| Artist | Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini |
|---|---|
| Year | 1647–1652 |
| Type | Marble |
| Dimensions | 150 cm (59 in) |
| Location | Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome |
The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (alternatively Saint Teresa in Ecstasy or Transverberation of Saint Teresa; in Italian L'Estasi di Santa Teresa or Santa Teresa in estasi) is the central sculptural group in white marble set in an elevated aedicule in the Cornaro Chapel, Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. It was designed and completed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the leading sculptor of his day, who also designed the setting of the Chapel in marble, stucco and paint. It is generally considered to be one of the sculptural masterpieces of the High Roman Baroque. It pictures Teresa of Ávila.
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The entire ensemble was overseen and completed by a mature Bernini during the Pamphili papacy of Innocent X. When Innocent acceded to the papal throne, he shunned Bernini’s artistic services; the sculptor had been the favorite artist of the previous and profligate Barberini pope. Without papal patronage, the services of Bernini's studio were therefore available to a patron such as the Venetian Cardinal Federico Cornaro (1579–1673). Cornaro had chosen the hitherto unremarkable church of the Discalced Carmelites for his burial chapel.[1] The selected site for the chapel was the left transept that had previously held an image of ‘St. Paul in Ecstasy’, which was replaced by Bernini’s dramatization of a religious experience undergone and related by the first Discalced Carmelite saint who had recently been canonized in 1622.[2] It was completed in 1652 for the then princely sum of 12,000 scudi.[3]
The two central sculptural figures of the swooning nun and the angel with the spear derive from an episode described by Teresa of Avila, a mystical cloistered Discalced Carmelite reformer and nun, in her autobiography, ‘The Life of Teresa of Jesus’ (1515–1582). Her experience of religious ecstasy in her encounter with the angel is described as follows:
| “ | I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.[4] | ” |
The group is illuminated by natural light which filters through a hidden window in the dome of the surrounding aedicule, and underscored by gilded stucco rays. Teresa is shown lying on a cloud indicating that this is intended to be a divine apparition we are witnessing. Other witnesses appear on the side walls; life-size high-relief donor portraits of male members of the Cornaro family are present and shown discussing the event in boxes as if at the theatre. Although the figures are executed in white marble, the aedicule, wall panels and theatre boxes are made from colored marbles. Above, the vault of the Chapel is frescoed with an illusionistic cherub-filled sky with the descending light of the Holy Ghost allegorized as a dove.
The art historian Rudolf Wittkower has written,
| “ | In spite of the pictorial character of the design as a whole, Bernini differentiated between various degrees of reality, the members of the Cornaro Chapel seem to be alive like ourselves. They belong to our space and our world. The supernatural event of Teresa’s vision is raised to a sphere of its own, removed from that of the beholder mainly by virtue of the isolating canopy and the heavenly light.[5] | ” |
The effects are theatrical,[6] the Cornaro family seeming to observe the scene from their boxes.,[7] and the chapel illustrates a moment where divinity intrudes on an earthly body. Caroline Babcock speaks of Bernini's melding of sensual and spiritual pleasure in the "orgiastic" grouping as both intentional and influential on artists and writers of the day.[8] Irving Lavin said "the transverberation becomes a point of contact between earth and heaven, between matter and spirit".[9] Given the sexualized imagery of St. Teresa's written account of the experience,[10] some critics have seen in the statue a depiction of physical orgasm; in particular, the body posture and facial expression of St. Teresa have caused some to assign her experience as one of climactic moment.[11] Jacques Lacan, for example, whilst discussing the female orgasm, said that "you only have to go and look at Bernini's statue in Rome to understand immediately that she's coming, there is no doubt about it." ("Encore," Sem. XX: 70-71)
Robert Harbison, however, has expressed his doubt that Bernini, a follower of the mystical exercises of followers of St. Ignatius of Loyola, would have intended to depict here an episode of lust fulfilled. Instead, Bernini aims to express the facial and body equivalents of a state of divine joy: "It is an astonishing passage that the post-Freudian reader cannot help sniggering at—doesn't the nun realize she is describing mainly sexual longings? Indeed, a few lines later she recognizes that it is like bodily seduction, but only as an opening or avenue for another kind of experience. Human sexuality or even the senses cannot have the primacy for Teresa or Bernini which they do for us. The shocking reciprocal movement which grabs our attention so forcibly is not intended as sensational; it aims to jar us into another place entirely."
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