Ecstasy of Saint Teresa explained

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
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Artist:Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Catalogue:48
Type:Sculpture
Material:Marble
Dimensions:Life-size
City:Rome
Museum:Santa Maria della Vittoria
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Mapframe-Marker:monument
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Preceded By:Raimondi Chapel
Followed By:Truth Unveiled by Time (Bernini)

The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (also known as Saint Teresa in Ecstasy; Italian: L'Estasi di Santa Teresa or Italian: Santa Teresa in estasi) is a sculptural altarpiece group in white marble set in an elevated aedicule in the Cornaro Chapel of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome.[1] It was designed and carved by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the leading sculptor of his day, who also designed the setting of the chapel in marble, stucco and paint. The commission was completed in 1652.

The ensemble includes at the sides two sets of donor portraits of members of the Cornaro family, who watch the main central group as though in boxes in a theatre. The group is generally considered to be one of the sculptural masterpieces of the High Roman Baroque. The sculpture over the altar shows Saint Teresa of Ávila, a Spanish Carmelite nun (1515–1582), swooning in a state of religious ecstasy, while an angel holding a spear stands over her, following her own account of a vision she had.

Commission

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 favourite artist of the previous and profligate Barberini pope, Urban VIII. Without papal patronage, the services of Bernini's studio were therefore available to a patron such as the Venetian Cardinal Federico Cornaro (1579–1653).

Cornaro had chosen the hitherto unremarkable church of the Discalced Carmelites for his burial chapel. 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 been canonised not long before, in 1622. It was completed in 1652 for the then princely sum of 12,000 scudi.

A small format terracotta model of about was created between 1644 and 1647. The sculpture represents the first embodiment of the project, with traces of Bernini's fingerprints still visible. The model belongs to the Hermitage Museum's collection.[2]

Sculptural group and its setting

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. Her experience of religious ecstasy in her encounter with the angel is described as follows:

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, e.g. Cardinal Federico Cornaro and Doge Giovanni I Cornaro, 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 coloured 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 wrote:

Interpretations

The effects are theatrical,[3] the Cornaro family seeming to observe the scene from their boxes,[4] 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 as both intentional and influential on artists and writers of the day.[5] Irving Lavin said "the transverberation becomes a point of contact between earth and heaven, between matter and spirit". As Bernini biographer Franco Mormando points out, although Bernini's point of departure for his depiction of Teresa's mystical experience was her own description, there were many details about the experience that she never specifies (e.g., the position of her body) and that Bernini simply supplied from his own artistic imagination, all with an aim of increasing the nearly transgressively sensual charge of the episode: "Certainly no other artist, in rendering the scene, before or after Bernini, dared as much in transforming the saint's appearance."[6]

Criticism

The sexual implications of the work have not gone unnoticed. It is considered "decidely risqué";[7] "the most astounding peep show in art";[8] and "the grossest and most offensive example of Baroque art."[9] The reason for its popularity "has a lot to do with sex."[10] [11] And by placing the sculpture in a theatrical setting, Bernini is accused of turning "a private moment into a very publicspectacle."[8] Victorian art critic Anna Jameson wanted it destroyed: "even those least prudish in matters of art, would here willingly throw the first stone."[12] [13]

Scholars who defend it against such criticism take one of three approaches, saying:

  1. Bernini faithfully followed Teresa’s description of the experience.
  2. The Church accepted that mystical union often involved erotic elements.
  3. There is no nudity in the statue.[14]

But Franco Mormando says "none of these defenses are completely accurate."[6] Simon Schama agrees: "Critics and scholars tie themselves in knots, trying to avoid stating the obvious."[15]

Similar works by Bernini

Influencing or influenced works

See also

References

Notes
Citations
Sources

Notes and References

  1. An alternative title as the Transverberation of Saint Teresa is sometimes seen on religious sites on the internet. The OED describes "transverberation" as obselete in English, with only one usage, in the 1880s. It means piercing through the breast, as Teresa describes in her vision.
  2. Web site: Hermitage Museum. The State. The Ecstasy of St Teresa. live. 24 March 2021. Hermitage Museum. https://web.archive.org/web/20210520000416/https://www.hermitagemuseum.org/wps/portal/hermitage/digital-collection/!ut/p/z0/Zc1Bb4IwGMbxr8IOHLf3ZbSN16ZLJmzIQqayXkjHgBW6FqFO46dXj8bjkzz5_UFCCdKqf90pr51V5rK_JKtyzlkUC0xzQV-Q58UHLcTqFSMCKcibA2UcORYxYZsMSUKuwvOUiawDOSr_-6ht66BcLaOiS95OtP9cL4Up0_fqoH-2whnT1Nf2HXxXvsC63-0kB1k765ujh3JQf3quGhviwU3DHLg2UJMPEdlTMNd7M_r91IRIyYIxGAf5TU33cAbdb63o/ . 20 May 2021 .
  3. Book: Greer . Thomas H. . Lewis . Gavin . A Brief History of the Western World: To 1715 . 2005 . Wadsworth Thomson . 978-0-534-64237-2 . 392 .
  4. Web site: Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Khan Academy. 12 February 2010. 15 June 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20100615073351/http://smarthistory.org/bernini-ecstasy-of-st.-theresa.html. dead.
  5. Web site: Caroline Babcock. academia.edu.
  6. Mormando . Franco . Did Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa cross a seventeenth-century line of decorum? . Word & Image . 2 October 2023 . 39 . 4 . 351–383 . 10.1080/02666286.2023.2180931 . 265241431 .
  7. News: Marshall . Lee . 2020-09-17 . Santa Maria della Vittoria . 2024-06-13 . The Telegraph . en-GB . 0307-1235.
  8. Bowden . Alana Louise . The Saint Behind the Sculpture: (Re)Interpreting Saint Teresa's Ecstasy through a Feminist Analysis of Bernini's The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa . Literature & Aesthetics . 2001 . 31 . 1 . 132–147 . 22 January 2024.
  9. Book: A Gift of Angels: The Art of Mission San Xavier del Bac . 978-0-8165-2840-0 . 20 September 2010 . University of Arizona Press .
    A Gift of Angels: The Art of Mission San Xavier del Bac (Southwest Center Series)by Bernard L. Fontana and Edward McCain | 20 Sept 2010, page 236
  10. Book: Weretka . John . The Ecstasy (?) Of Saint Teresa . 217–234 . https://books.google.com/books?id=o52fDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA217 . Beaven . Lisa . Ndalianis . Angela . Emotion and the Seduction of the Senses, Baroque to Neo-Baroque . 2018 . Medieval Institute Publications . 978-1-58044-272-5 .
  11. . Church . Chloe . 2020 . Annunciating the Word in Image: Visual Exegesis of the Annunciation to Mary (Lk 1:26-38) in Counter-Reformation Italian Altarpieces . 314 .
  12. https://arts.unl.edu/images/art/Awards/2020_Spring/Antje_Anderson.pdf
  13. Web site: A Furlough in Rome - Part Two . 2024-06-13 . robertspublications . en.
  14. Mormando . Franco . 2023-10-02 . Did Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa cross a seventeenth-century line of decorum? . Word & Image . en . 39 . 4 . 351–383 . 10.1080/02666286.2023.2180931 . 0266-6286.
  15. Book: Schama . Simon . Simon Schama's Power of Art . 125 . 2006 . BBC Books . London . 9780563487104 .
  16. Web site: Web Gallery of Art, image collection, virtual museum, searchable database of European fine arts (1000–1900). wga.hu.
  17. Web site: Truth Unveiled by Time. Official Site Borghese Gallery Bernini. https://web.archive.org/web/20051025125051/http://www.galleriaborghese.it/borghese/en/everita.htm . 2005-10-25 .
  18. Web site: Olson . Carl . Dan Brown Rushes In Where Angels (and Demons) Fear to Tread . Catholic Answers . 13 January 2024 . 4 January 2009.
  19. Web site: The Lie (Bernini's Saint Theresa) de Peter Hammill . 2011-10-20 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20120425082000/http://www.explosant-fixe.com/miscellanees/the-lie-berninis-saint-theresa-de-peter-hammill/ . 2012-04-25 .
  20. Web site: A Field Guide to Occurrences of Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa in Infinite Jest – Infinite Detox. Infinite Detox. 2009-08-20.
  21. Web site: Banksy. https://web.archive.org/web/20071021225445/http://www.banksy.co.uk//outdoors/images/landscapes/macdonna.jpg. dead. 2007-10-21. banksy.co.uk.

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