Damned Soul

Damned Soul

Damned Soul, a marble bust created by Bernini in 1619, depicts a male face with a twisted, painful expression [1]. The eyebrows are deeply arched, the mouth is open revealing a full set of teeth, and the head faces the left as if looking away at something. The bust has unruly hair in large pieces appearing ablaze. Constraining focus to the face, the piece only includes the neck and collarbone of the figue, leaving out the shoulders and chest as is often done in other busts.

Commissioned in conjunction with Blessed Soul, the sculpture is one of Bernini’s early works - he began creating it at 20 years old. With lofty a goal of depicting the human soul in marble, Benini appeals to the human senses. Viewers can almost feel the heat from his flaming hair, hear his screams, and see the pain of the figure depicted. Bernini accomplishes this by capturing a moment of instantaneous motion though the uncomfortable rotation and grimace of the bust. This early work is a reflection of Bernini’s style at large - fleeting motion and emotion are captured eternally though form and figure.

Bernini’s son, Domenico Bernini, wrote that the older Bernini set fire to his leg to understand and capture the agony that would result from the pain. Similarly, some scholars have hypothesized that Bernini inflicted pain on himself in the creation of Damned Soul. Even suspected to potentially be a self-portrait, Damned Soul retains facial features referencing that of Bernini [2].

Damned Soul delineates how while a specific medium served as a tool for Bernini’s art, it did not constrain his intended message. Bernini broke boundaries and conventions of creating busts of restful poses, and captured an emotion that would more typically be captured through painting. His willingness to try an capture the human soul at such a young age is a reflection of his boldness and conviction as an artist. Bernini looked beyond the medium, which ultimately allowed him to “unite visual art”.

[1] “Damned Soul.” Damned Soul by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Accessed October 18, 2021. http://www.gianlorenzobernini.org/damned-soul/.

[2] Rowland, Ingrid D. “Bernini: He Had the Touch.” The New York Review of Books. NYREV, July 21, 2020. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/06/04/bernini-he-had-touch/.

Bernini

Montagu, Jennifer. “Bernini and the Unity of the Visual Arts.” The Burlington Magazine 124, no. 949 (1982): 240–43. http://www.jstor.org/stable/880696.

Rowland, Ingrid D. “Bernini: He Had the Touch.” The New York Review of Books. NYREV, July 21, 2020. https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/06/04/bernini-he-had-touch/.

“Damned Soul.” Damned Soul by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Accessed October 18, 2021. http://www.gianlorenzobernini.org/damned-soul/.

Piazza di Spagna,

1619

Meena Gudapati

Image of marble bust

Sculpture

Piazza di Spagna, Rome, Italy