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The Ecstasy of Beata Ludovica Albertoni |
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written
by joelnish / 10.24.2005 |
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| The Ecstasy of Beata Ludovica Albertoni |
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Assignment |
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The thing about the Bernini sculpture, that amazes me isn’t the detail or the skill but the emotion encapsulated in it. The emotion is so intense and so complicated. It seems to defy the simple and trite descriptions of emotion that the other statues in the church convey. Happy, sad, blissful the other statues are understood in a single glance. Beata Ludovica Albertoni though displays the type of emotion that one gets enough in their life to empathize with but not to truly understand.
At first my eye was drawn to the brightly lit hand. I love her hand, supple yet piecing, pointing and pressing into her heart yet also caressing her breast. Then I saw her face, half illuminated, prominent both for its light and for its enraptured expression. Thrown back, eyes closed, mouth open, exhaling or inhaling but I’m not sure—I look over her body as I would run a hand over it. Her reclined body is tense and loose as if a series of waves have washed through her. It is the tension that makes the statue so intriguing, vulgar, yet sweet, with the odd aftertaste of anguish. And there she lies in the little alcove in front of us. She is physically inaccessible, we are left to wonder and crave but here bliss is above us.
And then there is Saint Theresa, whose bliss is really above us, so far so that I think I miss it. While Beata Ludovica Albertoni is alone on a couch for her bliss, Theresa is elevated into the clouds and receives her bliss from an angel. My eyes immediately fall on Theresa’s face, which is tilted toward us. Her expression is filled with less anguish than Beata’s and her body is hidden by her amply rumpled clothes and the unknown shape of the cloud behind her. From there my eye is drawn to the angel’s face, sweet but kind of smirking. And the angel holds a golden arrow, aimed at Theresa’s heart.
But this doesn’t bring the same volume of emotion that the ecstasy of Beata brought forth. After looking back at the angel I feel like the angel looks far more like a devious child inflicting pain on ants than anything graceful. And Theresa just looks ordinary. The scene is beyond my grasp. It is harder to empathize with something that has to happen in the clouds after all. Beata was real—she was right in front of me.
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