Concise, critical reviews of books, exhibitions, and projects in all areas and periods of art history and visual studies
October 25, 2019
C. D. Dickerson III, Anthony Sigel, and Ian Wardropper Bernini: Sculpting in Clay Exh. cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. 432 pp.; 437 color ills.; 35 b/w ills. Cloth $65.00 (9780300185003)
Exhibition schedule: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, October 3, 2012–January 6, 2013; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, February 3–May 5, 2013
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Bernini: Sculpting in Clay, installation view, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, 2013 (photograph provided by Kimbell Art Museum)

[See the multimedia review on Scalar.]

Thanks to a generous grant from the Mellon-funded Alliance for Networking Visual Culture in 2013, caa.reviews was able to complete a pilot project using the Scalar multimedia digital platform to create a “book” permitting its readers to experience virtually the 2012–13 exhibition Bernini: Sculpting in Clay (in its showing at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas). This fall, caa.reviews revisits the breathtaking Bernini exhibition by highlighting this multimedia project. The project features a number of elements, including an introductory essay; a video walkthrough that permits website visitors to experience the exhibition as if moving through galleries, circulating around vitrines, and looking closely at objects; a floor plan of the exhibition; comparative illustrations of some of Bernini’s finished works; educational videos on Bernini’s modeling techniques as seen in his bozzetti for the Ponte Sant’Angelo in Rome, on his Kimbell modello for the Fountain of the Moor, and on his transformation of the city of Rome; critical reviews by a scholar and an artist; an interview with one of the exhibition’s curators; and suggestions for further reading with links to books reviewed on caa.reviews (as well as to book reviews and articles on Bernini in The Art Bulletin). This project permits readers of caa.reviews and others who were unable to visit this important show to experience it in a number of ways enabled by the Scalar digital platform. It is my hope that the project will continue to demonstrate the usefulness of multimedia capabilities to enhance future exhibition reviews on caa.reviews.

Sheryl E. Reiss
Newberry Library, Chicago, Scholar-in-Residence, and former Editor-in-Chief, caa.reviews