- BerniniOur PickBy Andrea Bacchi and Anna Coliva
- Bernini and the Excesses of ArtOur PickBy Petersson, Robert Torsten
- Bernini: Sculptor and ArchitectOur PickBy Daniele Pinton
- The Life of BerniniBy Fillipo Baldinucci
- Bernini: Genius of the BaroqueBy Charles Avery
- Bernini: His Life and His RomeBy Franco Mormando
- The Art of EcstasyBy Robert T. Petersson
- Art and Visual Culture 1600-1850: Academy to Avant-GardeBy Emma Barker / Chapter 1 - Bernini and Baroque Rome
- The Story of ArtBy E.H. Gombrich / Chapter 21: Power and Glory I: Italy, Later Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
- Concepts of Modern Art: From Fauvism to PostmodernismBy Nikos Stagnos / For the influence of Baroque art on Modern art see chapter on Expressionism
Important Art by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini
Damned Soul (1619)
This bust was created early in Bernini's career when the artist was twenty one years old. It shows a man's screaming face, his features contorted with a wild expression of terror or even agony.
This piece was commissioned alongside another bust Blessed Soul, which portrays a young beautiful woman looking up in blissful joy. When placed together, these sculptures juxtapose a duality of human emotion, the opposing spectrums between being blessed or being damned. As this piece looked down toward hell, the other represented looking up toward God.
Damned Soul is believed by some to be a self-portrait. Bernini would have looked in a mirror and some believe he even cut his arm to produce the agonized expression on his face. Although produced early in Bernini's career, these works brought together many elements that would remain present in all of Bernini's future works such as religious salvation, intense human emotion, and technical skill in sensual depictions of the human body.
This dramatic depiction of the flesh was also new in art, contrasting to previous Mannerist styles, which often attempted to recreate ancient Roman and Greek traditions. In contrast to this, Bernini and other Baroque artists like Caravaggio and Rubens paved the way for a new way of depicting the human body with a new focus on sensuality.
The Rape of Proserpina (1621-22)
This sculpture depicts a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses in which Pluto falls in love with the goddess Proserpina and abducts her, taking her to the underworld where he reigns as king. Pluto is shown with a regal crown and scepter while the three-headed dog, Cerberus, is behind ensuring no one interferes. Pluto grabs Proserpina around the waist and thigh while she struggles to escape; she is pushing away his head while her other arm reaches out with helpless abandon.
In this work Bernini shows his fascination with depicting scenes in dramatic mid-action, inviting the viewer to witness the piece and become fully absorbed. His son Domenico described it as an "amazing contrast of tenderness and cruelty," seen in the details of Pluto's fingers pressing into Proserpina's thigh, creating an extraordinary illusion as the hard and cold marble seems soft and delicate in contrast with the violence. Art historian Daniele Pinton points out that the work is characteristic of Bernini's sculpture in "depicting not a figure but an event." Bernini attempts to freeze a moment in time and the action is suspended in the midst of the drama. His work was also often created with the purpose of being shown in the round in a large space, so that people could walk around it and encounter it through various perspectives. This was highly innovative for the time and infused a breath of fresh air into the genre.
This work is now seen as a Baroque masterpiece and has been referenced by contemporary artists such as Jeff Koons who recreated a stainless steel sculpture in its likeness.
Apollo and Daphne (1622-25)
Apollo and Daphne was completed when Bernini was twenty-seven and is similar to his The Rape of Proserpina as it shows a moment of violence. It depicts the instance, from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which Apollo, the God of Light and Poetry, is pricked with one of Cupid's arrows, causing him to fall madly in love with river nymph Daphne. Daphne was devoted to the goddess Diana and had pledged to remain a virgin for life, so when Apollo pursues her she calls to the river God for help. This sculpture shows the climax of the story when she is aided by the Gods and is transformed into a laurel tree to avoid Apollo's capture. According to the story, "Torpor seized on all her body, and a thin bark closed around her gentle bosom, and her hair became as moving leaves."
Bernini's mastery of movement and drama between the two beings was unparalleled in his time. His sculptures broke the tradition of previous Renaissance sculptures as Apollo's robe whirls around the figures encouraging the viewer to follow it around and the composition shows the progression of Daphne's transformation. Daphne is shown as a woman made of flesh and skin from behind, but only by walking around the sculpture can the viewer see that her hair and outstretched arm are growing leaves and roots. This creates a theatrical effect, a moment of intense action and emotion that shows Bernini's skillful handling of the marble.
Artist Peter Rockwell said that, "any sculptor who looks at Bernini's Apollo and Daphne can only come away astonished." His technical skill and innovation has inspired countless modern artists such as Ian Hamilton Finlay, who drew directly from this sculpture in his work of the same name.
Influences and Connections

- Michelangelo
- Donatello
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Pietro Bernini
- Luigi Bernini
- Pietro Bernini
- Luigi Bernini
- Giulian Finella
- Andrea Bolgi
- Jean-Antoine Watteau
- Francisco Goya
- Jacques-Louis David
- Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
- Francesco Guardi
- Giuliano Finelli
- Andrea Bolgi
- Nicodemus Tessin