fbpx

ONLINE ART HISTORY COURSE
Bernini: The Art of the Sublime

3 ONLINE RECORDED ART HISTORY LECTURES

Instructor: Dr. Rocky Ruggiero
Lecture Hours: 4.5 Hours

Clicking “Buy Now” will direct you to our educational platform where you can securely check out and instantly access your course materials.

If you are interested in purchasing this recorded art history course with a Rocky Ruggiero gift card, please contact us.

Special offer

Details

ONLINE  COURSE
Bernini: The Art of the Sublime

Course Description:

This course will examine the extraordinary career of the artist credited with inventing Baroque sculpture. Bernini’s superb skill at magically transforming stone into what appears to be malleable flesh is nothing less than incredible. Yet, Bernini’s vision went beyond sculpture and into the field of monumental architecture. His inventiveness and skill produced some of the greatest marvels of Baroque Europe. By exploring the career and works of this great artist, we shall come to understand how Gian Lorenzo Bernini invented the art of the sublime.

Course Objectives:

  • To bring a historical figure to life through a “hands on” approach to the works produced by the artist throughout the entirety of his career.
  • To understand the role that the historical context of Bernini’s life had on his extraordinary artistic production.
  • To learn to appreciate the rich and influential aspects of Italian art from the late 16th to the end of the 17th century.
  • To develop the fundamental skills of art historical analysis that include formal analysis and iconographic interpretation.
  • To develop an ability to interact in a personal and intimate manner with works of art – which in the case of Bernini are some of the most innovative in history – and their surroundings.

Virtual Classroom: Upon registration, participants will have full access to an online educational platform with videos of recordings, syllabus, readings and discussion forum. Each lecture lasts 1 hour 15 minutes.

Credits: Certificate of Completion

Access: Students have lifetime and unlimited streaming access to the course content.

Supplemental Readings & Podcasts:
Readings and Podcasts are provided to students to enhance the course experience.

Schedule

LECTURE 1 – THE POETRY OF SCULPTURE

Bernini’s breathtaking mythological statues of Apollo and Daphne and Pluto and Persephone in the Borghese Gallery are but a few of the sublime statues produced by the famed sculptor while he was still in his early twenties. This lecture will explore Bernini’s new visual language for sculpture which combined Classical form and proportion with the Baroque love for the theatrical.

LECTURE 2 – UNIFYING THE VISUAL ARTS

Bernini’s great Baldacchino for the crossing of St. Peter’s Basilica heralded a new type of “sculptural architecture.”  As his career progressed, Bernini continued to blur the lines between and ultimately synthesize the traditional visual arts. Works such as the Ecstasy of St. Theresa and the Four Rivers Fountain in Piazza Navona exemplify Bernini’s love of the monumental and theatrical in his new vision of art.

LECTURE 3 – A SERVANT TO POPES AND KINGS

The last decades of Bernini’s career saw him working almost exclusively for the Sienese Pope Alexander VII and for a short while, the French King Louis XIV. From his majestic architectural projects such as the Scala Regia, St. Peter’s Square and the Jesuit church of Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, to his celebrated bust of the “Sun King”, Bernini cemented his role as the preferred artist of Europe’s ruling elite.

 

Other Upcoming Events

© 2023 Rocky Ruggiero. All Rights Reserved.