03 — ARTWORK
Ecstasy of St Catherine of Siena
- MEDIUM
- Marble
- TYPE
- Religious
PALETTE
HOVER OR TAP A SWATCH FOR NAME, SHARE AND HEX. SAMPLED FROM THE IMAGE — INDICATIVE, NOT A PIGMENT ANALYSIS.
THIS REPRODUCTION
- FILE
- 1133 × 1700 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
The marbleloosely applied to any hard limestone that can be sawn into thin slabs and will take a good polish so that it is suitable for decorative work; more strictly, it refers to metamorphosed limestones whose structure has been recrystallized by heat or pressure. Marbles are widely disseminated and occur in a great variety of colours and patterns, but certain types have been particularly prized by sculptors. The most famous of Greek white marbles in the ancient world was the close-grained Pentelic, which was quarried at Mount Pentelicon in Attica. The Elgin Marbles are carved in Pentelic. Widely used also were the somewhat coarser-grained translucent white marbles from the Aegean islands of Paros and Naxos. Parian marble was used for the celebrated Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. The pure white Carrara marble, quarried at Massa, Carrara, and Pietra Santa in Tuscany from the 3rd century BC, is the most famous of all sculptors' stones. It was used for the Apollo Belvedere, and was much favoured in the Renaissance, particularly by Michelangelo, who often visited the quarries to select material for his work. Neoclassical sculptors also favoured Carrara marble because of its ability to take a smooth, sleek surface, but it can look rather 'dead' compared with some of the finest Greek marbles. reliefA sculptural work in which all or part projects from the flat surface. There are three basic forms: low relief (bas-relief, basso rilievo), in which figures project less than half their depth from the background; medium relief (mezzo-rilievo), in which figures are seen half round; and high relief (alto rilievo), in which figures are almost detached from their background. showing the Ecstasy of St Catherine of Siena was made for the high altar of Santa Caterina da Siena a Monte Magnapoli in Rome. In this relief Cafà isolated the white marble relief against a background of various coloured marbles to achieve a strongly painterly effect: as the almost free-standing figure of the saint, elevated ecstatically on clouds, seems to float out of the framed, brightly coloured background, the traditional boundaries between the genres of painting and sculpture are suspended.
This relief of the Sienese mystic stands in direct relationship to Bernini's Ecstasy of St Theresa and would have been unthinkable without it. Cafà directly established himself through his models and drawings, and even Bernini let it be known that the younger man had overtaken him in his art. Cafà's sculpture reinvented the aesthetic qualities of Bernini's late style in new terms, thereby establishing a bridge between High and Late BaroqueThe period in art history from about 1600 to about 1750. In this sense the term covers a wide range of styles and artists. In painting and sculpture there were three main forms of Baroque: (1) sumptuous display, a style associated with the Catholic Counter Reformation and the absolutist courts of Europe (Bernini, Rubens); (2) dramatic realism (Caravaggio); and (3) everyday realism, a development seen in particular in Holland (Rembrandt, Vermeer). In architecture, there was an emphasis on expressiveness and grandeur, achieved through scale, the dramatic use of light and shadow, and increasingly elaborate decoration. In a more limited sense the term Baroque often refers to the first of these categories. The development of the Baroque reflects the period's religious tensions (Catholic versus Protestant); a new and more expansive world view based on science and exploration; and the growth of absolutist monarchies. sculpture. This is seen most clearly in the Ecstasy of St Catherine of Siena in the Dominican convent of Santa Caterina da Siena a Magnapoli in Rome.
OTHER WORKS BY MELCHIORRE CAFÀ
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-r1998c85e473d39,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {Ecstasy of St Catherine of Siena by CAFÀ, Melchiorre},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-14},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/caf-melchiorre-r2883a648ecc254/ecstasy-of-st-catherine-of-siena-r1998c85e473d39},
urldate = {2026-09-14},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-14. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.