Controversy on the Statute of the Bernini's Ecstasy Of St. Teresa

Introduction

Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), Caravaggio's contemporary, brought the theatrical spirit of baroque painting to Italian architecture and sculpture. A man of remarkable technical virtuosity, Bernini was the chief architect of seventeenth-century Rome, as well as one of its leading sculptors. Under Bernini's direction, Rome became the “city of fountains,” a phenomenon facilitated by the early seventeenth-century revival of the old Roman aqueducts (Kleiner 2009: 532).

Discussion

Question: Is Bernini's Ecstasy of St. Teresa appropriate in a church? Why was it there at all?

Bernini's most important contribution to baroque religious sculpture was his multimedia masterpiece ...