, always up to date with the latest events, the hands moving far away from the conversation; crouching down, stretching yourself, placing [maneggiar] the fingers on the model with the effortless grace [prestezza] and variety of one playing the harp; making charcoal marks on the marble in a hundred places, striking with the mallet in a hundred others; striking, I say, in one place while looking in the opposite direction; pressing the hand onwards, and turning the head looking back; overcoming the contrarieties [contrarietà] and with great spirit appeas- ing them instantly…48
In this striking passage, apparently based on the author’s own impressions though evidently informed by the customary art critical vocabulary, we are painted a picture of the artist at work. We see the sculptor almost as a dancer moving around the marble, completely in his element, pressing forward without hesitation, displaying an effortlessness and grace that seems indeed more proper to the musician, or the painter for that matter, than the sculptor.49
47 Cf. Fehrenbach 2005, p. 5 and n. 28, referring to Bernino 1713, p. 134, cf. also p. 15, where Bernini’s Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence is described as the result of the sculptor’s ‘primo parto di divozione’. This passage is discussed by Damm 2006, p. 234, though he sees the parto primar- ily as an indication of the (figurative) birth of the devout sculptor.
48 Appendix 1, f. 205r, lines 17-26: ‘Io non sono mai per dimenticarmi il diletto che m’è toccato dall’intervenir sempre all’opera, vedendo ciascuna mattina Vostra Signoria con leggiadria sin- gulare far sempre mille moti contrarij; discorrer sempre aggiustato sul conto delle cose occor- renti et con le mani andar lontanissimo dal discorso; rannicchiarsi, distendersi, maneggiar le dita sul modello, con la prestezza, et varietà di chi tocca un Arpe; segnar col carbone il mar- mo in cento luoghi, batter col mazzuolo in cent’altri; batter dico, in una parte, et guardar nell’opposta; spinger la mano battendo innanzi, et volger la faccia guardando indietro; vincer le contrarietà, et con animo grande sopirle subito…’
49 For this distinction between the arts see in particular the devastating judgment of Leonardo: Vinci/Richter 1949, pp. 94-95, par. 37: ‘Tra la pittura e la scultura non trovo altra differentia, se non che lo scultore conduce le sue opere con maggior fatica di corpo che ’l pittore, et il pittore conduce l’opere sue con maggior fatica di mente. provasi così esser vero, conciòsiache lo scultore nel fare la sua opera fa per forza di braccia e di percussione, à consumare il mar- mo od altra pietra superchia, che eccede la figura, che dentro a quella si rinchiude, con eserci- tio meccanichissimo accompagnato spesse volte da gran sudore composto di polvere e con- vertito in fango, con la faccia impastata e tutto infarinato di polvere di marmo, che pare un fornaio, e coperto di minute scaglie, che pare li sia fioccato addosso; e l’abitatione imbrattata e piena di scaglie e di polvere di pietre. il che tutt’al contrario aviene al pittore, parlando di pittori e scultori eccellenti, imperòche ’l pittore con grand’aggio siede dinanzi alla sua opera, ben vestito, e move il levissimo pennello con li vaghi colori, et ornato di vestimenti come a lui piace. e l’abitazione sua piena di vaghe pitture, e pulita. et accompagnata spesse volte di
A key term in this passage is that of prestezza. In fact, elsewhere in the letter Guidiccioni also characterizes Bernini’s working methods using terms as facilità and prestezza.50 A term used in Cinquecento art theory to denote a rapid and seem- ingly effortless execution, prestezza was in the first place reserved for the prac-
tice of painters such as Tintoretto and certainly not always deemed a virtue.51
The more negative connotations seem to have gradually disappeared though. The seventeenth-century occupation with authenticity in art, obviously inspired by the growing interest in art collecting and, as a result, in connoisseurship, made speed and spontaneity of execution ever more important qualities for the artist.52 The ease and speed with which Bernini worked the marble has been noted also by others. Baldinucci, for example, praises the ‘ease [facilità] and frankness [franchezza]’ with which the sculptor handled [manegiasse] the marble.53 The term franchezza, which will be a central term in chapter six, is closely related
to prestezza, but more typical for the baroque occupation with authenticity, the
‘frankness’ of the execution being related to the idea of the authenticity found in a rapid and spontaneous execution.54 We encounter the term in Baglione’s
vita of the sculptor Pietro Bernini, Gian Lorenzo’s father and, not incidentally,
the person from whom he had learned his trade:
Pietro worked the marble with such a frankness [franchezza], that he had only few equals. And one day in Naples, I myself saw, that, taking a charcoal, and with it making some marks on the marble, he instantly took up the irons, and without any other drawing [disegno] he carved from it three life size [dal naturale] figures, to make
musiche, o’ lettori di varie e belle opere, le quali senza strepito di martelli ed altri rumori mi- sto sono con gran piacer’ udite.’
50 Appendix 1, f. 203v, lines 10-11: ‘…più meravigliosa il modo con che s’è fatta, con facilità con prestezza et senza veder l’esemplare…’ Cf. Ibid., f. 206v, line 2: ‘…tirate giù con prestez- za…’
51 See Nichols 1996, who argues that the term could also have negative connotations. Cf. the description of Cristoforo Sorte in Barocchi 1960-62, vol. 1, pp. 299-300.
52 See Warwick 2000, pp. 76-129 and Held 1963 for the connoisseurship of drawings in the seventeenth-century. Praise for an ease in the execution of the work had also its sources in antiquity; see the discussion in Junius/Aldrich, Fehl & Fehl 1991, vol. 1, pp. 292-293 (III.vi.6) who concludes: ‘…certainly, the chiefest and most lively force of Art consisteth herein, that there appeare in the worke that same prosperously prompt and fertile Facility which useth to accompany our first endavours: this is the life and spirit of Art; which if it be extinguished with too much care of trimming, the whole work will be but a dead and lifelesse thing.’ 53 Baldinucci/Samek Ludovici 1948, p. 141: ‘Non fu mai forse avanti a’ nostri e nel suo tempo
tempi, chi con più facilità, e franchezza manegiasse il marmo.’
54 Apendix 1, f. 205r, lines 12-13: ‘…tirando risoluto alla riuscita con franchezza, et non titu- bando, in sette brevissime sedute lo fa uscir vivo da un marmo.’ To get a feel of Bernini’s pre- stezza in modelling the bust we may look at the cast of a bozzetto for the bust of Scipione Bor- ghese, published in Weil 1989 as a cast after a clay model. As Peter Fusco in Fogelman, Fusco & Cambareri 2002, p. 176, n. 17 suggests, it might rather be a cast of a model in wax.
an ornament [capriccio] for a fountain, and he treated it with such an ease [facilità], that it was stupefying to see.55
That the marking of the marble with charcoal was not out of the ordinary, we learn from Cellini’s treatise on sculpture; it is, he argues, the way of the ‘great
Michelangelo’.56 What is so striking about Guidiccioni’s description, though—
and in this it is close to Baglione’s account of Pietro Bernini—is the ad hoc character of Gian Lorenzo’s way of approaching the marble; we feel that the artist does not first make his model, then draws an outline on the marble and only then grabs his chisels; rather, he does it all at once, using charcoal and chisel alongside even as the work progresses, then pressing the hand onwards, then again stepping back to see what has been achieved, deciding anew how to move on. That Guidiccioni’s description at least partly conforms to the artist’s
practice can be observed in some of the more roughly cut parts of his sculp-
tures. In his Apollo and Daphne, among the laurel leaves, we can in fact still find traces of the charcoal marks.57
Guidiccioni provides a glance into the artist’s workshop, leaving an impres- sion that makes the artistic genius more tangible; no longer can it be attained that everything goes on in the mind or head of the artist and disguise the phys- 55 Baglione 1642: ‘Pietro con ogni franchezza maneggiava il marmo sì, che in ciò pochi pari egli
hebbe. Et un giorno in Napoli, io stesso il vidi, che prendendo un carbone, e con esso sopra un marmo facendo alcuni segni, subito si messe de[n]tro i ferri, e senz’altro disegno vi cavò tre figure dal naturale, per formare un capriccio da fontana, e con tanta facilità il tratava, che era stupore il vederlo.’
56 Cellini/Ferrero 1980, pp. 788-789: ‘Volendo condur bene una figura di marmo, l’arte promet- te ch’un buon maestro debba fare un modello piccolo di dua palmi il manco […]. Da poi si debbe farla grande a punto quanto la possa uscire del marmo […]. E da poi che uno si sia sa- tisfatto nel sopradetto modello, si debbe pigliare il carbone, e disegnare la veduta principale della sua statua di sorte che la sia ben disegnata; perchè chi non si risolvessi bene al disegno, talvolta si potria trovare ingannato da’ ferri. E il miglior modo che si sia mai visto è quello che ha usato il gran Michelagnolo: il qual modo si è, di poi che uno ha disegnato la veduta principale, si debbe per quella banda cominciare a scoprire […] come se uno volessi fare una figura di mezzo rilievo…’
57 See the close-up by Araldo De Luca in Hermann Fiore 1997, p. 130 and Rockwell 1997, fig. 10. It has been observed by Maria Grazia Chilosi in Coliva 2002, p. 126 that many of the charcoal marks left on Bernini’s works can be found on highly finished areas and accordingly probably did not have a function in the actual carving of the image. The charcoal marks found on a much less finished area of Bernini’s Verità in the villa Borghese indicate on the other hand, as Hermann Fiore 1997, p. 91, Gerlinda Tautschnig in Coliva 2002, p. 239 and Peter Rockwell in Coliva 2002, p. 247 have argued, that the artist used charcoal also in an ear- lier stage of the sculptural procedure. Rockwell 1997, p. 147 has furthermore argued on the marks among the leaves of the Apollo and Daphne that they functioned as a means of com- munication from artist to assistant, in this case Giuliano Finelli. Yet, taking into account Guidiccioni’s words, a more dialectic role for these charcoal marks may be put forward; the artist seems to use them also to try out ideas and to guide his own hand.
ical labour of artistic creation behind metaphors such as that of the parto. We may indeed opt for a more externalized conception of the fantasia, running through the whole creative process.58 The artist is brought back to his material, the giving shape to an image becomes a series of experiments. This experi- mental character is best expressed in the final sentence of the passage from Guidiccioni’s letter cited above. Here we read that Bernini, while striking with the mallet and pressing the hand onwards, overcomes the difficulties [contrarietà] and with great spirit appeases them instantly. Rather than having a fixed image before his mind’s eye, the sculptor changes and adjusts as he goes along, work- ing the model and working the marble.59 It is here that ‘through art,’ as Guidic- cioni writes, the sculptor reconciles in harmony those azioni which would have repelled each other in nature.