The Ecstasy of St. Teresa

The mystical ecstasy is expressed less by the sweat on the face or the trembling of the hand and foot than by the resounding cascade of the glinting habit, just as the angelic fire is figured in the tortuous tangle of the youth’s tunic, chiselled in his ambiguous smile like an angel by Correggio. In this much-celebrated mystical-erotic group Bernini undoubtedly reached the summit of theatricality and at the same time touched the extreme limit of the dissolution of sculpture into painting.