Practice question · Multiple choice
Why do Bernini’s sculpted Cornaro family lean from carved theatre boxes on the chapel’s side walls?
Hints
- Think about where the real viewer stands relative to them.
- Bernini is staging an event, not decorating a room.
Show the answer
D. So the arriving viewer finds an audience already watching and joins it
Why
The boxes turn the chapel into a theatre with the vision on stage. You do not look at the artwork, you walk into it and become part of the congregation witnessing. That collapse of the boundary is the Baroque’s signature move.
Practise Baroque Art and the Counter-Reformation
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