(March 8 2017) Gian Lorenzo Bernini has not fixed his place within the history of modern art, wich starting from Caravaggio's revolution, through Velázquez, Goya and Manet, arrives until the Impressionists and the avant-garde. The richest and most powerful artist of the seventeenth century, represented by some critics as an "artistic dictator", with his almost symbiotic relationship with the Vatican, the Pope and the Jesuits would not seem to be able to take part in this story of freedom. After more than twenty years of research, Tomaso Montanari may instead say otherwise "The freedom of Bernini. The artist's sovereignty and the rules of power" is the title of his the book (Einaudi), who will give a lecture on Thursday March16 (6.30 pm) at the Italian Cultural Institute of Munich. Moderated by Gabriella Cianciolo Cosentino. According to Montanari, Bernini has followed in his own way, the footsteps of Caravaggio with all his conflicts. The artist has been able to safeguard the sovereignty and independence of his art, sacrificing a part of his success. The work of Bernini appears to us today so alive and current because of these tensions. Since Bernini was able to free himself from many rules, his hands and his head became the only measure of his creativity, his studio became the lab's inception and the theater of freedom. How is possible to assert that theory? In "official" Bernini's biographies there are discrepancies that Montanari scours in a systematic way, to arrive to a new interpretative key. With his documentaries, trying to focus on a more complex and multifaceted Bernini, Montanari offers the results of his research not only to art critics, but to all, as the history of art is too important to be left only to historians. (Red)

ABOUT/ IIC

The foundation of Munich Institute of Italian Culture was opened in 1955; at first it was the "House of Italians", which was built towards the end of the thirties mainly thanks to the contributions of Italian importers of fruit and vegetables who lived around the central markets. In fact, the Italian Cultural Institute is located between the central markets and Theresienwiese. Probably destroyed during the war the building was reconstructed with Italian Government funds between the years 1954/1955.