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Teresa of Avila and the Figurative Arts in Early Modern Europe

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Teresa of Avila and the Figurative Arts in Early Modern Europe ‘ESTA PENA TAN SABROSA’: TERESA OF AVILA AND THE FIGURATIVE ARTS IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE Maria Berbara Spiritu intelligentiae replevit illam* This paper will focus on Teresa of Avila1 and her representation in visual arts during the early-modern period, especially the fi rst half of the seventeenth century, with an emphasis on her experience of pain. How did Teresa describe her own pain during ecstasies and higher levels of prayer, and what did this suffering mean to her? Was Teresa’s construction of pain in tune with that of most sixteenth-century Catholic saints and with the medieval tradition? Did her texts somehow infl u- ence, and/or were infl uenced by, contemporary visual arts? To what extent was there a correspondence between Teresa’s iconography and her writings, as far as pain was concerned? How were Teresa’s writings on pain interpreted by early modern artists? From the very beginnings of Christianity, ecstatic experiences described by mystics had a physical dimension in which pain frequently played a part. As a member of this long lineage, Teresa of Avila is no * See Fig. 9, p. 289 below. 1 Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada (Avila, 1515 – Alba de Tormes, 1582) entered the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation (Avila) in November 1535, and made her vows two years later. From 1560/62 onwards, she worked actively in the foundation of several convents for the reformed order of the Discalced Carmelites. Teresa wrote fi ve complete books (Libro de la Vida, 1562–1565; Camino de perfección, 1565–1566; Meditaciones sobre los Cantares, 1566–1567; Libro de las fundaciones, 1573–1582; and Castillo interior o las moradas, 1577) as well as various collections of poems, letters and writings related to her reform (Constituciones, 1563; Visita de Descalzas, 1576). Her complete works, edited by the Augustinian Fray Luis de León, were fi rst published – with important omissions – in 1588 (in Salamanca), although copies of some of her writings started to circulate in Spain soon after her death, and independent editions of the Maxims and Way of Perfection appeared between 1583 and 1585. Further editions and translations followed rapidly (Zaragoza: 1592; Madrid: 1597; Naples: 1604; Brussels: 1604; Valencia: 1613, among others). She was beatifi ed by Paul V in 1614 and canonized by Gregory XV in 1622, together with Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Filippo Neri and Isidro. At the time of her canonization she received the appelative de Avila, which in more recent times has served to distinguish her from Teresa of Lisieux, her French namesake. The saint herself used to sign her writings as Teresa de Jesús, a name by which she is also occasionally referred to (especially by Spanish-language writers). 268 maria berbara exception. Her discourses on pain, different as they are from late antique and medieval ones, keep this strong traditional intermingling of body and soul. The suffering she experiences during ecstasy is overwhelmingly physical, and she usually describes it by pointing out specifi c parts of her body, as well as objects – such as arrows and spears – which cause her pain. This mystical suffering affects her body directly, leaving her often with bruises and wounds;2 on the other hand, it also fosters a transient improvement of her natural aches.3 Physical as its manifesta- tions may be, Teresa’s pain during mystical experiences is a function of the soul, and it differs from mundane bodily aches.4 The pain which Teresa felt during ecstasies and higher levels of prayer was not of a moral quality. She did not suffer from remorse, guilt for her own or for other people’s sins, as could happen in other historical contexts; her suffering was totally individual and formed an intrinsic part of the joy of revelations. Particular to Teresa’s conceptions of this kind of pain is not its bodily dimension, nor the fact that she endured suffering – a common characteristic of Christian saints and martyrs of all times – but that it was, in Teresa’s own words, in itself blissful, delight- ful, delectable. In what she calls the third and, especially, fourth level of prayer, pleasure and pain unite and heighten each other generating a feeling of rapture whose intensity Teresa fi nds diffi cult to describe. Ecstasy itself is a foretaste of Heaven; in no other earthly moment can the soul be as close to God. This apparent paradox of simultaneous pleasure and pain comes out many times in Teresa’s writings. As Robert Petersson notes, they “yield a product which exceeds the sum of both. A third kind of experience is created which is different from both; not pleasure-pain but a nameless something”.5 Other saints before her, such as Catherine of Siena (1347–1380), spoke about the sweetness of the pain they experienced during ecstasies or higher levels of prayer. For some medieval saints, the experience of pain during ecstasies, eucha- ristic frenzy, fasting and mortifi cations was deeply connected with the idea of embracing Christ through the sharing of His suffering.6 This 2 Interior Castle, chapter 6, 11,4. 3 Cf. for instance Vida 20; 21. 4 Cf. Interior Castle, chapter 6, 11, especially 2–3. 5 Petersson R., The Art of Ecstasy. Saint Teresa, Bernini and Crashaw (London: 1970) 33. 6 For Catherine of Siena, for example, her own pain could have an expiatory quality; she spent the last years of her life experiencing intense physical sufferings caused by a vision she had of the weight of the ship of the Church descending on her shoulders..
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