Bernini’s Masterpiece: A work that speaks to one’s soul.
Is it not funny how an artist manipulates the truth like a lawyer defending a case? How an artist may be somewhat defined as a subtle god creating his or her own realities? Bernini’s depiction of the ecstasy of St. Therese is a perfect example.
The moment that one’s eye lays upon his masterpiece, one must have been in awe of such beauty before their eyes. The craftsmanship is exquisite and almost godly. As if the sculpture breathes, as if the masterpiece truly relives the saint’s experience.
Though his sensuality is very dominant to his said masterpiece, his talent is never to be less. His way of interpreting the said showed how great his play of metaphors by comparing the pleasures of the flesh to extreme spiritual pleasure. Of course, a commoner does not have a faint idea of how a spiritual ecstasy feels but one have an idea (if not faintly) of worldly pleasures which is that of the flesh.
Bernini’s ecstasy of St. Therese is truly a masterpiece because not only does it speak for himself and for the saint but it also does not fail to make a viewer relive the emotion of St. Therese, the experience of being in a spiritual ecstasy.