Biographies - Contemporaries and Rivals
The Roman art world was marked by its diversity, but it was also riven by professional jealousies: Bernini had rivals. The virtual artistic dictator of the arts under Urban VIII and later under Alexander VII, for all his brilliance Bernini was a difficult man – vain, jealous, and at times petty. Passeri, writing later in the century, likened him to the mythical “dragon who ceaselessly guarded the Orchards of the Hesperides [who] made sure no one else should snatch the golden apples of papal favour. He spat poison everywhere, and was always planting ferocious spikes along the path that led to rich rewards.” (Translation Jennifer Montagu) We need not accept this biased portrait – but we must recognize that certain of his fellow artists believed it to be true.
Giuliano Finelli (1601/1602 -1653) had been Bernini’s assistant, responsible for much of the inimitable carving of his master’s sculptures. He felt Bernini cheated him of his due fame and set up on his own in the late 1620s.
Alessandro Algardi (1598-1654), like Bernini, was a sculptor and designer; contemporaries praised him, and modern scholars see him as one of the great artists of the period.
Francesco Mochi (1580-1654), a generation older than Bernini, was a distinguished artist who worked in a style personal to himself. He too was a bitter rival to Bernini.
This exhibition is an opportunity to see works by Finelli and Algardi together with those of Bernini. Much remains to be discovered about their reciprocal influence – for all their rivalry, the three men could also draw upon each other’s work. The sculpture of Finelli and Algardi, in particular, can be very similar, and this exhibit will allow viewers to compare busts by the two.
Finelli was born near the quarries of Carrara (Tuscany) where his father was was a marble merchant. He first trained as a sculptor in Naples before coming to Rome in about 1618. He worked in Bernini’s studio, where he was employed for his skill at carving, which rivalled – perhaps even surpassed – Bernini’s own. His portraits are marked by the superlative quality of the carving – Finelli took every opportunity to demonstrate his skill.
Algardi was born in Bologna and trained there before coming to Rome in 1625. A sensitive artist, he was a superlative, if restrained sculptor. Critics have traditionally seen him as a representing a more classical strand in Baroque art, in opposition to Bernini’s exuberant work. Algardi enjoyed papal favour under Innocent X Pamphilj, briefly challenging Bernini’s dominance. Among his most famous works is the bronze life-size sculpture of Innocent X, made in rivalry to Bernini’s marble statue of Urban VIII – a comparison that neatly encapsulates the animosity between the two artists and the two popes.
Contemporary sculptors looked to painting for inspiration, and the exhibition explores the complex relationship between the two media. Included are works by some of the leading Roman painters of the 17th century: Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669), famed for his frescos, Andrea Sacchi (1599-1661), represented here by two extraordinary portraits, and Giovan Battista Gaulli (1639-1709), best known for his enormous ceiling fresco in the church of the Gesù in Rome.