Annotated Mona Lisa, The - Strickland, Carol [36]
“THE ECSTASY OF ST. THERESA.” Bernini’s masterpiece — and the culmination of Baroque style — was “The Ecstasy of St. Theresa.” He even designed a whole chapel as a stage set to show it off, including painted balconies on the walls filled with “spectators” sculpted in relief.
St. Theresa reportedly saw visions and heard voices, believing herself to have been pierced by an angel’s dart infusing her with divine love. She described the mystical experience in near-erotic terms: “The pain was so great that I screamed aloud; but at the same time I felt such infinite sweetness that I wished the pain to last forever.” Bernini’s marble sculpture represented the saint swooning on a cloud, an expression of mingled ecstasy and exhaustion on her face. Since the Counter Reformation Church stressed the value of its members reliving Christ’s passion, Bernini tried to induce an intense religious experience in worshipers. He used all the resources of operatic stagecraft, creating a total artistic environment in the chapel. The saint and angel appear to be floating on swirling clouds, while golden rays of light pour down from a vault of heaven painted on the ceiling. The sculptor’s virtuosity with textures made the white marble “flesh” seem to quiver with life, while the feathery wings and frothy clouds are equally convincing. The whole altarpiece throbs with emotion, drama, and passion.
ST. PETER’S CATHEDRAL
For most of his life, Bernini worked on commissions for Rome’s St. Peter’s Cathedral. The focal point of the church’s interior was Bernini’s bronze canopy-altar (known as a “baldachin”) beneath the central dome marking the burial site of St. Peter. Taller than a ten-story building, this extravagant monument features four gigantic, grooved, spiral columns (covered with carved vines, leaves, and bees) that seem to writhe upward like corkscrews. The ensemble, including four colossal bronze angels at the corners of the canopy, is the essence of Baroque style. Its mixture of dazzling colors, forms, and materials produces an overwhelming and theatrical effect of imaginative splendor.
For a climactic spot at the end of the church, Bernini designed the Cathedra Petri, another mixed-media extravaganza to enshrine the modest wooden stool of St. Peter. The sumptuous composition includes four huge bronze figures supporting — almost without touching it — the throne, which is enveloped by flights of angels and billowing clouds. Everything appears to move, bathed in rays of golden light from a stained glass window overhead.
Outside the cathedral, Bernini designed the vast piazza and surrounded it with two curving, covered colonnades supported by rows of four columns abreast. Bernini planned arcades flanking the huge oval space to be like the Church’s maternal, embracing arms, welcoming pilgrims to St. Peter’s.
Aerial view of the piazza, St. Peter’s Cathedral, Rome.
BORROMINI: DYNAMIC ARCHITECTURE. What Caravaggio did for painting, Francesco Borromini (1599-1667) did for architecture. Just as the painter’s spotlighted subjects seem to leap out at the viewer, Borromini’s undulating walls create a sense of being strobe-lit. The highly original work of both artists revolutionized their respective fields.
Borromini was a rebellious, emotionally disturbed genius who died by suicide. The son of a mason, he worked first as a stonecutter under Bernini, who later became his arch-rival. But, while Bernini employed up to thirty-nine assistants to execute his hastily sketched designs, the brooding, withdrawn Borromini worked obsessively on the most minute decorative details. He rejected countlesss ideas before saying “questo!” (this one) when he finally settled on a choice.
Even in buildings of modest dimensions, Borromini combined never-before-linked shapes in a startling fashion. The odd juxtaposition of concave and convex surfaces made his walls seem to ripple. Indeed, this quality and his complex floor plans have been compared to the multiple voices of a Bach organ fugue, both designed to