Shard of Ecstasy
Print on marble, 2021
10cm W x 23cm H
This famous marble statue of Santa Teresa (1518 – 1582) in Santa Teresa Della Vittoria is by Bernini. Teresa was a Spanish Carmelite nun and mystic of the Catholic Reformation and she went on to reform the Carmelite orders for both men and women. One papal legate described her as a “restless wanderer, disobedient, and stubborn femina who, under the title of devotion, invented bad doctrines, moving outside the cloister against the rules of the Council of Trent and her prelates; teaching as a master against Saint Paul’s orders that women should not teach.” Little did he know this would work as a great recommendation to future generations. Her statue has frequently been used as a sculptural depiction of a woman in orgasm, entered as she is by the holy spirit or the arrow of Cupid, a slightly confusing symbolic mix.
