Ecstasy in Stone: Viewing Bernini through a Contemplative Lens

One of the unique aspects of great art is that what may have first stirred our excitement about a particular work can deepen and broaden over time, growing in meaning as we grow, the image or object continuing to speak to us in new and important ways. This is what happened for me with Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s “The Ecstasy of St. Teresa” (1647-52), which I was first made aware of as a freshman in college when an art history professor described it as an erotic representation of mystical union. The sexualization of a religious sculpture shocked me, and indeed the work was quite unlike anything else we had studied in Western art that semester.

This essay, revised for the Summer 2025 issue of Radix Magazine, takes up Bernini's great sculpture from a contemplative perspective. Rather than approaching it solely as a masterpiece of Baroque art or theological expression, I reflect on how the work itself embodies the depths of spiritual experience.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Ecstasy of Saint Teresa

1647-52