Where is bernini st theresa

The Martyrdom of San Lorenzo. Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Truth Unveiled by Time. Bust of the Savior. Bernini's The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa shows the artist at his best and he believed this piece to be his most beautiful creation.

He described it as "the least bad thing I have ever done". A stunning display incorporating architecture, sculpture, and painting, the Theresa was adored in Bernini's lifetime but later harshly criticized for its overt sensuality and eroticism. In describing The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa poet, art critic, influential thinker, and fellow Englishman John Ruskin said it was "impossible for false taste and base feeling to sink lower.

Bernini was one of the most admired and sought-after of artists, with the highest of reputations. Italian and French contemporaries praised the artist with detailed biographies, sure of the genius in their midst. Naturally Bernini had his fair share of devoted followers.

From contemporaries who worked directly under him or competed with him for commissions, up to modern artists who looked to his use of emotional multimedia design for inspiration , a multitude of artists can thank Bernini for the development of their own styles. Though the Baroque and Bernini along with it went out of fashion for a long period of time, in the 20th century he was "rediscovered" as a true master of realism and emotion, earning a renewed respect and influence on a new generation of artists, which continues up until this day.

The only way that Bernini and Saint Teresa herself could explain that to us was by a metaphor involving the body. This made her moan. This was a physical experience. And if we look, for instance, at the two figures we see this gorgeous angel who's plunging that arrow that she spoke of with its iron tip, pointing it right at her.

And you can see her body writhing under the heavy cloth. His body is very graceful. There's such a difference in that gauze fabric he wears. She is of the Earth. He is of the heavens. Bernini is using marble, the same substance for all of these, but making them seem such different textures.

You know, this is the Counter Reformation. This is a moment when Protestants in the north are revolting against the Catholics, and are saying that the pomp and the ceremony of the Catholic tradition is not necessary. It gets in the way. And the main thing that Baroque art always does is it involves the viewer, and here Bernini does that in a number of ways.

He's not just thinking about the sculpture of Saint Teresa and the angel, but about the whole space of the chapel, because on either side we see relief sculptures of figures that look like they're in theater boxes, as though we were part of an audience. So we become immediately part of the work of art.

STEVEN ZUCKER: Look at the way that the broken pediment, this sort of proscenium, this stage-like space literally seems to open up as if the marble is moving to reveal this very intimate image, and to give us a sense of the specialness of our vantage point. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. To log in and use all the features of Khan Academy, please enable JavaScript in your browser.

Donate Login Sign up Search for courses, skills, and videos. Arts and humanities Europe - Baroque 17th century Italy. Restoring ancient sculpture in Baroque Rome. Bernini, Pluto and Proserpina. Practice: Bernini, David. Bernini, Apollo and Daphne. The others are posthumous portraits of members of the Cornaro family many of them were also Cardinals.

Behind them Bernini created a fabulous illusion of architecture—a coffered barrel vault, doorway and columns. It surrounds us, and we are literally inside of it. This is, as we have seen, a typical feature of Baroque art—breaking down the barrier between the work and the viewer, to involve us.

Skip to main content. Module 7: ——Baroque Art in Italy. Search for:. Teresa Dr. Saint Teresa Saint Teresa was a nun who was canonized made a Saint by the Church in part because of the spiritual visions she experienced.