Art Bernini's Bacchanal: A Faun

Art Bernini's Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children Gian Lorenzo Bernini was the son of a prominent artist and sculptor, Pietro Bernini, but his genius was quickly observed to surpass that of his fathers, and his skills were honed from a very young age by some of the best instructors in Rome. Despite this Italian heritage, however, Bernini's art also bears a strong relationship to the rococo style of the court of Louis XIV.

His brilliance was well-known before he traveled to the French court, and it is perhaps more correct and fitting to Bernin's memory to say that he influenced art in the court and helped the rococo style to emerge rather tan to suggest that his later art was influenced by it. The rococo style was an outgrowth of the ornate decorations that typified the Baroque period, and Bernini was one of the most prominent artists to straddle the two related eras.

His flowing figures and the celebrations of ecstasy or inspiration that are apparent in many of his works are at once emblematic of the artistic movements and styles of his time and the prime examples of the skills and effects that were sought during the Baroque and Rococo periods. In addition, his work characterized the later Italian Renaissance at least as much as it influenced the Rococo style in the French court.

Even his early works show a complete mastery of the style in which he was instructed along with his own innovations in both technique and subject. This is clearly shown in his sculpture Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children. One is immediately drawn into the use of vertical line in this sculpture. The flowing curves of both the faun and the tree climb as if they are still growing, giving the figures a sense of life and upward motion.

There are a few branches growing horizontally out from the tree low to the ground, but very little else interrupts the vertical flow and line of the piece. The line also creates a sort of liquid feeling to the sculpture that defies its rigid and fixed nature, as though it is a snapshot taken with perfect clarity of violent and not necessarily pleasant movement.

The use of line is closely related to the texture of the piece, which is soft and flowing and gives an appearance as paradoxically alive as the line use. Even he sleek and well-toned muscles of the faun do not appear overly hard or firm, but rather seem to be made -- quite naturally -- of flesh, with at least a slight give to it.

The flesh of the children, quite obviously modeled after traditional depictions of cherubim in Renaissance paintings, is even more soft and giving, with the plump roundness of their faces and limbs creasing at every bend and appearing almost pillowy in their dimensions, yet remaining impervious to any possibility of harm. But although the figures of the faun and the children make up the bulk of the sculpture, the texture of the piece as a whole is not defined by their flesh.

Rather, the vines and clusters f grapes on the tree give the piece its true softness and roundness. This is mirrored by the effect of the figures' hair. Both faun and children all possess curling flowing ringlets that seem to hang as loosely as do the grapes, emphasizing a sense of liberty in the work. The sense of softness and liberty bestowed upon the piece by the line and texture is oddly juxtaposed with the impressions created by other elements of Bacchanal: A Faun Teased by Children.

Most obviously, the piece is composed in a way that makes the faun's posture seem unnaturally contorted, as if the scene has moved beyond teasing and into torment. The extreme angle of the head and neck, especially with the backwards-arcing back, evince more of a struggle to get away than the softer elements of the sculpture suggest.

The same is true of the greedy leaning of the children and the almost bored expression on one of their faces, even as his arm stretches across the faun's head in a somewhat brutal and condescending gesture. The relationship of the figures to one another is the most oppressive aspect of the work. The extreme proximity of not only the children to the faun, but the faun to the tree, heightens the feeling of imprisonment that one gets from the faun.

The arm reaching up to grasp the top limb of the tree, the only part of the faun to even somewhat emerge from the crowded chaos of the piece, appear almost to be reaching out in supplication rather than with a sense.