A History of Sculpture

by Ernest Henry Short

SAINT THERESA

S. Maria della Vittoria, Rome

But Giovanni Bologna, like Cellini, worked at a time when the force of the humanistic revival had spent itself. He lacked two things, either of which might have placed him among the immortals. One was the perfection of taste which kept Praxiteles in the straight way. The other was the philosophic depth which saved Michael Angelo from overstepping the bounds that separate noble from ignoble art.

As it was, Giovanni Bologna’s craftsmanship continually led him astray. He preferred to master a technical difficulty rather than to find the one design which would vitalize an idea or emotion of real worth. The consequence was such a work as the well-known “[Rape of the Sabine Women].” Primarily this group is a study in the contrast between the strength and vigour of the male form and the shrinking softness of the female. The knotty muscles of the man are sharply contrasted with the soft flesh of the woman whom he bears off. The work is full of beauties, whether we regard it as a design or a piece of modelling. It was the precursor of a long line of similar statues, particularly in France, where the influence of Giovanni Bologna was considerable. “The Rape of Proserpine” by Girardon at Versailles is a good example.

But Giovanni Bologna’s “Rape of the Sabines,” considered as an incident in the history of sculpture, is superfluous. The world is surfeited with examples of the magnificent conquest of technical difficulties. Looking at it critically, we are struck with the qualities it lacks rather than with the qualities it possesses. In a sentence, it witnesses to the characteristics of the age for which Giovanni Bologna worked—its material outlook, and its utter neglect of that side of human experience which, for want of a better word, we call spiritual or divine.

It is with Giovanni Bologna as with Benvenuto Cellini. Some source of inspiration is lacking. Both have lost the habit of artistic worship. They no longer regard every blow of the chisel as in a very real sense forwarding some extra human end. The statue to them is a statue—nothing more. This had not always been the case. As we know it was no empty phrase when Michael Angelo began one of his sonnets with the words:

“When that which is divine in us doth try To shape a face, both brain and hand unite To give, from a mere model frail and slight, Life to the stone by Art’s free energy.”

BERNINI AND THE CATHOLIC REACTION

Angelo really did believe in the divinity of his art. So did the artists of the age succeeding Cellini, Giovanni Bologna, and Sansovino. And it is this fact which adds an absorbing interest to the sculpture of the period dominated by the counter reformation which the sculpture of the previous half-century did not possess. The painters and sculptors who came under the influence of the wave of religious enthusiasm known as the Catholic Reaction fully realized that their efforts were forwarding a great ideal. The patrons for whom they worked, and the men and women to whom they appealed also felt that art which dealt with such matters was of real consequence.

Looking at the problem after the centuries have cleared the air of the dust of dogmatic discussion, we can see that a lasting settlement of the religious controversy had become a necessity for every country of Europe. We now know that, for one reason and another, peace could only be secured upon a foundation of Protestantism in Scandinavia, in Northern Germany, England, and Scotland. Over the greater part of Southern Europe, Catholicism was finally proved to be essential. Spain, Italy, France, ten of the seventeen provinces of the United Netherlands, Poland, Bohemia and South Germany either declined to be seduced from the authority of the Pope, or eventually returned to the fold.