The Sculptural Iconography of Feminine Jouissance: Lacan's Reading of Bernini's Saint Teresa in Ecstasy

Appreciation of the ecstasy of Santa Teresa

“…It took Bernini and his collaborators five years to complete the work, but it was finally revealed in the summer of 1652. This sculpture concerns a central piece of the great funerary chapel that has the church's transept to its left (Nobus, 2015).…”

“…On the one hand, some contemplated the work, on the other hand, some expressed anger and dismay at what they considered to be a brazen and sacrilegious depiction of Saint Teresa. In addition, there were still those who rejected Bernini's work, considering it a typical example of the deplorable excesses of baroque art, that is, corruption of aesthetic principles, animated by arrogance and executed with bad taste (Nobus, 2015).…”

“…Already Charles de Brosse 7 considered this work as an apotheosis of obscene vulgarity (Nobus, 2015).…”

“…However, if there is eroticism in this work, it is not only due to how the inner state of the saint was visualized by the sculptor but also due to the emphatically theatrical setting that forces the spectator to a certain spatial position, from which he/she is can only escape if it leaves the scene. In other words, whether Santa Teresa's experience is considered through her text or sculpture, it is the position of the observer that will determine her interpretation of what happened (Nobus, 2015). In this sense, life imitates art, so the spectator's relationship with the work and the chapel of which it is part is assumed to be complex (Bolland, 2015).…”

“…Looking at Saint Teresa in ecstasy involves looking at the expression on her face, and among the visually captivating elements of the statue, her face is the one that most departs from Saint Teresa's account of her vision in which she didn't mark her facial expression and in which the trace of the statue is unquestionably the element that most distinguish it from all previous representations of the vision of the saint (Nobus, 2015).…”