Tag Archives: Simon Schama

bruegel: too busy for the cosmic rhythm

…The only concept of the nature of things that seems never to have occurred to Bruegel is our objective scientific one by which the cosmos becomes something physically explicable, and hence godless. As for Bruegel’s god, his religious affiliation can … Continue reading

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bruegel: cripple creek

At the popular level, Bruegel’s fantastic drolleries are taken at face value. A curious and delightful painter. At his true level, when these obvious charms are recognized as nothing but a pictorial skin, Bruegel is discoverable  as an extraordinarily complex … Continue reading

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bruegel: human foibles

…A sober philosophy of man’s place in nature… Bruegel’s recognition of human foibles never reduced him to bitterness, or at least never to any discernible in his group. From the mass of it we can deduce that he regarded misanthropy … Continue reading

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bernini: esoteric rome

After a lumpy and bumpy sojourn in Paris for six months, Bernini had realized that the locus of power had shifted to France; Louis XIV had assumed the mantle of chief patron of the arts as an expression and extension … Continue reading

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bernini: double down failure

Bernini’s trip to France was a double failure. Not only was the sculptor unable to impose his artistic views upon the Frenchand at the same time letting his frustration morph into a contempt and endless cycle of provocation and manifestations … Continue reading

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bernini: don’t let the sun king go down on him

Bernini’s six months at the French court. A total failure. The artist who believed his gifts came from god would inevitably clash with a king who considered himself crowned by god. A collision of two forms of divine right as … Continue reading

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Bernini:smoothing the bump on the bourbon shnoz

With Bernini perhaps the roots of heaven were made of stone. But Bernini and his short sejour in France at the behest of Louis XIV, was something short of heavenly and the divine…. …Nor could Bernini adjust to the customs … Continue reading

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bernini and the brief french kiss

Bernini spent nearly six months at the French court, but except for a marble bust of the king, which had been commissioned as an afterthought, the trip was a failure. It was a foregone conclusion that an artist who believed … Continue reading

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bernini from sun king to rome

In his fountain design Bernini returned to the Counter Reformation theme of the church triumphant, spreading through four continents , which were represented by personifications of four rivers- the Danube, supporting the papal coat of arms and accompanied by a … Continue reading

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bernini: rockin’ on with the counter reformation

Pope Urban VIII took a fatherly interest in his gifted protege. When Bernini fell ill, the pope visited him twice a day in his palazzo near the Piazza di Spagna and once came with sixteen cardinals, whose collective blessing was … Continue reading

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