Critical Assessment Focusing on Ecstasy of St. Teresa
St. Teresa was a popular figure during Bernini's time, she was canonized in 1622. Her most famous vision is depicted in the prime feature in the Cappela Cornavo. "She described how the angel pierced her heart repeatedly with a flaming golden arrow, whereupon, she continued, 'the pain was so great that I screamed allowed; but simultaneously I felt such infinite sweetness that I wished the pain to last eternally. It was not bodily, but physical pain, although it affected to a certain extent also the body. It was the sweetest caressing of the soul of god.'" The episode is set in marble, and St. Teresa rests on a cloud of untamed stone, contrasting with the smooth marble. The Saint appears to be almost falling off this stone. The angel theatrically keeps her in place with only two delicately placed fingers, further dramatizing the piece. The only outside light filters through yellow tinted glass, out of plain sight. The light comes from directly overhead the figures and helps define the marble in dramatic light and shadow. Marble on-lookers watch in amazement from Opera boxes carved from the sides of the cathedral (Opera was popularized during the Baroque period). The fact the Bernini shows the most dramatic moment of Teresa's visions, and then displays it just a s it would be in a theater, very realistically, is in of itself very typically Baroque.(3) The viewer has an interesting relation to the marble audience and the centerpiece. All viewers, marble or otherwise, are in a different unreality than the Saint and angel. "It is the suggestive characterization, within on integrated whole, of the different realms of man, saint and godhood that substantiates belief in the existence of this mystic hierarchy of things. Like the Cornaro family, the worshipper participates in the supra-human mystery shown on the alter, and if he yield entirely to the elaborate directives given the artist, he will step beyond the narrow limits of his own existence and be entranced with the causality of an enchanted world." The fanciful aura is created by the worshipers being accompanied by the art in viewing sainthood viewing godhood.(3)
To the modern viewer, St. Teresa's Ecstasy appears perverse in nature. St. Teresa's own testimony of of being penetrated with the burning love/pain of god coupled with Bernini's sculpture displaying her body and facial expressions accordingly , cause some to assign her experience as lustful.(1) In a pre-Freudian world, it was difficult to determine regular joy from lust in some artwork. Additionally, it is doubtful Bernini would depict the Saint this way, considering he practiced the same method of spiritual exercise. Bernini was most probably attempting to convey an expression of divine joy.(2)
