Visible Spirit

As early as the 1950s, Professor Irving Lavin was -recognized as a major voice in American art history. His sustained production of seminal scholarly contributions has left its mark on an astonishingly wide range of subjects and fields. Bringing these far-reaching publications together will not only provide a valuable resource to scholars and students, but will also underscore fundamental themes in the history of art - historicism, the art of commemoration, the relationship between style and meaning, the -intelligence of artists - themes that define the role of the visual arts in human communication. Irving Lavin is best known for his array of fundamental publications on the Baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). These include new discoveries and studies on the master's prodigious childhood, his architecture and portraiture, his invention of caricature, his depictions of religious faith and political leadership, his work in the theatre, his attitude toward death and the role of the artist in the creation of a modern sense of social responsibility. All of Professor Lavin's papers on Bernini are here brought together in three volumes. The studies have been reset and in many cases updated, and there is a comprehensive index. Volume II Contents: Bernini and Antiquity - The Baroque Paradox. A Poetical View Bernini's Portraits of No-Body Bernini's Bust of Francesco I d'Este. "Impresa quasi impossibile" Bernini's Bust of the Medusa: An Awful Pun Bernini's Bust of the Savior and the Problem of the Homeless in Seventeenth-Century Rome Bernini's Image of the Ideal Christian Monarch Bernini's Bumbling Barberini Bees Bernini-Bozzetti: One More, One Less. A Berninesque Sculptor in Mid-Eighteenth Century France Bernini's Death Visions of Redemption The Rome of Alexander VII. Bernini and the Reverse of the Medal The Young Bernini "Bozzetto Style": The Renaissance Sculptor's Handiwork The Regal Gift. Bernini and his Portraits of Royal Subjects Urbanitas urbana . The Pope, the Artist, and the Genius of the Place Index.