Bernini\u2019s <\/strong><\/em>Blessed Ludovica Albertoni<\/strong>: Drapery and the Permeability of the Body<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Gianlorenzo Bernini\u2019s Blessed Ludovica Albertoni<\/em> has remained a footnote at the end of the artist\u2019s long life, with scholarly treatment conveying a deep-seated discomfort with the sculpture and its possible meanings. Scholars\u2019 inability to adequately identify the narrative moment has been compounded by a lack of direct engagement with the Ludovica<\/em>\u2019s turbulent drapery, particularly in areas that raise questions of sensuality and the body. The present examination returns to the sculptural work itself, seeking to interpret the Ludovica<\/em>\u2019s drapery with the same intensity offered to treatments of the body, and to demonstrate the centrality of permeability to Bernini\u2019s representation of the Ludovica<\/em>. Through a series of folds in the center of the sculpture, which create a \u201ccavernous opening\u201d between the beata<\/em>\u2019s legs, Bernini engages with concerns of interior and exterior, death, dissection, wounding, and gender. Connected to the side wound of Christ and vaginal imagery, the \u201ccavernous opening\u201d becomes a site of Eucharistic significance through Bernini\u2019s deeply drilled and intentionally executed drapery folds. Rather than simply providing an acknowledgement of the Eucharistic rite taking place before it, Bernini\u2019s altarpiece can be recognized as a visual enactment of permeability, suggesting the penetration of Christ\u2019s body and the resulting outpouring of salvation. Careful attention to the drapery enables a reinterpretation of the Ludovica<\/em> in keeping with Bernini\u2019s artistic skill and masterful execution, presenting the sculptor\u2019s pinched folds as a crucial component of the work rather than a mere reflection of Bernini\u2019s \u201cstyle.\u201d<\/p>\n Karen Lark received her MA in Art History from the UW School of Art + Art History + Design in Spring 2020. With a focus on the Italian Renaissance and Baroque, her work considers the complex connections between the bodily and the spiritual, engaging with sensual representations in religious contexts. Her thesis addresses a work of sculpture and its deeply carved drapery, drawing together period concepts of the body and soul, experiences of the divine, ritualistic activation, and gender.<\/p>\nAbstract<\/h2>\n
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