Pindar Press - publishers of art history and archaeology

European Art since the Renaissance

Visible Spirit.
The Art of Gian Lorenzo Bernini

by Irving Lavin

Vol 1
24 x 17 cm 620 pp. 346 illus.
£150.00
Publication: July 2006
ISBN 1 899828 39 7
Cloth Bound

Vol II
24 x 17 cm 580 pp. 318 illus.
£150.00
Publication: July 2006
ISBN 1 904597 45 9
Cloth Bound

Vol 111
24 x 17 cm 118 pp. 346 illus.
£120.00
Publication: October 2007
ISBN 1 904597 46 7
Cloth Bound

As early as the 1950s, Professor Irving Lavin was -recognized as a major voice in American art history. His sustained production of seminal scholarly contributions have left their mark on an astonishingly wide range of -subjects and fields. Bringing these far-reaching publications together will not only provide a valuable resource to scholars and -students, but will also underscore fundamental themes in the history of art — historicism, the art of commemoration, the relationship between style and meaning, the -intelligence of artists — themes that define the role of the visual arts in human communication.

Irving Lavin is best known for his array of fundamental publications on the Baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680). These include new discoveries and studies on the master’s prodigious childhood, his architecture and -portraiture, his invention of caricature, his depictions of religious faith and political leadership, his work in the -theatre, his attitude toward death and the role of the artist in the creation of a modern sense of social responsibility. All of Professor Lavin’s papers on Bernini are here brought together in three volumes. The studies have been reset and in many cases up-dated, and there is a comprehensive index.

Vol 1 Contents:

Preface
Review of Rudolf Wittkower, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Sculptor of the Roman Baroque
Bernini and the Theater
Bozzetti and Modelli. Notes on Sculptural Procedure from the Early Renaissance through Bernini
Bernini and the Crossing of Saint Peter’s
Five Youthful Sculptures by Gianlorenzo Bernini and a Revised Chronology of his Early Works
Bernini’s Death; Afterthoughts on “Bernini’s Death”
Letter to the Editor on a review by Howard Hibbard of Bernini and the Crossing of St. Peter’s
Calculated Spontaneity. Bernini and the Terracotta Sketch
On the Pedestal of Bernini’s Bust of the Savior
High and Low Before their Time: Bernini and the Art of Social Satire
Bernini’s Memorial Plaque for Carlo Barberini
Bernini’s Baldachin: Considering a Reconsideration
Bernini’s Bust of Cardinal Montalto; Bernini’s Cosmic Eagle
Bernini’s Image of the Sun King. Introduction

Vol. II Contents:

Bernini and Antiquity — The Baroque Paradox.
A Poetical View
Bernini’s Portraits of No-Body
Bernini’s Bust of Francesco I d’Este. “Impresa quasi impossibile”
Bernini’s Bust of the Medusa: An Awful Pun
Bernini’s Bust of the Savior and the Problem of the Homeless in Seventeenth-Century Rome
Bernini’s Image of the Ideal Christian Monarch
Bernini’s Bumbling Barberini Bees
Bernini-Bozzetti: One More, One Less.
A Berninesque Sculptor in Mid-Eighteenth Century France
Bernini’s Death
Visions of Redemption
The Rome of Alexander VII.
Bernini and the Reverse of the Medal
The Young Bernini
“Bozzetto Style”: The Renaissance Sculptor’s Handiwork
The Regal Gift. Bernini and his Portraits of Royal Subjects
Urbanitas urbana. The Pope, the Artist, and the Genius of the Place
Index

Vol. III Contents:

Preface
Bernini at Saint Peter’s: singularis in singulis, in omnibus unicus
Index.