Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

The Baroque period was an artistic style that started around 1600 in Rome, Italy, and then extended throughout the majority of Europe. The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep color, and grandeur, to make Catholicism more relevant in Europe. The baroque style impacted the iconography of Christianity such as the representations of “God”, and the finite imagery of Heaven and Hell that were symbolic and heavily encouraged by the Catholic Church.  The various forms of art created had given a sense of exceptional realism when associated with Catholicism because of the involvement of religious themes and direct emotional involvement. The Baroque style had wanted to convey a sense of awe within many forms of art. This style allowed Gian Bernini to portray the interaction between divinity and the human experience with euphoric meaning in his sculpture Ecstasy of Saint Teresa .

The Baroque style is characterized by exaggerated structural forms and clear detail used to produce drama, exuberance, and grandeur within any forms of art such as sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, and music. Baroque iconography during the Counter-Reformation was direct, obvious, and dramatic, intending to appeal to the senses and the emotions. During this period, the Counter-Reformation had created a dispute between the catholic and the protestants of what Christianity really means. In The Beauty of the Baroque Lloyd McCune states,” Baroque was also the hallmark of the Jesuits, whose motto, “To the glory of God,” is reflected in their churches, where the triumphal crescendo that thunders forth with angels flying about or perched on altars, columns or arches can often be observed” (McCune). Based on this quote, the connection between baroque style and Christianity was heavily appreciated in churches to promote faith and give a sense of realism when religion is involved, later allowing Bernini to be commissioned to incorporate these concepts.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (December 7, 1598- November 28, 1680) was born in Naples, Italy. During the Baroque era, he had focused on biblical Christian iconography along with Greek mythology figures that were displayed as paintings, sculptures, architecture with mediums such as oil paint and stone. The majority of Bernini’s commissions were given by religious figures, so a high percentage of his work was religious by theme and Bernini was always after the maximum theatrical impact. Indeed, along with his other talents, he was also a professional dramatist (Lubow). According to Eric Bess from The Epoch Times, Bernini had redeemed himself by sculpting the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa after a mishap during the construction of the basilica of St. Peter’s Cathedral. 

There is detailed imagery in the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa with Chirstain undertones. The sculpture was based on Saint Teresa’s telling of encountering the divine. Teresa of Ávila, who was a nun lived in 16th century Spain. In the center of  the Cornaro Chapel where the sculpture is located, there is a white marble sculpture that depicts Teresa, levitating on a cloud as she looks upwards towards the “divine light” that is surrounding her and there is an angel beside her. Saint Teresa is shuddering in ecstatic pain when she is pierced with the golden arrow of divine love by the angel delivering a message of God’s love. There is an audience added on the corner of the scene sculpted by Bernini with a box with seats, containing four men witnessing Saint Teresa’s divine intervention, watching her welcome the pain and God’s love (Warma). This view portrayed seems theatrical as there is a life-like action being played by a believer of her religion and a deity itself for all to see and observe how Christianity beliefs make one feel.

Bernini had wanted viewers to interpret the sculpture with intense and raw emotion by including aspects of theatrics to express religion and why follow those beliefs. The emotion and tension from the figures  relate to Italian Baroque Art that suggests the sculpture was meant to engage the viewer to inspire faith. According to Sculpture, theatre of the sublime, Francois Souchal states, “projecting matter into space, delimiting its presence there, the sculptor’s art is both defiant and symbolic. Drawing its vitality from a constant state of tension with the architecture that provides both its frame and its support, it has to assert its identity within its environment, and derives from this necessity a measure of its dynamism and its dignity”(Souchal). The image of  divinity was not the only factor to influence the audience of a close interaction but had allowed the theatrics of architecture space for all human existence to become spectators of a divine interaction.

Despite the historical events that had led to the sculpture of Saint Teresa’s experience with the divine, Bernini used the Baroque style to create a sense of awe through the illusion of architectural space to portray the interaction between divinity and the human experience. Along with how Saint Teresa’s experience with divinity would be shared and allow others to experience that tense moment. 

Citations

Bess, Eric. “The Pure Ecstasy of Saint Teresa.” The Epoch Times, Feb 19, 2019. ProQuest, https://search-proquest-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/docview/2185767097?accountid=9967. 

Lubow, Arthur. “Bernini’s genius: the Baroque master animated 17th-century Rome with his astonishing sculpture and architecture.” Smithsonian, Oct. 2008, p. 76+. Gale General OneFile,https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A188098580/ITOF?u=nysl_ca_dmvacces&sid=ITOF&xid=75d149ac. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

McCune, Lloyd. “The beauty of the Baroque.” International Travel News, Jan. 2000, p. 142. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A58566285/ITOF?u=nysl_ca_dmvacces&sid=ITOF&xid=5d48eee6. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

Souchal, Francois. “Sculpture, theatre of the sublime.” UNESCO Courier, Sept. 1987, p. 20+. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A6133925/ITOF?u=nysl_ca_dmvacces&sid=ITOF&xid=6fa62797. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

Warma, Susanne. “Ecstasy and Vision: Two Concepts Connected with Bernini’s Teresa.” The Art Bulletin, vol. 66, no. 3, 1984, pp. 508–511. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3050453.