Culture during the Two Reformations 123

Gianlorenzo Bernini s The Ecstasy of Saint

Theresa (1645-1652).

As in the Renaissance, in Rome
the Church remained a major
patron of the arts, expressing
religious themes through visual
representation. Its goal was to
impress—indeed, to overwhelm—
the emotions through awe­
inspiring dimensions, opulence,
movement, and, in painting, lurid
color. The Baroque style sought
to express the experience of the
soul. Baroque palaces and
churches featured exuberant
curves and ornate decoration and
were cluttered with lustrous mar­

ble altars, ornate statues, golden
cherubs, and intensely colorful
murals and ceiling paintings.
The baroque merged easily with
neoclassicism—the revival of an
architectural design dominated
by Greek and Roman forms. The
Gesu Church of the Jesuits in Rome is a masterpiece of baroque style.
With its vast ceilings and enormous paintings of the ascension of Christ
and the assumption of the Virgin Mary, it symbolizes the spirit of the
Catholic Reformation. The baroque style used optical illusions such as
Gesu’s false cupola to achieve the impression that the viewer is reaching
for Heaven.
The monumental fountains in Rome of the Venetian sculptor Gian­
lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) best represent the period of high baroque
of the Catholic Reformation. He also sculpted the magnificent canopy over
the high altar of St. Peter’s. Bernini sought to communicate the intensity
of religious experience. In the altarpiece The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa
(1645—1652), Bernini depicted the saint’s convulsions of joy when an
angel stabs her with a spear as beams of sunlight engulf the scene. Bernini
wrote, “It pleased the Lord that I should see this angel in [this] way. ... In
his hands I saw a long golden spear and at the end of the iron tip I seemed
to see a point of fire. With this he seemed to pierce my heart several times
so that it penetrated to my entrails.” This highly sexual description stands
in marked contrast with the puritanical impulse that had seen Renaissance
popes order the painting of fig leaves on nudes.