89. Ecstacy of Saint Teresa. Cornaro Chapel. Church of Santa Maria Della Vittoria.
Rome, Italy. (3 images)
Gian Lorenzo Bernini. C. 1647-1652 C.E. Marble (sculpture), stucco and gilt bronze
(chapel)
Video at Khan Academy, Video on YouTube
the leading sculptor of his day
considered to be one of the sculptural masterpieces of the High Roman
Baroque
Bernini, who had been the favorite of Pope Barberini, was shunned by the
new pope
o Without papal patronage, the services of Bernini's studio were
therefore available to a patron such as the Venetian Cardinal
Federico Cornaro
Commissioned this for his burial chapel
12000 scudi (princely sum)
* Content:
an episode described by Teresa of Avila, a mystical cloistered
Discalced Carmelite reformer and nun
Her experience of religious ecstasy in her encounter with the angel is
described as follows:
o 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
* setting: 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 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 effects are theatrical
* Bernini aims to express the facial and bodily equivalents of a state of divine
joy (according to Robert Harbison, art historian)
