The Brooklyn Rail

For as long as sculptures have decorated buildings, sculptors have tailored their creations to their sites. The ancient world is littered with examples, such as the reliefs that rise up the interior walls of the monumental stairway of the Pergamon Altar, from around 170 BCE. Depicting a battle between the gods and giants, the figures spill into our space, with knees and other body parts deliberately carved so that they appear to rest on the same stairs we climb. We are immersed in the action—all part of the ritual of approaching the altar.

In the Middle Ages sculptors were no less sensitive to site. At Autun Cathedral, the tympanum relief above the entrance, carved around 1130 CE and depicting the Last Judgment, was designed with its height in mind. It is legible from the ground thanks to choices by the sculptor, including the use of simplified figures, elongated proportions, and deep undercutting, which helps to set off the forms in shadow. Moving forward to the Renaissance, Michelangelo was one of many sculptors who dealt with the exigencies of site when planning sculptures. Even his iconic David (ca. 1501–04) appears to have been designed with an eye to its intended location high on Florence cathedral—thus the exaggerated scowl, as well as the disproportionately large hand and head, possibly optical adjustments made to account for the steep angle of viewing and the properties of foreshortening.

The history of site-specific sculpture in early modern Europe reaches an inflection point during the seventeenth century with Gian Lorenzo Bernini, whose sculptures do more than respond to their surroundings; they use them for expressive means. The approach had already begun to crystallize by the time he was in his early twenties when he was at work on a series of life-size sculptures for his first protector Cardinal Scipione Borghese. Completed between 1621 and 1625, these are the Pluto and Proserpina (1621–22), the David (1623), and the Apollo and Daphne (1622–25)—three of the most revolutionary sculptures Bernini would ever produce. A key aspect of their originality is the extent to which the statues look to be moving. Bernini was able to heighten the illusion by considering how the statues were to be experienced as a result of their intended locations. Because they were not to be seen frontally at first, he was forced to think about how to maximize the secondary views.

To focus on the David, the viewer would have first caught sight of it after stepping into the room and turning to his or her immediate right, where it was set against the same wall as the door. This granted a view of the figure’s right side, which is not terribly coherent, with David’s face covered by his shoulder and the overall action indiscernible. As the viewer walks in front of the sculpture, however, the view resolves itself, and there is also the effect that the statue gains movement. The viewer’s own motion becomes responsible for revealing David’s motion and the pent-up energy that is about to be translated to the taut sling and the missile that is about to be hurled at Goliath. What is more, as the narrative coalesces, the viewer cannot help but wonder where Goliath stands, as he would seem to be lurking in the same room, which only intensifies the sculpture’s emotional force.

The stakes would shortly grow much higher for Bernini, as he transitioned from producing life-size statues for domestic spaces to orchestrating a complete redecoration of the vast area under the dome of the holiest building in Catholicism, Saint Peter’s Basilica. He started with the enormous altar canopy known as the Baldacchino and then turned his attention to the surrounding walls, where he worked with three other sculptors to carve for each of the four pier niches a colossal freestanding statue of a saint. His contribution was the Saint Longinus (1635–38), which he knew must respond to its space or risk being made irrelevant. His solution was twofold. He chose to depict Longinus at the moment of his conversion when he looks at the cross and recognizes Christ as the son of God, and his body becomes electrified. The heavenly light streaming through the top of the dome becomes the focus of Longinus’s gaze, which serves to extend the statue’s presence across the immense distance of the basilica’s crossing. Bernini also took into account the vastness of the space with the drapery, which flaps with an unprecedented ferocity. While obscuring Longinus’s body, it reinforces the spiritual charge he is experiencing—and no viewer can escape the shockwaves even from the other side of the building.

The rest of Bernini’s career, which lasted until his death in 1680, was full of other essays in harmonizing sculpture with site. These increasingly represented efforts to blur the distinction between architecture and sculpture, as with The Vision of Constantine (1670), which sits at the base of the Scala Regia, the monumental staircase Bernini designed to serve as the ceremonial entrance to the Vatican. Bernini’s goal with the sculpture, which portrays the ruler on horseback, was to convey Constanine’s astonishment on seeing the golden cross in the sky that signaled his conversion to Christianity. The site proved an enormous help. It allowed Bernini to anchor the sculpture to the back wall so that he could depict the horse in the act of rearing. The back wall also gave him a way to set the sculpture in front of the massive windswept drapery, which reinforces the sense that horse and rider have been caught in a sudden, transcendent moment. Finally there is the arched window where Constantine focuses his gaze high above. Because it remains hidden to the viewer as he or she approaches the sculpture, the light falling on Constantine looks to be especially mysterious, or divine—all part of the narrative. Here as elsewhere Bernini has created theater, bringing audience, stage, and actor together into purposeful dialogue.