My Kid Could Paint That

The Sickness Unto Death 
A Musically Guided Exploration of Artist's Struggle with Mortality
Curated by Aaron Dupuis

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Bust of Costanza Bonarelli, 1636-37

Leave it to Gian Lorenzo Bernini to stand out from the crowd. While the other artists in my gallery accepted death as the inevitable fact of life - the only sure thing about existing - Bernini rejects the notion. Perhaps, it was not his intention. Perhaps, I am giving the piece more meaning than the sculptor intended. However, this is largely what art history is about: applying meaning where they may be none. Indeed, that is what the reception of any art form is about. And so I posit that by creating the Bust of Costanza Bonarelli, Bernini not only paid homage to his mistress, but conquered death itself in the name of love.

Costanza Bonarelli was the wife of one of Bernini's assistants, and a participant in a heated affair behind said assistant's back. Bernini and Bonarelli's affair never came to the attention of her husband, but it did come to the attention of his younger brother, Luigi, who quickly made the love triangle a square. In response, Bernini beat his little brother near to death, and had Costanza's face cut up by an assassin. Yes, these events are horrific. Yes, they are based deeply in obsession. Yes, this is a story of love gone wrong. But it makes the Bust of Costanza Bonarelli all the more beautiful.

Bernini must have known that his affair must eventually come to and end. Either the husband would find out, or Costanza would lose interest. These things never worked. More over, beauty is fleeting. Costanza's looks would wilt with the passage of time, and the youthful face that Bernini so loved would be no more. And so, he sculpted her a love song, freezing her in time, forever young, forever beautiful. Age could not take her beauty away. Her mutilation could not either. Not even death could rob her of her looks now.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Costanza Bonarelli, 1637

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, a true artist, a man who would take solid marble and grant it life. His sculptures were as if the subject had truly existed before looking into Medusa's face. While he had already achieved a sense of magic through his other busts for Pope Urban and the Cardinal Scipione Borghese, Costanza Boneralli, was a work of its own genre. It was revolutionary for its time as Bernini continued to push the parameters for what the definition of busts was known at the time. While the Borghese bust had already stepped away from the traditionally formal expression, the Costanza was a work of passion. Simon Shama, Professor of Art History at Columbia University, said it was as if Bernini was "reliving his caresses, through his chisel." Just by observing the piece you sense the intimacy. The way her shirt half reveals her breast drives the sense of passion that went into this work. Bernini and Costanza were lovers.

This specific bust holds a four thousand year old soap opera series of events. Costanza was actually the wife to one of Bernini's assistants, but she and Bernini were engaging in an affair. Costanza was also messing around his Bernini's brother. Bernini was known to have "a low boiling point," so when he found all of this out... he wasn't too pleased. He got in a fight with his brother and sent a servant to Costanza's home, who promptly slashes her face, permanently disfiguring her. Bernini who had "cut stone to create beauty, had cut flesh to destroy it." This resulted in the Pope stepping in. The servant and Costanza were sent to prison, Bernini's brother was banished, and Bernini was sentenced to marry one of the most beautiful women in Rome.

What makes this piece so revolutionary is that this was not commissioned, Bernini was not attempting to please anyone. This also means that the work is completely done by himself, which should mean plentyt for someone who would divide the work amongst his assistants. There's been a great debate over what is actually Bernini's part within his work. The bust was entirely from his own visions and expression, something we rarely see up to this point. That's what sets this apart from Bernini's other stunning masterpieces.