In Bernini’s sculpture, Saint Teresa is levitating, borne up on a marble cloud. Only three parts of her body are visible: her face, one bare foot, and a single nerveless hand. The rest of her is a mass of drapery, a near-chaos of folds and pleats, beneath which no sign of the body’s form is discernible. All is agitation, the swirls and crumples of marble cloth standing as signs of the intense emotion caused by the vision’s arrival.
