The rape of Proserpina by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo #Bernini is one of the most emotionally engaging sculptures ever made.

☞ Do you know…

‣ The story, taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, tells of the #beautiful Proserpina, so beautiful that Pluto – King of the Underworld – falls in love at first glance and at the same time decides to kidnap and take her to the Afterlife with him. So Jupiter, the girl’s father, and Pluto establish that she would lived on earth for six months, with her mother Ceres – Goddess of fertility – and six months forced into #Darkness alongside her hated spouse.
This is the mythological explanation of the #seasons : abundance and harvest during the middle of the year that Ceres is with her daughter when she’s free to run around the fields; while cold, frost and famine during Proserpina’s “imprisonment”

‣ The strong visual impact and the incredible theatricality of the work are rendered by two main elements: the beauty of Carrara #marble worked with extreme mastery by Bernini as opposed to the brutality of the scene and the realism given by the attention to detail, typical of Mannerism , used on the one hand to describe the vile cruelty in the male figure, on the other hand so much weakness and #suffering in that female one

#Artgenderpics #RattodiProserpina

#GianLorenzoBernini #art #sculpture #arte #scultura #TheRapeofProserpina #artlovers #artoftheday #dailyart #italianartist #masterpiece #history #story #season #amazing #igart #studygram #studying #education #Goddess #Pluto #mythology

⇒ Date: 1621 – 1622

⇒ Material: Carrara Marble

⇒ Dimensions: 225 cm (89 in)

⇒ Site: Galleria Borghese, Rome