Berniui was born at Naples, in the year 1598. [Bennet, in Bum. Dry.] He possessed genius, imagination, ambition to excel, unceasing industry, and great powers of execution; and still, with all these means and dispositions, he was, beyond all others, instrumental in precipi tating the decline of sculpture ; and the tendency, already exhibited, to prefer minute execution to the higher qualities of design, was con firmed by the popularity it acquired in the hands of this artist.
It would be difficult to conceive two styles more opposed to each other than that adopted by the sculptors of this age and that of the great artists of antiquity. In one the pervading principle was sim plicity and expression, united with beautiful and appropriate form. In the other, simplicity was of all things most studiously avoided; and complicated arrangement in composition, forced action in the figures, flying draperies, elaborate carving, and undercutting (iu works in marble), and other means of little more than mere mechanical display, were resorted to, in order to create surprise or to please the eye. Under Bernini all the distinctive bounds of the classes of art were trampled down. Sculptors endeavoured to imitate the effects of the pencil, and architects to introduce into their compositions the curved line of beauty.
The faults and merits of Bernini as a sculptor will be best shown by a reference to and criticism of a few of his beet known works. His group of Apollo and Daphne, in the Villa Borghese, is a production of great merit for its invention and power of telling its story. The god has just reached the object of his pursuit, and, at the moment when he seizes her, Daphne's prayer is heard, and the beautiful form is being metamorphosed into a tree. Instead of generalising this part of the history, Bernini appears to have delighted in the opportunity of show ing his skill in execution. The hair and drapery of Apollo are floating in the air, while the change that is to preserve Daphne from violence is shown in detail, in her tresses, the toes and fingers becoming elongated into roots and branches, the latter terminating in carefully worked Laurel-leaves. St. Peter's at Rome contains various works of this artist. The most remarkable of these are the splendid monuments of Urban VIII. and Alexander VII., which may be said to exhibit all his excellences and all his defects. The former stands opposite a celebrated work of Guglielmo della Porta before mentioned (the monu ment of Pope Paul III.), and ie a melancholy proof of the consequences
of losing sight of purer principles. Della Porta's was not a school of perfection ; but the contrast between the grandeur of manner of his time and the handicraft display of Berninfa period is distressing. The composition of the second work alluded to, the mouumeut of Alexander VII., is as strange as the execution is wonderful. The sitting figure of the pope occupies the centre of a large and deep niche. The whole of the lower part or ground is filled up with curtain and cloud, in the corners of which are plunged four allegorical groups or figures. Of those at the back of the recess but little can be seen except the heads and shoulders. In the front corners are Truth and Charity, the latter a gigantic female, with fleshy infants pressed against her breast, to whose weight the marble appears to yield with all the elasticity of a soft pulpy substance. This work is a triumph of execution, but debased by the worst taste. A group of the Extacy of St. Teresa in the church Della Vittoria at Rome is another instance of the want of simplicity. In this it is difficult, amidst the flutter of the drapery and the ample convolution of clouds, to discover either the figure of the saint or the subject of the composition. The Four Doctors of the Church supporting the Chair of St. Peter, in the church of that apostle at Rome, is a grand idea ; but its effect in execution is injured by the want of simple unaffected expression and attitudes. These statues are colossal. They are cast in bronze, and some parts of the figures and draperies are richly gilt. This composition, taking it altogether, has a magnificent effect. Fontana calculated, from the archives kept in Rome, that this work must have cost a hundred and seven thousand crowns. Bernini lived during nine pontificates; from that of Clement VIII. to Innocent XI. No artist ever had greater patronage, and few greater talents, which, unfortunately for sculpture, were ill-directed, or at least ill-disciplined ; the variety of his pursuits and his inordinate love of picturesque effect ruined tho progress of the art, induced a false taste in patrons and artists, and, from the injury effected by his bad example, it may safely be said that it would have been better for sculpture if Bernini had never lived.