Saint Ambrose c. 1660

Curator: This is Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Saint Ambrose, housed here at the Harvard Art Museums. Editor: What strikes me is this sense of being caught mid-gesture; it feels so raw and unfinished, yet full of potential. Curator: The materiality really speaks to that—Bernini wasn't aiming for a polished, final form here. The terracotta allows us to see the marks of its creation, the traces of the artist's labor. Editor: Exactly! It's the working, the becoming, that captivates me. The folds in the drapery almost have a life of their own, swirling around him. Curator: The dynamism is certainly there, and the intentional roughness might prompt viewers to question the usual expectation of perfection in Baroque sculpture. Editor: A kind of beautiful vulnerability, perhaps, inviting us into the artist's own wrestling with form and spirit. Curator: Indeed. It’s fascinating how the means of production become so central to its meaning. Editor: It's made me consider the act of creation itself.