Like father, like son: Bernini's filial imitation of Michelangelo

• Autores: Carolina Mangone
• Localización: Art history: journal of the Association of Art Historians, ISSN 0141-6790, Vol. 37, Nº. 4, 2014 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Theorizing imitation in a global context / coord. por Paul Duro), págs. 666-687
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This essay explores how Gianlorenzo Bernini, celebrated during his lifetime as the 'Michelangelo of his age', constructed himself as Buonarroti's son and heir through imitation in his early sculptures. By setting a close reading of the michelangelism of Bernini's "St. Lawrence", "Aeneas" group and "David" against an analysis of Buonarroti's critical reception, this study aligns Bernini's emulation with Seneca the Younger's filial metaphor for good imitation wherein the resemblance between imitated and imitation evokes that of father and son. This widely adopted metaphor was applied by last sixteenth-century Italian art theorists in their advice to artist seeking to overcome Michelangelo's supposed inimitability. The filial mode operant in Bernini's sculptures engages this discussion, offering a visual commentary on his predecessor's example and on the nature of the father -son metaphor of imitation itself. By fashioning himself as a veritable 'son' of Michelangelo, Bernini ultimately remade his predecessor, an artist construed to be without (worthy) progeny, into a fecund 'father'.