Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

Last updated

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
Ecstasy of Saint Teresa September 2015-2a.jpg
Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
Click on the map for a fullscreen view
Artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Year1647–1652 (1647–1652)
Catalogue48
TypeSculpture
MediumMarble
DimensionsLife-size
Location Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome
Coordinates 41°54′17″N12°29′39″E / 41.90472°N 12.49417°E / 41.90472; 12.49417
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 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.

Contents

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. [lower-alpha 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 been canonised not long before, in 1622. [2] It was completed in 1652 for the then princely sum of 12,000 scudi. [lower-alpha 2]

A small format terracotta model of about 47 cm (19 in) 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. [4]

Sculptural group and its setting

Wider view, including the Cornaro portraits, but omitting the lower parts of the chapel. Cornaro chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria in Rome HDR.jpg
Wider view, including the Cornaro portraits, but omitting the lower parts of the chapel.

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:

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. [5]

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:

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. [6]

Interpretations

The effects are theatrical, [7] the Cornaro family seeming to observe the scene from their boxes, [8] 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. [9] Irving Lavin said "the transverberation becomes a point of contact between earth and heaven, between matter and spirit". [10] 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." [11]

Criticism

The sexual implications of the work have not gone unnoticed. It is considered "decidely risqué"; [12] "the most astounding peep show in art"; [13] and "the grossest and most offensive example of Baroque art." [14] The reason for its popularity "has a lot to do with sex." [15] [16] And by placing the sculpture in a theatrical setting, Bernini is accused of turning "a private moment into a very public spectacle." [13] Victorian art critic Anna Jameson wanted it destroyed: "even those least prudish in matters of art, would here willingly throw the first stone." [17] [18]

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. [19]

But Franco Mormando says "none of these defenses are completely accurate." [11] Simon Schama agrees: "Critics and scholars tie themselves in knots, trying to avoid stating the obvious." [20]

Similar works by Bernini

Influencing or influenced works

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alessandro Algardi</span> Italian sculptor (1598–1654)

Alessandro Algardi was an Italian high-Baroque sculptor active almost exclusively in Rome. In the latter decades of his life, he was, along with Francesco Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, one of the major rivals of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in Rome. He is now most admired for his portrait busts that have great vivacity and dignity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gian Lorenzo Bernini</span> Italian sculptor and architect (1598–1680)

Gian LorenzoBernini was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teresa of Ávila</span> Roman Catholic saint (1515–1582)

Teresa of Ávila, OCD, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, was a Carmelite nun and prominent Spanish mystic and religious reformer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome</span> Roman Catholic basilica, a landmark of Rome, Italy

Santa Maria della Vittoria is a Catholic titular minor basilica and Discalced Carmelite conventual church dedicated to Our Lady of Victories in Rome, Italy, famously the home of Gian Lorenzo Bernini‘s masterpiece the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. The church is in the Rione Sallustiano, on number 98 via XX Settembre, where this street intersects with Largo Santa Susanna. It is located next to the Fountain of Moses and mirrors the Church of Santa Susanna across the Largo. It is about two blocks northwest of the Piazza della Repubblica and Teatro dell'Opera metro station.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sant'Andrea al Quirinale</span> Church in Rome, Italy

The Church of Saint Andrew on the Quirinal is a Roman Catholic titular church in Rome, Italy, built for the Jesuit seminary on the Quirinal Hill.

<i>Apollo and Daphne</i> (Bernini) Marble sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Apollo and Daphne is a life-sized marble sculpture by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, which was executed between 1622 and 1625. It is regarded as one of the artistic marvels of the Baroque age. The statue is housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, along with several other examples of the artist's most important early works. The sculpture depicts the climax of the story of Apollo and Daphne, as written in Ovid's Metamorphoses, wherein the nymph Daphne escapes Apollo's advances by transforming into a laurel tree.

<i>Sleeping Hermaphroditus</i> Ancient marble sculpture

The Sleeping Hermaphrodite is an ancient marble sculpture depicting Hermaphroditus life size. In 1620, Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini sculpted the mattress upon which the statue now lies. The form is partly derived from ancient portrayals of Venus and other female nudes, and partly from contemporaneous feminised Hellenistic portrayals of Dionysus/Bacchus. It represents a subject that was much repeated in Hellenistic times and in ancient Rome, to judge from the number of versions that have survived. Discovered at Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, the Sleeping Hermaphrodite was immediately claimed by Cardinal Scipione Borghese and became part of the Borghese Collection. The "Borghese Hermaphrodite" was later sold to the occupying French and was moved to The Louvre, where it is on display.

<i>Blessed Ludovica Albertoni</i> Artwork by Gianlorenzo Bernini

Blessed Ludovica Albertoni is a funerary monument by the Italian Baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The Trastevere sculpture is located in the specially designed Altieri Chapel in the Church of San Francesco a Ripa in Rome, Italy. Bernini started the project in 1671, but his work on two other major works—The Tomb of Pope Alexander VII and the Altar of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Peter's Basilica—delayed his work on the funerary monument. Bernini completed the sculpture in 1674; it was installed by 31 August 1674.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Maria in Traspontina</span> Catholic church in Rome

The Church of Santa Maria del Carmelo in Traspontina is a Roman Catholic titular church in Rome, run by the Carmelites. The bridge referred to is the Ponte Sant'Angelo. The church is on the Via della Conciliazione, the primary road of the Roman Rione of Borgo.

<i>Simon Schamas Power of Art</i> BBC television series presented by Simon Schama

Simon Schama's Power of Art is an eight-part BBC TV mini-series examining the works of eight artists, the context surrounding one of their works and the message they intended to convey with these. It was written, created, narrated, and presented by Simon Schama. The series was first broadcast in October 2006 on BBC2, and was aired in multiple countries from 2006 to 2008, even being translated to Persian and Italian. The series is presented in chronological order with the oldest artists being the earliest episodes and the most recent artists being the last episodes. The series looks at the following artists and works:

  1. Caravaggio – David with the Head of Goliath
  2. Bernini – Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1657)
  3. Rembrandt – The Conspiracy of Claudius Civilis (1662)
  4. David – The Death of Marat (1793)
  5. Turner – The Slave Ship (1840)
  6. Van Gogh – Wheatfield with Crows (1890)
  7. Picasso – Guernica (1937)
  8. Rothko – Black on Maroon (1958)
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea Bolgi</span> Italian sculptor

Andrea Bolgi was an Italian sculptor responsible for several statues in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. Towards the end of his life he moved to Naples, where he sculpted portrait busts. He died in Naples during a plague epidemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Italian Baroque art</span> Italian art movement

Italian Baroque art was a very prominent part of the Baroque art in painting, sculpture and other media, made in a period extending from the end of the sixteenth to the mid eighteenth centuries. The movement began in Italy, and despite later currents in the directions of classicism, the Rococo, Italy remained a stronghold thoughout the period, with many Italian artists taking Baroque style to other parts of Europe. Italian Baroque architecture is not covered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Marco in San Girolamo</span>

The Church of San Marco in San Girolamo is a baroque parish church in Vicenza, northern Italy, built in the 18th century by the Discalced Carmelites. It houses various artworks by artists of the early 18th century from Veneto. The sacristy preserves its original furniture of the same period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scalzi, Venice</span> Church in Venice

Santa Maria di Nazareth is a Roman Catholic Carmelite church in Venice, northern Italy. It is also called Church of the Scalzi being the seat in the city of the Discalced Carmelites religious order. Located in the sestiere of Cannaregio, near Venezia Santa Lucia railway station, it was built in the mid-17th century to the designs of Baldassarre Longhena and completed in the last decades of that century.

<i>Saint Bibiana</i> (Bernini) Sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Saint Bibiana is a sculpture by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It sits in the high altar of the church of Santa Bibiana in Rome. Bernini received his first payment for the work in 1624, and his final payment in 1626. A seventeenth-century print of the statue exists in the Teylers Museum, Harlem, the Netherlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Teresa degli Scalzi</span> Church in Campania, Italy

Santa Teresa degli Scalzi is a church in Naples, Italy, located in via Santa Teresa degli Scalzi, a wide street opened during 1806–1810, to connect the historic center of Naples to the zone of Capodimonte. The church is generally closed to the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes</span> Church located in Paris

Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes (Saint-Joseph-des-Carmes) is a Catholic church located at 70 rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built as the chapel of a convent of the mendicant order of Shoeless Carmelites. It is now the church of the Catholic Institute of Paris, a university-level seminary for training priests, and is also a parish church for the neighbourhood. It is dedicated to Saint Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary. Built between 1613 and 1620, it combines elements of Classical architecture on the exterior with a remarkable display of Baroque architecture and art in the interior. The chapel is open to the public at limited hours.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Teresa alla Kalsa</span>

The Church of Saint Teresa is a Baroque Roman Catholic church, located on Piazza della Kalsa, facing the Porta de Greci in the ancient quarter of the Kalsa of the city of Palermo, region of Sicily, Italy.

<i>Triumph of the Name of Jesus</i> Fresco painting by Giovanni Battista Gaulli

Triumph of the Name of Jesus is a 17th-century fresco painting by Giovanni Battista Gaulli. The fresco occupies the nave of the Church of the Gesù in Rome, with both fresco painting and stucco molding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madonna dei Rimedi, Palermo</span>

Madonna dei Rimedi is a Baroque-style, Roman Catholic Sanctuary-church, established and still affiliated with the Discalced Carmelite order, located on Piazza Indipendenza # 9, in Palermo, region of Sicily, Italy.

References

Notes
  1. ↑ Cornaro had reason to avoid burial in Venice, since his appointment as a cardinal by Urban VIII while his father Giovanni was Doge had created a furor in his home-city, which banned families from holding such powerful positions simultaneously.
  2. ↑ Corresponding to c. $120,000 [3]
Citations
  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. ↑ Boucher 1998 , p. 135
  3. ↑ "Italian Baroque Sculpture : Books : Thames & Hudson". Archived from the original on 28 December 2005. Retrieved 23 October 2005.
  4. ↑ Hermitage Museum, The State. "The Ecstasy of St Teresa". Hermitage Museum. Archived from the original on 20 May 2021. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  5. ↑ Teresa of Avila (1515–1582). The Life of Teresa of Jesus. Chapter XXIX; Part 17.
  6. ↑ Wittkower, Rudolf (1980). Art and Architecture in Italy 1600–1750, Pelican History of Art. p. 160.
  7. ↑ Greer, Thomas H.; Lewis, Gavin (2005). A Brief History of the Western World: To 1715. Wadsworth Thomson. p. 392. ISBN   978-0-534-64237-2.
  8. ↑ "Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa". Khan Academy. Archived from the original on 15 June 2010. Retrieved 12 February 2010.
  9. ↑ "Caroline Babcock". academia.edu.[ permanent dead link ]
  10. ↑ Boucher 1998 , p. 138
  11. 1 2 Mormando, Franco (2 October 2023). "Did Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa cross a seventeenth-century line of decorum?". Word & Image. 39 (4): 351–383. doi:10.1080/02666286.2023.2180931. S2CID   265241431.
  12. ↑ Marshall, Lee (17 September 2020). "Santa Maria della Vittoria". The Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 13 June 2024.
  13. 1 2 Bowden, Alana Louise (2001). "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. 31 (1): 132–147. Retrieved 22 January 2024.
  14. ↑ A Gift of Angels: The Art of Mission San Xavier del Bac. University of Arizona Press. 20 September 2010. ISBN   978-0-8165-2840-0.; 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
  15. ↑ Weretka, John (2018). "The Ecstasy (?) Of Saint Teresa". In Beaven, Lisa; Ndalianis, Angela (eds.). Emotion and the Seduction of the Senses, Baroque to Neo-Baroque. Medieval Institute Publications. pp. 217–234. ISBN   978-1-58044-272-5.
  16. ↑ Church, Chloe (2020). Annunciating the Word in Image: Visual Exegesis of the Annunciation to Mary (Lk 1:26-38) in Counter-Reformation Italian Altarpieces (Thesis). p. 314. ProQuest   2827703947.
  17. ↑ https://arts.unl.edu/images/art/Awards/2020_Spring/Antje_Anderson.pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  18. ↑ "A Furlough in Rome - Part Two". robertspublications. Retrieved 13 June 2024.
  19. ↑ Mormando, Franco (2 October 2023). "Did Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa cross a seventeenth-century line of decorum?". Word & Image. 39 (4): 351–383. doi:10.1080/02666286.2023.2180931. ISSN   0266-6286.
  20. ↑ Schama, Simon (2006). Simon Schama's Power of Art. London: BBC Books. p. 125. ISBN   9780563487104.
  21. ↑ "Web Gallery of Art, image collection, virtual museum, searchable database of European fine arts (1000–1900)". wga.hu.
  22. ↑ "Truth Unveiled by Time". Official Site Borghese Gallery Bernini. Archived from the original on 25 October 2005.
  23. ↑ Olson, Carl (4 January 2009). "Dan Brown Rushes In Where Angels (and Demons) Fear to Tread". Catholic Answers. Retrieved 13 January 2024.
  24. ↑ "The Lie (Bernini's Saint Theresa) de Peter Hammill". Archived from the original on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  25. ↑ "A Field Guide to Occurrences of Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa in Infinite Jest – Infinite Detox". Infinite Detox. 20 August 2009.
  26. ↑ "Banksy". banksy.co.uk. Archived from the original on 21 October 2007.
Sources
External videos
Nuvola apps kaboodle.svg Ecstasy of Saint Teresa
Preceded by
Ludovisi Battle sarcophagus 		Landmarks of Rome
Ecstasy of Saint Teresa		Succeeded by
Raphael Rooms
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.