What seemingly separates artists and great artists for me within this course is their ability to bring their creations to life. For example, the work I presented for our group presentations was the bust on Pope Innocent X by Alessandro Algardi, I found it interesting in reading that Bernini also did this same bust, but one of the aspects I first talked about in the presentation was the skill required to take something like bronze and bring it to life, much like Bernini does time and time again with each artistic piece we’ve looked at within this course. Admiring a great craft is a very simple thing to do, but with Bernini it’s really elevated to another level that makes him special as an artist. With that said, what makes this art important to study is that it’s a style of art that I’ve not necessarily seen enough of in the modern sense. Europe is littered with public sculptures from past centuries and while the United States has been removing some of the confederate variety, I think it’s a great shame that sculptures like Bernini’s that bring so much life and fullness to them, have seemingly fallen out of fashion and are not something we see covered across the United States as well. 
When we view sculpture and architecture, we are often viewing art from several centuries ago, and not necessarily admiring more modern artworks at the same level as those of the past. Of course, this same situation exists in other art styles, but in the context of Bernini one can’t help but feel like something has been lost over the years in losing an artist like Bernini to time. As students of art, we quickly realize that it’s easy to simply loo, admire artwork, and move on. However, it’s much harder and exciting to analyze even the finest details of an artist’s work, to try and get into their head and learn the why and how of each of their works. Applying this to Bernini, we see someone with an incredibly deep understanding of the human form and can follow a large portion of his artistic life in a way that helps students bring him down to earth a bit more, rather than merely idolize his craft. 
Even in Bernini’s simpler works such as portraiture of the pope, we still see a fantastic artist, but we also see some degree of relatability and something we may not necessarily always think about as viewers, simplicity. For all of Bernini’s ability to create and bring life, Bernini still delved into simpler projects such as immortalizing others rather than operating on creative liberties and whimsical aspects of mythology or religion. In having these works present and available to study, it helps paint a better picture of Bernini as someone that anyone could ultimately relate to if they tried, someone that still did simple work to help make a living, or provide their immense skill towards a cause worth engaging in. These aspects made Bernini well worth studying for myself, and particularly noteworthy as an artist that all students should at the very least scrap the surface of studying. 
