Il marmo spirante : sculpture and experience in seventeenth-century Rome

Abstract

While the sculpted object is so

obviously carved from hard and lifeless marble, at the same time it has

the capacity to conjure up a seemingly living presence of soft,

undulating flesh, dramatic movements, and fluttering draperies. As its apparent life is persistently obscured by its materiality and its materiality denied by hints of life, sculpture challenges the beholder, is cause for confusion or frustration. This was no less the case in seventeenth-century Rome—in fact, the double character of sculpture and the manner in which the beholder coped with this was a central issue in contemporary discussions of art. This study explores the complicated interaction between beholder and sculpture in seventeenth-century Rome, asking how we may understand the manner in which the beholder engaged the sculpted object. Two lines of inquiry are adopted to approach this problem. In the first place a poetic discourse is reconstructed and analyzed, which, in the way it persistently thematizes the beholder’s intricate interaction with the sculpted object, provides a set of central concerns occupying contemporary beholders. And secondly, insights from modern-day psychology are applied to gain further understanding of the way in which beholders dealt with the complicated nature of sculpture.