Bernini in the Vernacular: Homeboy Can Sculpt

So my friend Evie and I are huge fans of the Drunk History videos on Comedy Central, and we started retelling the fun facts from our tours through churches and up volcanos in the same raunchy style. Some things in history are almost too ridiculous to believe: in the town of Alberobello they built their houses like little cones made of stones and no mortar because the lord didn't want to pay taxes. So when the tax collectors came they would knock all their houses over and hide in the woods until the tax men left. Brilliant. And in Otranto, they dug up the bones of 813 Christian martyrs and used them to build the walls of a chapel. I mean I guess that's an honor but dude, I died for you, can you just not touch my bones?

Anyway that all leads up to Evie heading to Rome a few months ago and asking me to write her a "drunk history" style guide to the art she was planning to see. I completely perverted my wonderful art history education to write a super inappropriate guide to some of the artwork in the Borghese and the Vatican. Below are three excerpts, all Bernini statues in the Borghese. It took me a while to be convinced to post this so read now and enjoy because I may chicken out and take it down soon. I apologize for the language but it's all in good fun!

God I hope none of my art history professors ever read this.

Apollo and Daphne- Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1622)

Ok I’m in love with this statue. Basically the story of Apollo and Daphne is that Apollo is the motherfucking sun god and he’s basically hot shit, and knows it. He gets with all the ladies cause he’s sexy and controls light and has a sick chariot and whatever. Anyway one day he sees this wood nymph named Daphne and he’s like DAMN GIRL “wood” nymph is right! So he comes down from the sky and he’s like hey baby what’s your sign and she is having none of it because she’s like asexual and she just wants to hang out with the trees. So then he starts chasing her around and she decides to pray to Diana, goddess of virgins, to “please turn me into a fucking tree so I don’t have to get with this fucking asshole” and Diana’s like "you sure? You’d rather turn into a TREE than fuck the god of hotness?" But she’s like yeah ok whatever and she turns Daphne into a tree and Bernini (my favorite sculptor) chose to depict that exact moment. He carved this shit out of marble when he was only 24 years old in 1622 and the guy who bought it, Cardinal Scipione Borghese liked it so much he commissioned a bunch of other sick statues.

Consent, brah.

David- Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1623)

If I could bang a statue, this would be it. I’ve had a huge crush on this David for years. Michelangelo’s may be more famous but he has weird eyes and a bit of a Justin Timberlake ramen hair thing going on. The story of David is that there was a giant named Goliath who was fucking everyone over and basically David killed him with a slingshot. Nice. I like to use words like “active” and “dynamic” and “forceful” in papers about this guy, because it really doesn’t seem like he’s a stone statue. This is the genius of all Bernini’s works, but you can especially see it in the musculature and intense facial expression of this David. Bernini used his own face as a model. I may also have a thing for Bernini.

Pluto and Proserpina- Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1621)

This is actually the first of the three Berninis in the Villa, and honestly I can’t pick a favorite. This one is also kind of rape-y because it tells the story of Pluto/Hades abducting Proserpina/Persephone because he’s like really horny and lonely in the underworld and he wants a main bitch. She’s like no! I like flowers! My mom, the goddess of wheat, would not be pleased to hear about this (Gretchen Weiners in ancient Greece). Her mom Ceres/Demeter asks Jupiter/Zeus to deal with it and so he makes a deal that she can come back to earth for half the year and that’s what spring and summer are. The sweet thing is that according to myth Hades and Persephone actually fall in love eventually. Anyway right now he’s just grabbing her and that’s like totally not ok to do, but look at his hand on her waist. Can you see the way the marble is carved to look like flesh? I think that may be the sexiest, most beautiful thing in all the art I’ve seen. Just the way her flesh is indented by his fingers. Absolutely incredible.

That's all folks!

I feel guilty and a little proud. Love you, Bernini. You my boy.