Otherworldly Ecstasies

Abraham Janssens
The Apotheosis of Aeneas
ca. 1620-30
oil on canvas
Staatsgalerie Flämische Barockmalerei im Schloss Neuburg

Edvard Munch
Summer Night's Dream (The Voice)
1893
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Orazio Gentileschi
The Vision of St Frances of Rome
ca. 1618-20
oil on canvas
Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino

Adrien Ysenbrandt
The Vision of St Ildefonso
ca. 1530
oil on panel
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Guido Cagnacci
The Vision of St Jerome
ca. 1659-62
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Paolo Veronese
The Vision of St Helena
ca. 1580
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Carlo Saraceni
The Vision of St Francis
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Horace Le Blanc
Ecstasy of St Teresa of Avila
1621
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Gioacchino Assereto
St Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy
with Cherub playing Violin
ca. 1628-30
oil on canvas
Detroit Institute of Arts

Giulio Cesare Procaccini
Ecstasy of the Magdalen
ca. 1616-20
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Sébastien Bourdon
Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy, supported by Angels
ca. 1665-70
oil on canvas
Musée Fabre, Montpellier

Francesco Albani
Ecstasy of Mary Magdalen
ca. 1640-50
oil on copper
Saint Louis Art Museum

Giovanni Battista Gaulli (il Baciccio)
Apotheosis of St Peter
ca. 1670
oil on canvas
(modello for dome fresco)
Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, Corsica

Anonymous Italian Artist
Apotheosis of a Saint
17th century
drawing
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Altobello Melone
The Transfiguration
ca. 1512
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Luca Giordano
The Transfiguration
ca. 1685
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

from The Two Kings 

King Eochaid came at sundown to a wood

Westward of Tara. Hurrying to his queen
He had outridden his war-wasted men
That with empounded cattle trod the mire.
And where beech trees had mixed a pale green light
With the ground-ivy's blue, he saw a stag
Whiter than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.
Because it stood upon his path and seemed
More hands in height than any stag in the world

He sat with tightened rein and loosened mouth
Upon his trembling horse, then drove the spur;
But the stag stooped and ran at him, and passed,

Rending the horses flank. King Eochaid reeled,
Then drew his sword to hold its levelled point

Against the stag. When horn and steel were met
The horn resounded as though it had been silver,
A sweet, miraculous, terrifying sound.
Horn locked in sword, they tugged and struggled there

As though a stag and unicorn were met
Among the African Mountains of the Moon,

Until at last the double horns, drawn backward,

Butted below the single and so pierced 
The entrails of the horse. Dropping his sword
King Eochaid seized the horns in his strong hands
And stared into the sea-green eye, and so

Hither and thither to and fro they trod
Till all the place was beaten into mire.

The strong thigh and the agile thigh were met,

The hands that gathered up the might of the world,

And hoof and horn that had sucked in their speed

Amid the elaborate wilderness of the air. 
Through bush they plunged and over ivied root,

And where the stone struck fire, while in the leaves

A squirrel whinnied and a bird screamed out;

But when at last he forced those sinewy flanks

Against a beech-bole, he threw down the beast
And knelt above it with drawn knife. On the instant
It vanished like a shadow, and a cry

So mournful that it seemed the cry of one

Who had lost some unimaginable treasure
Wandered between the blue and the green leaf

And climbed into the air, crumbling away,

Till all had seemed a shadow or a vision
But for the trodden mire, the pool of blood,

The disembowelled horse.  

– W.B. Yeats (1914)