On view
The Triumph of the Name of Jesus,
1676–79
Saints and angels bathed in divine light adore the monogram of Jesus, IHS, while souls of the damned plunge into darkness. This luminous oil sketch is a working study for the spectacular ceiling fresco of Il Gesù in Rome, the mother church of the Jesuit Order.
Formed in 1540, the Jesuits served as agents of colonization for the Spanish crown in the Americas, including the Viceroyalty of Peru, where the nearby painting of Saint Efigenia was made. They also led evangelizing efforts across the globe. This mission is central to understanding Gaulli’s composition, which moves from darkness into light, with fallen angels, heretics, and vices excluded from the overwhelming vision of heaven.
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Handbook Entry
This large and luminous <em>bozzetto</em> (preparatory oil sketch) provides a rare working document for the genesis of one of the most outstanding examples of Baroque ceiling decoration, <em>The Triumph of the Name of Jesus</em> in the Gesù church in Rome. The great sculptor and architect Bernini helped Baciccio secure the commission of decorating the barrel-vaulted mother church of the Jesuit order, which had been consecrated in 1584. Although there is no written iconographic program, the subject of the ceiling fresco was inspired by Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians 2:10, "That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth." In the <em>bozzetto</em>, the full conceptual and visual thrust of the thundering biblical message is conveyed in the radiant and levitating clusters of saints and angels adoring the symbol of Christ, while their damned counterparts, including fallen angels, heretics, and vices, hurtle into darkness below; these figures are blinded by and excluded from the vision of heaven that overwhelms the worshiper with its illusionary proximity, seeming to open the ceiling to the sky above as one moves from darkness into light.
More About This Object
Information
1676–79
- Oreste Ferrari, Bozzetti italiani dal manierismo al barocco, (Napoli: Electa, 1990)., p. 137
- Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco and Rossella Pantanella, Museo Baciccio: in margine a quattro inventari inediti, (Roma: A. Pettini, 1996)., p. 61, no. 99, fig. 14
- Maria Grazia Bernardini and Maurizio Fagiolo dell’Arco, Gian Lorenzo Bernini: regista del barocco, (Milano: Skira, 1999)., p. 439-440, no. 219
- "Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2005," Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 65 (2006): p. 49-81., p. 64
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 349
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 121
- Antoine Tarantino, Rome de Barocci à Fragonard: tableaux et dessins du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, (Paris: Galerie Tarantino, 2013)., p. 42, fig. 3
