Did Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa cross a seventeenth-century line of decorum?

Abstract

The Ecstasy of St. Teresa is arguably the most controversial work created by the Roman Baroque artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680). The debate surrounding the statue centers on the question: did the artist’s radically non-traditional depiction of Teresa’s transverberation transgress the boundaries of decorum as understood by seventeenth-century Catholicism? This debate has lasted for many years and is likely to endure for many more to come, for, as the mass of, at times, contradictory documentation leads us to conclude, the line of decorum that Bernini did, or did not, cross would seem to resist any firm pinpointing, that is was, indeed, fluid and subjective, even when seen through seventeenth-century eyes. The aim of this article is not to deny the subjective fluidity of that line of decorum, but rather to propose that it was perhaps far less fluid and subjective than some examiners of the issue today seem inclined to believe. At the same time, and perhaps more importantly, its aim is also to disabuse the staunch defenders of Bernini’s decorum of the belief that no matter where that line of decorum might have been located in the seventeenth century, there cannot possibly be any reasonable grounds for suggesting that Bernini may have crossed it. Defenses of Bernini’s decorum rest on three claims: (1) Bernini faithfully followed the literal description of Teresa’s transverberation as described by the saint herself; (2) the Church understood that mystical union often entailed erotic elements and thus had no problem with religious art depicting that reality; and (3) since there is no nudity in Bernini’s statue, it cannot be accused of violating decorum. Through detailed analysis of Roman Catholic catechetical teaching (from Augustine to Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino), Teresa’s writings and other primary texts relating to the saint’s transverberation, and an extremely close examination of the statue itself, this article argues that none of these defenses is completely accurate and thus unassailable in its conclusion, while, however, not claiming to resolve the decorum debate once and for all.