Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Gian Lorenzo Bernini was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was and more prominently, the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture; as one scholar has commented, "What Shakespeare is to drama, Bernini may be to sculpture: the first pan-European sculptor whose name is instantaneously identifiable with a particular manner and vision, whose influence was inordinately powerful...." In addition, he was a painter and a man of the theater: he wrote and acted in plays, for which he designed stage sets and theatrical machinery. He produced designs as well for a wide variety of decorative art objects including lamps, tables and coaches; as architect and city planner, he designed secular buildings, churches and public squares, as well as massive works combining both architecture and sculpture elaborate public fountains and funerary monuments and a whole series of temporary structures for funerals and festivals.
His broad technical versatility, boundless compositional inventiveness and sheer skill in manipulating marble ensured that he would be considered a worthy successor of Michelangelo, far outshining other sculptors of his generation. His talent extended beyond the confines of sculpture to a consideration of the setting in which it would be situated. Bernini was born in Naples in 1598 to Angelica Galante and Mannerist sculptor Pietro Bernini from Florence, he was the sixth of their thirteen children. Gian Lorenzo Bernini was the definition of childhood genius, he was “recognized as a prodigy when he was only eight years old, he was encouraged by his father, Pietro. His precocity earned him the admiration and favor of powerful patrons who hailed him as ‘the Michelangelo of his century’”. In 1606 his father received a papal commission and so moved from Naples to Rome, taking his entire family with him and continuing in earnest the training of his son Gian Lorenzo. Several extant works, dating from circa 1615-20, are by general scholarly consensus, collaborative efforts by both father and son: they include the Faun Teased by Putti, Boy with a Dragon, the Aldobrandini Four Seasons, the discovered Bust of the Savior.
Sometime after the arrival of the Bernini family in Rome, word about the great talent of the boy Gian Lorenzo got around and he soon caught the attention of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew to the reigning pope, Paul V, who spoke of the boy genius to his uncle. Bernini was therefore presented before Pope Paul V, curious to see if the stories about Gian Lorenzo's talent were true; the boy improvised a sketch of Saint Paul for the marveling pope, this was the beginning of the pope’s attention on this young talent. Once he was brought to Rome, he left its walls, except for a five-month stay in Paris in the service of King Louis XIV and brief trips to nearby towns for work-related reasons. Rome was Bernini’s city: “‘You are made for Rome,’ said Pope Urban VIII to him, ‘and Rome for you’”, it was in this world of 17th-century Rome and the international religious-political power which resided there that Bernini created his greatest works. Bernini's works are therefore characterized as perfect expressions of the spirit of the assertive, triumphal but self-defensive Counter Reformation Roman Catholic Church.
Bernini was a man of his times and religious, but he and his artistic production should not be reduced to instruments of the papacy and its political-doctrinal programs, an impression, at times communicated by the works of the three most eminent Bernini scholars of the previous generation, Rudolf Wittkower, Howard Hibbard, Irving Lavin. As Tomaso Montanari's recent revisionist monograph, La libertà di Bernini argues and Franco Mormando's anti-hagiographic biography, Bernini: His Life and His Rome, illustrates and his artistic vision maintained a certain degree of freedom from the mindset and mores of Counter-Reformaton Roman Catholicism. Under the patronage of the extravagantly wealthy and most powerful Cardinal Scipione Borghese, the young Bernini rose to prominence as a sculptor. Among his early works for the cardinal were decorative pieces for the garden of the Villa Borghese such as The Goat Amalthea with the Infant Jupiter and a Faun. Other allegorical busts date to this period, including the so-called Damned Soul and Blessed Soul of circa 1619, which may have been influenced by a set of prints by Pieter de Jode I but which were in fact unambiguously cataloged in the inventory of their first documented owner, Fernando de Botinete y Acevedo, as depicting a nymph and a satyr, a paired duo in ancient sculpture.
By the time he was twenty-two, Bernini was considered talented enough to have been given a commission for a papal portrait, the Bust of Pope Paul V, n
Rome
Rome is the capital city and a special comune of Italy. Rome serves as the capital of the Lazio region. With 2,872,800 residents in 1,285 km2, it is the country's most populated comune, it is the fourth most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. It is the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, which has a population of 4,355,725 residents, thus making it the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio, along the shores of the Tiber; the Vatican City is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city: for this reason Rome has been defined as capital of two states. Rome's history spans 28 centuries. While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied sites in Europe; the city's early population originated from a mix of Latins and Sabines.
The city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, is regarded by some as the first metropolis. It was first called The Eternal City by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, the expression was taken up by Ovid and Livy. Rome is called the "Caput Mundi". After the fall of the Western Empire, which marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, Rome fell under the political control of the Papacy, in the 8th century it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. Beginning with the Renaissance all the popes since Nicholas V pursued over four hundred years a coherent architectural and urban programme aimed at making the city the artistic and cultural centre of the world. In this way, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Italian Renaissance, the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, creating masterpieces throughout the city.
In 1871, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, which, in 1946, became the Italian Republic. Rome has the status of a global city. In 2016, Rome ranked as the 14th-most-visited city in the world, 3rd most visited in the European Union, the most popular tourist attraction in Italy, its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The famous Vatican Museums are among the world's most visited museums while the Colosseum was the most popular tourist attraction in world with 7.4 million visitors in 2018. Host city for the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rome is the seat of several specialized agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme and the International Fund for Agricultural Development; the city hosts the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean as well as the headquarters of many international business companies such as Eni, Enel, TIM, Leonardo S.p. A. and national and international banks such as Unicredit and BNL.
Its business district, called EUR, is the base of many companies involved in the oil industry, the pharmaceutical industry, financial services. Rome is an important fashion and design centre thanks to renowned international brands centered in the city. Rome's Cinecittà Studios have been the set of many Academy Award–winning movies. According to the founding myth of the city by the Ancient Romans themselves, the long-held tradition of the origin of the name Roma is believed to have come from the city's founder and first king, Romulus. However, it is a possibility that the name Romulus was derived from Rome itself; as early as the 4th century, there have been alternative theories proposed on the origin of the name Roma. Several hypotheses have been advanced focusing on its linguistic roots which however remain uncertain: from Rumon or Rumen, archaic name of the Tiber, which in turn has the same root as the Greek verb ῥέω and the Latin verb ruo, which both mean "flow". There is archaeological evidence of human occupation of the Rome area from 14,000 years ago, but the dense layer of much younger debris obscures Palaeolithic and Neolithic sites.
Evidence of stone tools and stone weapons attest to about 10,000 years of human presence. Several excavations support the view that Rome grew from pastoral settlements on the Palatine Hill built above the area of the future Roman Forum. Between the end of the bronze age and the beginning of the Iron age, each hill between the sea and the Capitol was topped by a village. However, none of them had yet an urban quality. Nowadays, there is a wide consensus that the city developed through the aggregation of several villages around the largest one, placed above the Palatine; this aggregation was facilitated by the increase of agricultural productivity above the subsistence level, which allowed the establishment of secondary and tertiary activities. These in turn boosted the development of trade with the Greek colonies of southern Italy; these developments, which according to archaeological ev
Guillaume Guillon-Lethière
Guillaume Guillon-Lethière was a French neoclassical painter. Born free in Guadeloupe in 1760 to a French colonial official named Pierre Guillon and a "mulatto" mother, Lethière has been written about in the context of French colonial history and the French Revolution. At 14 years old, his father took him from Guadeloupe to Metropolitan France. By the age of 17, Guillon-Lethièrehe had become the student of Gabriel François Doyen at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Lethière won second prize in the Prix de Rome of 1784 for his painting Woman of Canaan at the Feet of Christ, he entered again two years and while he did not win, he succeeded in receiving support to travel to Rome where he further developed his neoclassical style. Lethière remained in Rome for several years In 1791 he returned to Paris to open a painting studio in direct competition with Jacques-Louis David. In 1818 Lethière was elected and awarded the Légion d’honneur. A year he became a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts.
Among his students were Isidore Pils and Lithuanian painter Kanuty Rusiecki. Lethière was foster father to Mélanie d'Hervilly Hahnemann. B. Foucart, G. Capy and G. Flrent Laballe, Guillaume Guillon Lethière. Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, "Revolutionary Sons, White Fathers and Creole Difference: Guillaume Guillon Lethière's Oath of the Ancestors of 1822" Yale French Studies 101: pp. 201–226. T. Oriol, Les Hommes célèbres de La Guadeloupe, pp. 39–47. Media related to Guillaume Guillon Lethière at Wikimedia Commons
Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage
The conservation and restoration of cultural heritage focuses on protection and care of tangible cultural heritage, including artworks, architecture and museum collections. Conservation activities include preventive conservation, documentation, research and education; this field is allied with conservation science and registrars. Conservation of cultural heritage involves protection and restoration using "any methods that prove effective in keeping that property in as close to its original condition as possible for as long as possible." Conservation of cultural heritage is associated with art collections and museums and involves collection care and management through tracking, documentation, storage, preventative conservation, restoration. The scope has widened from art conservation, involving protection and care of artwork and architecture, to conservation of cultural heritage including protection and care of a broad set of other cultural and historical works. Conservation of cultural heritage can be described as a type of ethical stewardship.
Conservation of cultural heritage applies simple ethical guidelines: Minimal intervention. There are compromises between preserving appearance, maintaining original design and material properties, ability to reverse changes. Reversibility is now emphasized so as to reduce problems with future treatment and use. In order for conservators to decide upon an appropriate conservation strategy and apply their professional expertise accordingly, they must take into account views of the stakeholder, the values and meaning of the work, the physical needs of the material. Cesare Brandi in his Theory of Restoration, describes restoration as "the methodological moment in which the work of art is appreciated in its material form and in its historical and aesthetic duality, with a view to transmitting it to the future"; some consider the tradition of conservation of cultural heritage in Europe to have begun in 1565 with the restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes, but more ancient examples include the work of Cassiodorus.
The care of cultural heritage has a long history, one, aimed at fixing and mending objects for their continued use and aesthetic enjoyment. Until the early 20th century, artists were the ones called upon to repair damaged artworks. During the 19th century, the fields of science and art became intertwined as scientists such as Michael Faraday began to study the damaging effects of the environment to works of art. Louis Pasteur carried out scientific analysis on paint as well; however the first organized attempt to apply a theoretical framework to the conservation of cultural heritage came with the founding in the United Kingdom of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877. The society was founded by William Morris and Philip Webb, both of whom were influenced by the writings of John Ruskin. During the same period, a French movement with similar aims was being developed under the direction of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, an architect and theorist, famous for his restorations of medieval buildings.
Conservation of cultural heritage as a distinct field of study developed in Germany, where in 1888 Friedrich Rathgen became the first chemist to be employed by a Museum, the Koniglichen Museen, Berlin. He not only developed a scientific approach to the care of objects in the collections, but disseminated this approach by publishing a Handbook of Conservation in 1898; the early development of conservation of cultural heritage in any area of the world is linked to the creation of positions for chemists within museums. In the United Kingdom, pioneering research into painting materials and conservation and stone conservation was conducted by Arthur Pillans Laurie, academic chemist and Principal of Heriot-Watt University from 1900. Laurie's interests were fostered by William Holman Hunt. In 1924 the chemist Dr Harold Plenderleith began to work at the British Museum with Dr. Alexander Scott in the created Research Laboratory, although he was employed by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in the early years.
Plenderleith's appointment may be said to have given birth to the conservation profession in the UK, although there had been craftsmen in many museums and in the commercial art world for generations. This department was created by the museum to address the deteriorating condition of objects in the collection, damages which were a result of their being stored in the London Underground tunnels during the First World War; the creation of this department moved the focus for the development of conservation theory and practice from Germany to Britain, made the latter a prime force in this fledgling field. In 1956 Plenderleith wrote a significant handbook called The Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art, which supplanted Rathgen's earlier tome and set new standards for the development of art and conservation science. In the United States, the development of conservation of cultural heritage can be traced to the Fogg Art Museum, Edward Waldo Forbes, its director from 1909 to 1944, he encouraged technical investigation, was Chairman of the Advisory Committee for the first technical journal, Technical Studies in the Field of the Fine Arts, published by the Fogg from 1932 to 1942.
He brought onto the museum staff chemists. Rutherford John Gettens was the first of such in the US to be permanently employed by an art museum, he worked with the founder and first editor of Technical Studies. Gettens and Stout co-authored Painting Materials
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French Neoclassical painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style. Although he considered himself a painter of history in the tradition of Nicolas Poussin and Jacques-Louis David, it is his portraits, both painted and drawn, that are recognized as his greatest legacy, his expressive distortions of form and space made him an important precursor of modern art, influencing Picasso and other modernists. Born into a modest family in Montauban, he travelled to Paris to study in the studio of David. In 1802 he made his Salon debut, won the Prix de Rome for his painting The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the tent of Achilles. By the time he departed in 1806 for his residency in Rome, his style—revealing his close study of Italian and Flemish Renaissance masters—was developed, would change little for the rest of his life. While working in Rome and subsequently Florence from 1806 to 1824, he sent paintings to the Paris Salon, where they were faulted by critics who found his style bizarre and archaic.
He received few commissions during this period for the history paintings he aspired to paint, but was able to support himself and his wife as a portrait painter and draughtsman. He was recognized at the Salon in 1824, when his Raphaelesque painting of the Vow of Louis XIII was met with acclaim, Ingres was acknowledged as the leader of the Neoclassical school in France. Although the income from commissions for history paintings allowed him to paint fewer portraits, his Portrait of Monsieur Bertin marked his next popular success in 1833; the following year, his indignation at the harsh criticism of his ambitious composition The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian caused him to return to Italy, where he assumed directorship of the French Academy in Rome in 1835. He returned to Paris for good in 1841. In his years he painted new versions of many of his earlier compositions, a series of designs for stained glass windows, several important portraits of women, The Turkish Bath, the last of his several Orientalist paintings of the female nude, which he finished at the age of 83.
Ingres was born in Montauban, Tarn-et-Garonne, the first of seven children of Jean-Marie-Joseph Ingres and his wife Anne Moulet. His father was a successful jack-of-all-trades in the arts, a painter of miniatures, decorative stonemason, amateur musician. From his father the young Ingres received early encouragement and instruction in drawing and music, his first known drawing, a study after an antique cast, was made in 1789. Starting in 1786 he attended the local school École des Frères de l'Éducation Chrétienne, but his education was disrupted by the turmoil of the French Revolution, the closing of the school in 1791 marked the end of his conventional education; the deficiency in his schooling would always remain for him a source of insecurity. In 1791, Joseph Ingres took his son to Toulouse, where the young Jean-Auguste-Dominique was enrolled in the Académie Royale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture. There he studied under the sculptor Jean-Pierre Vigan, the landscape painter Jean Briant, the neoclassical painter Guillaume-Joseph Roques.
Roques' veneration of Raphael was a decisive influence on the young artist. Ingres won prizes in several disciplines, such as composition, "figure and antique", life studies, his musical talent was developed under the tutelage of the violinist Lejeune, from the ages of thirteen to sixteen he played second violin in the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse. From an early age he was determined to be a history painter, which, in the hierarchy of artists established by the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture under Louis XIV, continued well into the 19th Century, was considered the highest level of painting, he did not want to make portraits or illustrations of real life like his father. In March 1797, the Academy awarded Ingres first prize in drawing, in August he traveled to Paris to study in the studio of Jacques-Louis David, France's—and Europe's—leading painter during the revolutionary period, in whose studio he remained for four years. Ingres followed his master's neoclassical example. In 1797 David was working on his enormous masterpiece, The Intervention of the Sabine Women, was modifying his style away from Roman models of rigorous realism to the ideals of purity and simplicity in Greek art.
One of the other students of David, Étienne-Jean Delécluze, who became an art critic, described Ingres as a student: He was distinguished not just by the candor of his character and his disposition to work alone... he was one of the most studious... he took little part in the all the turbulent follies around him, he studied with more perseverance than most of his co-disciples... All of the qualities which characterize today the talent of this artist, the finesse of contour, the true and profound sentiment of the form, a modeling with extraordinary correctness and firmness, could be seen in his early studies. While several of his comrades and David himself signaled a tendency toward exaggeration in his studies, everyone was struck by his grand compositions and recognized his talent, he was admitted to the painting department of the École des Beaux-Arts in October 1799. In 1800 and 1801, he won the grand prize for figure paintin
Pedro II of Brazil
Dom Pedro II, nicknamed "the Magnanimous", was the second and last monarch of the Empire of Brazil, reigning for over 58 years. He was born in Rio de Janeiro, the seventh child of Emperor Dom Pedro I of Brazil and Empress Dona Maria Leopoldina and thus a member of the Brazilian branch of the House of Braganza, his father's abrupt abdication and departure to Europe in 1831 left the five year-old as Emperor and led to a grim and lonely childhood and adolescence, obliged to spend his time studying in preparation for rule. He encountered few friends of his age, his experiences with court intrigues and political disputes during this period affected his character. Pedro II inherited an empire on the verge of disintegration, but he turned Brazil into an emerging power in the international arena; the nation grew to be distinguished from its Hispanic neighbors on account of its political stability, zealously guarded freedom of speech, respect for civil rights, vibrant economic growth, form of government—a functional representative parliamentary monarchy.
Brazil was victorious in the Platine War, the Uruguayan War, the Paraguayan War, as well as prevailing in several other international disputes and domestic tensions. Pedro II steadfastly pushed through the abolition of slavery despite opposition from powerful political and economic interests. A savant in his own right, the Emperor established a reputation as a vigorous sponsor of learning and the sciences, he won the respect and admiration of people such as Charles Darwin, Victor Hugo, Friedrich Nietzsche, was a friend to Richard Wagner, Louis Pasteur, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, among others. There was no desire for a change in the form of government among most Brazilians, but the Emperor was overthrown in a sudden coup d'état that had no support outside a clique of military leaders who desired a form of republic headed by a dictator. Pedro II had become weary of emperorship and despaired over the monarchy's future prospects, despite its overwhelming popular support, he did not support any attempt to restore the monarchy.
He spent the last two years of his life in exile in Europe, living alone on little money. The reign of Pedro II thus came to an unusual end—he was overthrown while regarded by the people and at the pinnacle of his popularity, some of his accomplishments were soon brought to naught as Brazil slipped into a long period of weak governments and constitutional and economic crises; the men who had exiled him soon began to see in him a model for the Brazilian republic. A few decades after his death, his reputation was restored and his remains were returned to Brazil with celebrations nationwide. Historians have regarded the Emperor in an positive light and several have ranked him as the greatest Brazilian. Pedro was born at 02:30 on 2 December 1825 in the Palace of São Cristóvão, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Named after St. Peter of Alcantara, his name in full was Pedro de Alcântara João Carlos Leopoldo Salvador Bibiano Francisco Xavier de Paula Leocádio Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga. Through his father, Emperor Dom Pedro I, he was a member of the Brazilian branch of the House of Braganza and was referred to using the honorific "Dom" from birth.
He was the grandson of Portuguese King Dom João VI and nephew of Dom Miguel I. His mother was the Archduchess Maria Leopoldina of Austria, daughter of Franz II, the last Holy Roman Emperor. Through his mother, Pedro was a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte and first cousin of Emperors Napoleon II of France, Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary and Don Maximiliano I of Mexico; the only legitimate male child of Pedro I to survive infancy, he was recognized as heir apparent to the Brazilian throne with the title Prince Imperial on 6 August 1826. Empress Maria Leopoldina died on 11 December 1826, a few days after a stillbirth, when Pedro was a year old. Two and a half years his father married Amélie of Leuchtenberg. Prince Pedro developed an affectionate relationship with her. Pedro I's desire to restore his daughter Maria II to her Portuguese throne, usurped by his brother Miguel I, as well as his declining political position at home led to his abrupt abdication on 7 April 1831, he and Amélie departed for Europe, leaving behind the Prince Imperial, who became Emperor Dom Pedro II.
Upon leaving the country, Emperor Pedro I selected three people to take charge of his son and remaining daughters. The first was José Bonifácio de Andrada, his friend and an influential leader during Brazilian independence, named guardian; the second was Mariana de Verna, who had held the post of aia since the birth of Pedro II. As a child, the then-Prince Imperial called her "Dadama", as he could not pronounce the word dama correctly, he regarded her as his surrogate mother, would continue to call her by her nickname well into adulthood out of affection. The third person was an Afro-Brazilian veteran of the Cisplatine War, he was an employee in the Palace of São Cristóvão whom Pedro I trusted and asked to look after his son—a charge that he carried out for the rest of his life. Bonifácio was replaced by another guardian. Pedro II spent his days studying, with only two hours set aside for amusements. Intelligent, he was able to acquire knowledge with great ease. However, the hours of study were strenuous and the preparation for his role as monarch w
