The Ecstasy of St Theresa

The Ecstasy of St. Teresa, dated 1627 and in the Musei di Strada Nuova, was painted two years after Bernini completed his famous marble group of the same subject in Rome — though Strozzi's treatment preceded the Cornaro Chapel's final installation and responds to the same wave of Counter-Reformation Carmelite mysticism that the Teresa of Ávila's beatification (1614) and canonisation (1622) had triggered. Teresa's mystical experience — an angel repeatedly piercing her heart with a golden spear in an experience of simultaneous agony and ecstasy — was the most ecstatic event in the Counter-Reformation's repertoire of approved mystical experiences. Strozzi's painted version situates the ecstasy within his warm, characterful Baroque world rather than Bernini's theatrical marble drama.

Canvas with the upward compositional movement appropriate to ecstatic vision — Teresa's figure tilts or reclines in surrender to the divine experience while the angel descends from above. The golden dart or arrow is the compositional axis connecting heaven and earth. Warm chiaroscuro gives the supernatural event a human, embodied warmth.