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The Ecstasy of St Theresa (alternatively St. Teresa in Ecstasy or Transverberation of St. Teresa) is the central marble group of a sculpture complex designed and completed by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini for the Cornaro Chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria
Santa Maria della Vittoria

Santa Maria della Vittoria is a small basilica churches of Rome Rome, on Via XX Settembre....
 in Rome
Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
. It is one of the sculptural masterpieces of High Roman Baroque
Baroque

In the the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural Epoch , starting roughly at the beginning of the 17th century in Rome, Italy. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in Baroque sculpture, Baroque painting, literature, Baroque dance, and Baroque music....
.

The entire ensemble was overseen and completed by a mature Bernini during the Pamphili
Pamphili

The Pamphili are one of the Papal families deeply entrenched in Roman politics of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Pamphilj originated in Gubbio and went to Rome under the pontificate of Pope Innocent VIII ....
 papacy of Innocent X.






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The Ecstasy of St Theresa (alternatively St. Teresa in Ecstasy or Transverberation of St. Teresa) is the central marble group of a sculpture complex designed and completed by Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini for the Cornaro Chapel of Santa Maria della Vittoria
Santa Maria della Vittoria

Santa Maria della Vittoria is a small basilica churches of Rome Rome, on Via XX Settembre....
 in Rome
Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
. It is one of the sculptural masterpieces of High Roman Baroque
Baroque

In the the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural Epoch , starting roughly at the beginning of the 17th century in Rome, Italy. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in Baroque sculpture, Baroque painting, literature, Baroque dance, and Baroque music....
.

The entire ensemble was overseen and completed by a mature Bernini during the Pamphili
Pamphili

The Pamphili are one of the Papal families deeply entrenched in Roman politics of the 16th and 17th centuries. The Pamphilj originated in Gubbio and went to Rome under the pontificate of Pope Innocent VIII ....
 papacy of Innocent X. During this time, the sculptor's past involvement with the profligate expenses of the prior Barberini
Barberini

The Barberini are a family of the Italian people nobility that rose to prominence in 17th century Rome. Their influence peaked with the election of Cardinal Maffeo Barberini to the papal throne in 1623, as Pope Urban VIII....
 papacy had disgraced Bernini and deprived him of much Vatican patronage. The services of Bernini's studio were thus available to a patron such as the Venetian Cardinal Federico Cornaro (1579-1673). Cornaro had chosen the otherwise nondescript church of the Discalced Carmelites
Discalced Carmelites

The Discalced Carmelites, or Barefoot Carmelites, is a Catholic Church mendicant order with roots in the hermit of the Desert Fathers. The order was established in 1593, pursuant to the reform of the Carmelites by two Spain saints, St....
 for his burial chapel. He had reason to avoid burial in Venice, since his appointment as a cardinal by Urban VIII (Barberini) while his father Giovanni was Doge had created a furor in his home-city, which banned families from holding such powerful positions simultaneously. The chapel chosen had previously depicted St. Paul in Ecstasy, and the Cardinal replaced it with the ecstatic event undergone by the first Carmelite saint, recently canonized in 1622.

It was completed in 1652 for the then exorbitant sum of 12,000 scudi
Italian scudo

The scudo was the name for a number of coins used in Italy until the 19th century. The name, like that of the French ?cu and the Spanish escudo and Portuguese escudo, was derived from the Latin scutum ....
 (c. $120,000).

The chapel is an explosion of colored marble, metal, and detail. Light filters though a window above Teresa, underscored by gilded rays. The dome is frescoed with the illusionistic cherub-filled sky with the descending light of the Holy Ghost allegorized as a dove. On the side walls are life-size reliefs of the Cornaro family, present and discussing the event.

The two focal sculptural figures derive from an episode described by Teresa of Avila
Teresa of Ávila

Saint Teresa of ?vila, also called Saint Teresa of Jesus, baptized as Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada, was a prominent Spanish mystics, Carmelites nun, and writer of the Counter Reformation....
 in her autobiography, The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (1515-1582), a mystical cloistered Discalced Carmelite reformer and nun. The chapter describes divine visions, including one where she saw a young, beautiful, and lambent angel standing aside her body:

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.


Critical assessment

Some modern critics have derided the semi-syncopal religious experiences as veiled orgasmic phenomena rather than spiritual encounters. However, Robert Harbison has expressed his doubt that Bernini, a follower of the mystical exercises of followers of St. Ignatius of Loyola, would have intended to depict here an episode of lust fulfilled. Instead, Bernini aims to express the facial and body equivalents of a state of divine joy.

Teresa is experiencing a transfiguring coma, the Sleep of God, described by mystics, in which a glimpse of glory is received. Mystics like Teresa would pray for days, often unfed, to achieve such visions. It would have not been unusual for devout daily church-goer like Bernini to spend hours at prayer each day, seeking this experience. The expression here is more like that of the joy of heavenly encounter found in Bernini's Blessed Ludovica Albertoni
Beata Ludovica Albertoni

The monument to the Beata Ludovica Albertoni is a sculpture group by the baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It was commissioned from Bernini by Cardinal Paluzzi degli Albertoni, who had taken the name Altieri after the elevation of a kinsman of his family by marriage, Pope Clement X ....
 in her deathbed.

This scenographic chapel unites lifelong themes for Bernini. True to Baroque sentiment, it illustrates a moment where divinity intrudes on an earthly body. Irving Lavin said the transverberation becomes a point of contact between earth and heaven, between matter and spirit. But the dichotomy of the conceit in this artwork echoes further in conjoining joy and pain in Teresa's expression and the conjunction of gilded rays with rippled stone. The unity of architecture, theater, and sculpture found in this complex is a quintessential baroque feature, with the Holy Ghost as light bathing or guided by the gilded rays framing the stature from windows atop the chapel, allowing the sky to enter church.

The effects are theatrical, including the discourse the saint renders among the flanking Cornaro pedigree. The cherubic details around Teresa may repel a secular minimalist, yet they add to the notion that we are seeing a moment of time where God has intruded into one woman's soul, if not pierced her literal body.

Similar works by Bernini

  • See also entry titled Bernini's Cornaro chapel: the complete work of art
    Baroque

    In the the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural Epoch , starting roughly at the beginning of the 17th century in Rome, Italy. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in Baroque sculpture, Baroque painting, literature, Baroque dance, and Baroque music....
     found in the Baroque
    Baroque

    In the the arts, the Baroque was a Western cultural Epoch , starting roughly at the beginning of the 17th century in Rome, Italy. It was exemplified by drama and grandeur in Baroque sculpture, Baroque painting, literature, Baroque dance, and Baroque music....
     section.
  • Death of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni
    Beata Ludovica Albertoni

    The monument to the Beata Ludovica Albertoni is a sculpture group by the baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It was commissioned from Bernini by Cardinal Paluzzi degli Albertoni, who had taken the name Altieri after the elevation of a kinsman of his family by marriage, Pope Clement X ....
     (1671-74) - San Francesco a Ripa
    San Francesco a Ripa

    San Francesco a Ripa is a churches of Rome. It is dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi because the adjacent convent hosted his visit to Rome in 1229, while the term Ripa refers to the nearby river-edge of the Tiber....
    , Rome.
  • Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence (1614-15)
  • Truth Unveiled by Time
    Truth Unveiled by Time (Bernini)

    Truth Unveiled by Time was a 1645 sculpture by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. It was intended to show Truth allegory as a naked young woman being unveiled by a figure of Time above her, but the figure of Time was not executed ....
     (1646-52) - Galleria Borghese
    Galleria Borghese

    The Borghese Gallery in Rome is an art gallery housed in the former Villa Borghese Pinciana, a building that was from the first integral with its gardens, nowadays considered quite separately by tourists as the Villa Borghese gardens....
    , Rome
    Rome

    Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
    .


Works influencing or influenced by this sculpture

  • Stefano Maderno
    Stefano Maderno

    Stefano Maderno was an Italy sculpture....
    's sculpture of St Cecilia in namesake church
    Santa Cecilia in Trastevere

    Santa Cecilia in Trastevere is a 5th century Churches of Rome Rome, located in the Trastevere rioni of Rome and devoted to Saint Cecilia....
     (1600).
  • Melchiorre Caffà
    Melchiorre Caffà

    Melchiorre Caf? was a sculpture from Malta. Caf? began a promising career in Baroque Rome but this was cut short by his premature death following a work accident....
    's Santa Rose of Lima (1665) and his Assumption of St Catherine.
  • Francisco Aprile and Ercole Ferrata
    Ercole Ferrata

    Ercole Ferrata was an Italy sculpture of the Roman Baroque....
    's Sant'Anastasia in her namesake church
    Santa Anastasia

    Santa Anastasia is a basilica churches of Rome Rome.Santa Anastasia was built in the late 3rd century - early 4th century, possibly by a Roman woman named Anastasia....
     in Rome.
  • The most internationally successful Czech underground group the Ecstasy of Saint Theresa
    Ecstasy of Saint Theresa

    Ecstasy of Saint Theresa is a Czech Republic shoegaze band formed in 1990 by Jan Muchow and Irna Libowitz. Early influences included Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine ....
     named themselves after the sculpture.
  • Angels and Demons
    Angels and Demons

    Angels & Demons is a bestselling mystery fiction novel by American author Dan Brown. The novel revolves around the quest of fictional Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon to unravel the mysteries of a secret society called the Illuminati, and preclude a plot from annihilating the Vatican City using destructive antimatter....
    , the novel by Dan Brown
    Dan Brown

    Dan Brown is an United States author of thriller fiction, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code and the 2000 bestselling novel, Angels & Demons....
     which lists the sculpture as the third "altar of science" of the fictionalized Illuminati
    Illuminati

    Illuminati is a name that refers to several groups, both historical and modern, and both real and fictitious. Historically, it refers specifically to the Bavarian Illuminati, an Age of Enlightenment-era secret society founded on May 1st, 1776....
  • The sculpture is the subject of the song "The Lie" from the Peter Hammill
    Peter Hammill

    Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill is a singer-songwriter, and a founding member of progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. Most noted for his vocal abilities, his main instruments are guitar and piano....
     album The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage
    The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage

    The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage is the third album by British singer-songwriter Peter Hammill. It was released on Charisma Records in 1974, during a hiatus in the activities of Hammill's progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator....
    .
  • Numerous references to the sculpture, including one character's obsession, are made in Infinite Jest
    Infinite Jest

    Infinite Jest is a 1996 novel written by David Foster Wallace. The lengthy and complex work takes place in a semi-parodic future version of North America....
     by David Foster Wallace
    David Foster Wallace

    David Foster Wallace was an United States writer of novelist, essays and short story, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California....
    .
  • Street art
    Street art

    Street art is any art developed in public spaces ? that is, "in the streets" ? though the term usually refers to art of an illicit nature, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives....
    ist, Banksy
    Banksy

    Banksy is a well-known pseudo-anonymous England graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, Gloucestershire, near Bristol and to have been born in 1974, but there is substantial public uncertainty about his identity and personal and biographical details....
     used the image of St. Theresa in one of his works, though he removed the angelic figure and added a fast food meal.


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