Focus on Saint Longinus (Bernini) and analyze the Preparatory studies.
It is likely that the early bozzetto (a rough model made in terracotta), held in the Fogg Art Museum and dated to ca. 1631, was done by Bernini as he continued to work through various concepts for the final statue. However, the design used in the Harvard bozzetto was not the one used in the final statue; changes to the Baldacchino - the immense four pillared arch built in the centre of the crossing - influenced the Longinus design. "Instead of a figure of the Risen Christ," CD Dickerson writes, "the Baldacchino was now to carry a simple globe and cross. Therefore, as Bernini grasped, it no longer made sense for the Longinus to be looking up at the Baldacchino in a worshipful pose."A later terracotta sketch, held in the Museo di Roma, and rescued during excavation in the 1980s, is closer to the final design. The Museo di Roma model has been cut up into various pieces; the places of the cuts (along the right arm, drapery and torso) are the same as the divisions in the marble block on the final sculpture. This indicates Bernini used the model to calculate how the various blocks of marble could be brought to together to form a physically robust and seemingly complete whole.Bernini and his assistants are likely to have produced many more preparatory designs. The German artist Joachim von Sandrart counted 22 small models for Saint Longinus when he visited Bernini's studio in 1635. Additionally, there are another set of eight drawings in the Düsseldorf Museum Kunstpalast. Once the model had been agreed by the relevant parties, Bernini set to work on the sculpture, taking three years to produce the final design.
crossing bozzetto Harvard Baldacchino terracotta Museo di Roma Fogg Art Museum Bernini German Longinus Saint Longinus Joachim von Sandrart