Divine love has never looked so good. Swooning high on a cloud of gravity-defying marble, the 16 th -century saint Teresa of Avila throws her head back in a silent cry of ecstasy. A mischievous angel rises above her and giggles as he pulls back a gold-tipped arrow, ready to plunge it deep into the limp body of this young saint.
But our eyes seem magnetically drawn back to that dramatically foreshortened face, those delicately parted lips and those eyes rolling helplessly backwards in their sockets.
Is this an expression of purest piety or thinly-veiled 17 th -century erotica? You decide. In an age rife with suspicions of heresy and the terrors of the Inquisition, charismatic women were viewed with profound misgivings by religious hierarchies.
The saint-to-be was even interrogated by the Spanish Inquisition, who confiscated and censured her steamy writings about divine love. Teresa was no run-of-the-mill saint, and Bernini pulled out all the stops to do justice to the blazing emotional intensity that was her hallmark.
The sculptor chose to picture her experiencing her most famous all-body vision, following to the letter the breathless autobiographical account written by the saint. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one's soul content with anything but God.
