Titian: Sacred and Profane Love, St. Paul on the Relief

Titian: Sacred and Profane Love. St. Paul on the Relief

Dr. Francis P. DeStefano

The meaning of the figures on the antique relief in the center of Titian’s Sacred and Profane Love has eluded scholars for centuries. In this post I would like to discuss the horse so prominently depicted on the left side of the relief. 

In my interpretation of the Sacred and Profane Love I argued that the subject of the mysterious painting is the “Conversion of Mary Magdalen,” and that the figures on the antique relief must not only refer to the subject of the painting, but also, must be depictions of great sinners. 

In my previous two posts I elaborated on my discussion in the paper and looked at the right side of the relief where we can now identify Adam and Eve as well as Cain and Abel. On the left side of the relief we can see a horse whose rider appears to be falling off. We can also make out two other men in front of and in back of the horse. *

Why has no one ever seen the conversion of St. Paul in this scene? Anytime, we see a riderless horse in a painting from the Renaissance we should suspect that the artist has attempted to depict the famous conversion on the road to Damascus. Here is the account of Paul’s conversion from chapter 9 of the Acts of the Apostles:

And as he went on his journey, it came to pass that he drew near to Damascus, when suddenly a light from heaven shone round about him; and falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?” And he said, “Who art thou, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom thou art persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goad.” And he, trembling and amazed, said, “Lord, what wilt thou have me do?” And the Lord said to him, “Arise and go into the city, and it will be told thee what thou must do.” Now the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing indeed the voice, but seeing no one. And Saul arose from the ground, but when his eyes were opened, he could see nothing. And leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus.

Although there is no mention of a horse in the scriptural account, it had become part and parcel of the story as early as the fourth century despite the objection of St. Augustine who argued that a Pharisee would never ride a horse. By the Renaissance the horse had become part of the common Catholic imagination and was usually included in artistic representations. 

For our purposes other important parts of the account would be the light from heaven that shone round Paul and forced him to fall to the ground. The voice of Jesus is heard but he does not appear. Also, Paul is accompanied by other men who hear the voice but stand by as speechless spectators.

In Titian's relief Paul is actually falling off the horse's hind quarters. One attendant can be seen in front of the horse, and another tries to prevent Paul's fall at the rear. 

Everyone is familiar with Caravaggio’s famous depiction of the event that still remains in its original location in the Cerasi chapel of S. Maria del Popolo in Rome. Paul lies on the ground, arms upraised toward the light and the horse towers over him.

  

Caravaggio: Conversion of Paul

Other depictions of the event often present a more tumultuous scene but still include the light, the other men, and the horse. These elements must have been commonplace even before the sixteenth century. Here is a famous tapestry made from a Raphael cartoon.

Tapestry from Raphael cartoon

Early in his career Giovanni Bellini also depicted the conversion of Paul.

Giovanni Bellini: Conversion of Paul

I know that Renaissance artists loved to depict horses but when we see a riderless horse in a seemingly inexplicable scene, we should at least consider the possibility of the conversion of Paul.

There is more than one reason why Titian or his patron might have wanted to include St. Paul in a painting representing the conversion of Mary Magdalen. The conversion stories of both saints were equally famous. At the same time, they were both symbols of sinners converted by divine love.

In researching this piece I turned to the always reliable Emile Male. In his magisterial study of later Medieval art Male re-discovered two extremely popular books of the fifteenth century that have subsequently slipped back into oblivion. The first was the Ars moriendi (the Art of dying):** 

The text was often striking, but it is the astonishing woodcuts above all that spread its fame throughout Europe….death appears not as a farcical dance, but as a serious drama played around the bed of the dying man; angel and devil stand at his side, contending for the soul that will soon depart...

The success of the Ars moriendi was even more extraordinary than the success of the Danse Macabre. Printed editions began to appear after the woodcut editions. Each country had its own… It appeared in turn in French, German, English, Italian, and Spanish….Even Italy, where Gothic barbarity was so scorned, was influenced by the crude woodcuts of the Ars moriendi, although it is true it robbed them of most of their original character. 

The other book was a commentary on the Ars moriendi in an edition published by Verard entitled "L’Art de Bien Vivre et de Bien mourir (The Art of Good Living and Good dying)."  Male noted that a "book that edified all Europe is worth some study."

Verard's commentary includes a number of episodes with corresponding woodcuts where devils and angels compete for the soul of the dying man. In one episode Mary Magdalen and St. Paul appear with St. Peter and the Good Thief to console the dying man.

When the devil cannot shake the dying man’s faith, he changes tactics. He no longer denies God, but represents him as inexorable... Hideous monsters again rove around the sick man’s bed. One presents him with a large parchment document: this is the list “of all the evils that the poor creature has committed during his sojourn on earth.”…
The angel again descends from heaven, accompanied by four saints. They are St. Peter, who thrice denied his Master; Mary Magdalene, the sinner; St. Paul, the persecutor whom God struck down to convert him; and the good thief, who repented on the cross. These are the great witnesses of divine mercy….

The woodcut shows Mary Magdalene with her jar of ointment and St. Paul is shown atop the fallen horse. the woodcut is dated 1492. In the same year (1514) that Titian painted the Sacred and Profane Love Raphael painted his depiction of St. Cecilia surrounded by four saints. In front, flanking St. Cecilia, are St. Paul with his sword of truth, and Mary Magdalen with her jar of ointment. 

Raphael: St. Cecilia with St. Paul and  Mary Magdalen

###

*This series of posts first appeared on Giorgione et al... in the Spring of 2013.  The original paper was first published in 2011.

**Emile Male, Religious Art in France, The Late Middle Ages, Princeton, 1986, pp. 348-351. 

Giorgione's Tempest: The Broken Columns

The broken columns so prominently displayed in the mid-ground of Giorgione's Tempest are a significant iconographical marker in this famous painting. Practically every commentator and interpreter has attempted to explain their origin and meaning, as well as their role in the overall subject. 

Giorgione: Tempest

Back in 2005, when I first saw a black and white image of the Tempest in an old travel book, I wondered whether the man and woman in the foreground had left the city in the background, or whether they were on a journey to the city. It was only after I sensed that Giorgione had depicted the Holy Family on the flight into Egypt that I understood that the Man and Woman had fled from the city in the background.

Like many Renaissance narratives the Tempest begins in the left background, proceeds through the mid-ground, and culminates in the figures in the right foreground. The Holy Family has fled from the stormy city; crossed the bridge and river that represents the dividing line between Judea and Egypt; encountered the ruins and broken columns in the mid-ground; and finally found a place of rest and safety in the foreground. In the left foreground the man acts as an interlocutor drawing the viewer’s attention to the woman and child. Although the viewer’s eye is directed toward the woman, her gaze deflects the action back to the viewer.

I knew that my initial intuition had great difficulties. Even though she was nursing, a nude Madonna was unimaginable and a young, virile St. Joseph was certainly unusual. Depictions of the Flight into Egypt are based on a single verse in the gospel of Matthew but over the centuries legends had accumulated around the journey, and artists had delighted in depicting them.*

My first thought was to look into the work of the great nineteenth century art historian Emile Male, still the best source for Medieval iconography. I turned to “Religious Art in France, the Thirteenth Century”, the second volume of Male’s magisterial study, and found that of all the legends surrounding the arrival of the Holy Family in Egypt, artists “scarcely used any other than the Fall of Idols….” Male gave a brief description of the event.

Many medieval writers told that when Jesus entered the temple of Sotinen, called Hermopolis by others, he caused the idols to fall, in fulfillment of Isaiah’s words: “Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift cloud and will enter into Egypt. And the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence”…When the governor of the town, Affodosius, heard of the miracle, he went to the temple; when he saw that all the statues were broken, he worshiped Jesus….

The Church adopted the story of the Fall of the Idols, which like many apocryphal legends, grew out of a desire to justify a prophetic text, and it authorized the artists to represent it….The thirteenth century gave an abridged, almost hieroglyphic form to the legend. There are neither town, temple nor priests…two statues falling from their pedestals and breaking in two suffice to recall the miracle. **

Idols falling from a pedestal are the way the incident is depicted in the Biblia Pauperum. The two broken columns, standing right in the middle of Giorgione’s mysterious painting, giving an “abridged, almost hieroglyphic form to the legend,” provided a confirmation of my intuition. Giorgione embellished the scene somewhat by including some nearby ruins.

During the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries these ruins were often seen in depictions of the Rest of the Holy Family on the Flight into Egypt. Flemish artists led the way in meeting the devotional demands of their patrons for this subject. One of Joachim Patenir’s most well known versions depicted the entire flight from the storm-shrouded city in the left background to the nursing Madonna in the foreground. Behind the Madonna are the remains of a broken structure. A large, round, stone ball sitting atop a block of stone seems to be all that remains of the ruined idols. 

Joachim Patenir: Rest on the Flight into Egypt

In Washington’s National Gallery Gerard David’s most famous depiction of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt shows the Madonna resting with her Child who holds a bunch of grapes in his hand. She sits atop what looks like the remains of a building foundation that is now just covered with dirt calling to mind the words of Isaiah: "the lofty city He brings down; He tumbles it to the ground, levels it with the dust." 

Gerard David: Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Among Italian artists Cima da Conegliano would also depict the Madonna and her child atop a rocky foundation that would appear to be the remains of a structure. The fallen temple has become an outdoor throne for the Madonna and her Child. 

Cima da Conegliano: Rest on the Flight into Egypt

No Italian, however, liked to depict the ruins as much as Fra Bartolommeo, who became associated with Raphael in 1504 and then traveled to Venice shortly before Giorgione worked on the Tempest. His ruins are really elaborate.

Fra Bartolommeo: Rest on the Flight into Egypt

Giorgione could have been familiar with the work of any of these artists but I believe that his depiction of the fall of idols came from another source. In my paper on the Tempest I pointed out that Giorgione’s truncated columns are similar to those employed by Luca Signorelli in his 1504 depiction of the “End of the World” in Orvieto’s S. Brisio chapel. Domenico Grimani, the famous Venetian Cardinal and art collector, acted as one of Signorelli’s advisors on the project. Grimani had a summer residence near Orvieto.

Luca Signorelli: detail of "End of the World".

I know that other examples of broken columns have been found in emblem books and interpreted variously. Nevertheless, Giorgione’s columns and adjacent ruins are a piece of the Tempest puzzle that fits quite easily into a “Rest on the Flight into Egypt” interpretation.

###

*The Flight of the Holy Family into Egypt is only recorded in the Gospel of St. Matthew. 

After they had left, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for the child and do away with him.’ So Joseph got up and, taking the child with his mother with him, he left that night for Egypt, where he stayed until Herod was dead. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet:

I called my son out of Egypt

**Emile Male, Religious Art in France, The Thirteenth Century: A Study of Medieval Iconography and Its Sources, Princeton, 1984. p. 220.

Review. Emile Male: The Gothic Image

 Emile Male was a pioneering nineteenth century French historian who almost single-handedly rediscovered the magnificent art of the French cathedrals of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. 

                                                

West Rose Window
Chartres

 “in reaching out to the immaterial through the material man may have fleeting visions of God.” Emile Male.

I first read The Gothic Image, the English paperback version of Male’s study of the thirteenth century cathedrals while teaching Western Civilization at a small college in Connecticut over 50 years ago. Even after I left academe to pursue a career in the world of finance, I continued to read Male and eventually went through his complete three volume set, Religious Art in France, re-published by Princeton from 1984 to 1986.*

Male was a pioneer not only because he was one of the first to see the real  subjects of the Gothic windows and sculptures after years of “Enlightenment” obscurantism, but also because  he employed the tools of modern historiography. It almost seems that he actually visited every church and chapel in France as well as a host of others on the European continent. He also found the long forgotten texts that provided the key to the understanding of the windows, paintings, and sculptures that filled the sacred spaces.

It may seem commonplace now but for Male the art of the Middle Ages was primarily didactic. Its purpose was to teach and instruct.  Although it often achieved great beauty, art was not to give visual pleasure. 

 Through the medium of art the highest conceptions of the theologians and scholars penetrated to some extent the minds of even the humblest of people. 

Every branch of human knowledge found its way into the cathedrals which resembled great ships carrying the faithful to their final destination. All that was needed to be known could be found on board. Male identified the six major areas of knowledge depicted in the cathedrals. 

•1. History of the World

•2. Dogmas of Religion

•3. Example of the saints

•4. Hierarchy of virtues (and vices)

•5. Range of the sciences

•6. Arts and crafts

Iconoclastic revolutionaries attacked and destroyed the statues and windows of the cathedrals because they believed that they were representations of the history of the French monarchy. Male showed that they were mistaken because the medieval theologians and artists were more interested in “sacred” history. History could be divided into six major subject areas. 

•1. Old Testament

•2. Gospels

•3. Apocryphal stories

•4. Saints and the Golden Legend

•5. Antiquity—secular history

•6. Close of History—Apocalypse

In dealing with such important subjects the artists followed the dictates of the scholars and theologians. 

the artistic representation of sacred subjects was a science governed by fixed laws which could not be broken at the dictates of individual imagination. 

Even in the Renaissance when great artists like Giorgione and Titian were stretching the envelope, they still were true to traditional iconography. When I was searching for an explanation of the two broken columns in Giorgione's Tempest. I had only to turn to Male’s description of the apocryphal legends surrounding the flight into Egypt. 

Many medieval writers told that when Jesus entered the temple of Sotinen, called Hermopolis by others, he caused the idols to fall, in fulfillment of Isaiah’s words: “Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift cloud and will enter into Egypt. And the idols of Egypt shall be moved at  his presence”…When the governor of the town, Affodosius, heard of the miracle, he went to the temple; when he saw that all the statues were broken, he worshiped Jesus…. 

The Church adopted the story of the Fall of the Idols, which like many apocryphal legends, grew out of a desire to justify a prophetic text, and it authorized the artists to represent it….The thirteenth century gave an abridged, almost hieroglyphic form to the legend. There are neither town, temple nor priests…two statues falling from their pedestals and breaking in two suffice to recall the miracle. ** 

More than an encyclopedic reference, Male was a true guide for anyone seeking to understand Medieval and Renaissance art. He showed how symbols could be decoded to identify once familiar subjects. The nimbus or halo was a sign of holiness within and was only used to identify Christ, the Madonna, the Apostles, and the saints. Christ is always shown with his unique “cruciform” halo. God the Father, Jesus, and the Apostles are always bare foot, but not the Madonna and the saints. Divine intervention is usually indicated by a hand emerging from above or from clouds. Cherubs indicate the eternal rest of Heaven. 

Well-known Apostles have their identifying characteristics. St. Peter usually is balding with a short stubby beard. St. Paul is bald but with a long straight beard since he belonged to the Jewish sect that did not cut their hair. He is often shown with the sword used in his own execution. St. John, regarded by tradition as the youngest Apostle, is usually beardless.

Even events must follow the rules. At the Last Supper Jesus and the Apostles are ranged opposite Judas who is bereft of halo. At the Crucifixion the Madonna must stand at the right hand of Jesus and St. John at the left. The right hand always indicates the place of honor. At the Annunciation artists could vary the postures and attitudes of the angel and the Virgin, but there must always be a flower between them.

Male explained why the altar must always be oriented toward the East, the direction of the rising sun. Only after the Reformation would the Jesuits discard this ancient practice. The cold, dark North side of the cathedrals would always depict scenes from the Old Testament while the warm and bright South would be used for the New Testament. The West was the direction of the setting sun and therefore used to depict the end of the world and Last Judgment as seen in the great West Rose window of Chartres.

Numerical symbolism was extremely important. The number 3 represented the Trinity and all spiritual things. Four represented all material things, since matter was made up of the four elements of air, earth, fire, and water. Seven was a particularly important number for it represented humanity, the unique sum of spirit and matter. There were the seven ages of man, the seven virtues with their corresponding vices, the seven sacraments, and even the seven planets that played a mysterious role in governing human destiny. The number 12, the product of 3 and 4, represented completeness. It was the number of the Apostles, the tribes of Israel, and of the universal Church.

Rose Window, Assumption Church
Fairfield CT ***

Consider this little Rose window from the back of my own parish church in Connecticut which was modeled on the Norman Gothic style of the twelfth century. The risen Lamb of God from the Book of Revelation reclines on an altar with the Seven Seals. Around this center the twelve petals of the rose each contain a symbol of one of the  Apostles who represent all the elect. This same circular window representing Paradise can be found in all the great French cathedrals, as well as in Dante’s Paradiso.

 For Medieval artists and craftsmen the choice of subject was extremely important. To paraphrase Male, every form clothed a thought, and thought fashioned the matter and assumed plastic form. 

Sadly, most modern scholars seem to have only a token knowledge of his work. I suppose it is regarded as out-dated and old fashioned but, in my opinion, it is impossible to fully understand the art of the Italian Renaissance without poring through his volumes. For Male the Middle Ages ended not with the Renaissance but only in 1517 with the onset of the Protestant Reformation. 

###

 * A convenient paperback collection of excerpts and essays can be found in Emile Male, Religious Art from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century, Princeton, 1982. 

 **Emile Male: Religious Art in France, The Thirteenth Century, Princeton, 1986, pp. 220-1. 

*** Image by Melissa DeStefano 

Emile Male: the Gothic Image

Emile Male was a pioneering nineteenth century French historian who almost single-handedly rediscovered the magnificent art of the French cathedrals of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. 

                                                

West Rose Window
Chartres

 “in reaching out to the immaterial through the material man may have fleeting visions of God.” Emile Male.

I first read The Gothic Image, the English paperback version of Male’s study of the thirteenth century cathedrals while teaching Western Civilization at a small college in Connecticut over 50 years ago. Even after I left academe to pursue a career in the world of finance, I continued to read Male and eventually went through his complete three volume set, Religious Art in France, re-published by Princeton from 1984 to 1986.*

Male was a pioneer not only because he was one of the first to see the real  subjects of the Gothic windows and sculptures after years of “Enlightenment” obscurantism, but also because  he employed the tools of modern historiography. It almost seems that he actually visited every church and chapel in France as well as a host of others on the European continent. He also found the long forgotten texts that provided the key to the understanding of the windows, paintings, and sculptures that filled the sacred spaces.

It may seem commonplace now but for Male the art of the Middle Ages was primarily didactic. Its purpose was to teach and instruct.  Although it often achieved great beauty, art was not to give visual pleasure. 

 Through the medium of art the highest conceptions of the theologians and scholars penetrated to some extent the minds of even the humblest of people. 

Every branch of human knowledge found its way into the cathedrals which resembled great ships carrying the faithful to their final destination. All that was needed to be known could be found on board. Male identified the six major areas of knowledge depicted in the cathedrals. 

•1. History of the World

•2. Dogmas of Religion

•3. Example of the saints

•4. Hierarchy of virtues (and vices)

•5. Range of the sciences

•6. Arts and crafts

Iconoclastic revolutionaries attacked and destroyed the statues and windows of the cathedrals because they believed that they were representations of the history of the French monarchy. Male showed that they were mistaken because the medieval theologians and artists were more interested in “sacred” history. History could be divided into six major subject areas. 

•1. Old Testament

•2. Gospels

•3. Apocryphal stories

•4. Saints and the Golden Legend

•5. Antiquity—secular history

•6. Close of History—Apocalypse

In dealing with such important subjects the artists followed the dictates of the scholars and theologians. 

the artistic representation of sacred subjects was a science governed by fixed laws which could not be broken at the dictates of individual imagination. 

Even in the Renaissance when great artists like Giorgione and Titian were stretching the envelope, they still were true to traditional iconography. When I was searching for an explanation of the two broken columns in Giorgione's Tempest. I had only to turn to Male’s description of the apocryphal legends surrounding the flight into Egypt. 

Many medieval writers told that when Jesus entered the temple of Sotinen, called Hermopolis by others, he caused the idols to fall, in fulfillment of Isaiah’s words: “Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift cloud and will enter into Egypt. And the idols of Egypt shall be moved at  his presence”…When the governor of the town, Affodosius, heard of the miracle, he went to the temple; when he saw that all the statues were broken, he worshiped Jesus…. 

The Church adopted the story of the Fall of the Idols, which like many apocryphal legends, grew out of a desire to justify a prophetic text, and it authorized the artists to represent it….The thirteenth century gave an abridged, almost hieroglyphic form to the legend. There are neither town, temple nor priests…two statues falling from their pedestals and breaking in two suffice to recall the miracle. ** 

More than an encyclopedic reference, Male was a true guide for anyone seeking to understand Medieval and Renaissance art. He showed how symbols could be decoded to identify once familiar subjects. The nimbus or halo was a sign of holiness within and was only used to identify Christ, the Madonna, the Apostles, and the saints. Christ is always shown with his unique “cruciform” halo. God the Father, Jesus, and the Apostles are always bare foot, but not the Madonna and the saints. Divine intervention is usually indicated by a hand emerging from above or from clouds. Cherubs indicate the eternal rest of Heaven. 

Well-known Apostles have their identifying characteristics. St. Peter usually is balding with a short stubby beard. St. Paul is bald but with a long straight beard since he belonged to the Jewish sect that did not cut their hair. He is often shown with the sword used in his own execution. St. John, regarded by tradition as the youngest Apostle, is usually beardless.

Even events must follow the rules. At the Last Supper Jesus and the Apostles are ranged opposite Judas who is bereft of halo. At the Crucifixion the Madonna must stand at the right hand of Jesus and St. John at the left. The right hand always indicates the place of honor. At the Annunciation artists could vary the postures and attitudes of the angel and the Virgin, but there must always be a flower between them.

Male explained why the altar must always be oriented toward the East, the direction of the rising sun. Only after the Reformation would the Jesuits discard this ancient practice. The cold, dark North side of the cathedrals would always depict scenes from the Old Testament while the warm and bright South would be used for the New Testament. The West was the direction of the setting sun and therefore used to depict the end of the world and Last Judgment as seen in the great West Rose window of Chartres.

Numerical symbolism was extremely important. The number 3 represented the Trinity and all spiritual things. Four represented all material things, since matter was made up of the four elements of air, earth, fire, and water. Seven was a particularly important number for it represented humanity, the unique sum of spirit and matter. There were the seven ages of man, the seven virtues with their corresponding vices, the seven sacraments, and even the seven planets that played a mysterious role in governing human destiny. The number 12, the product of 3 and 4, represented completeness. It was the number of the Apostles, the tribes of Israel, and of the universal Church.

Rose Window, Assumption Church
Fairfield CT ***

Consider this little Rose window from the back of my own parish church in Connecticut which was modeled on the Norman Gothic style of the twelfth century. The risen Lamb of God from the Book of Revelation reclines on an altar with the Seven Seals. Around this center the twelve petals of the rose each contain a symbol of one of the  Apostles who represent all the elect. This same circular window representing Paradise can be found in all the great French cathedrals, as well as in Dante’s Paradiso.

 For Medieval artists and craftsmen the choice of subject was extremely important. To paraphrase Male, every form clothed a thought, and thought fashioned the matter and assumed plastic form. 

Sadly, most modern scholars seem to have only a token knowledge of his work. I suppose it is regarded as out-dated and old fashioned but, in my opinion, it is impossible to fully understand the art of the Italian Renaissance without poring through his volumes. For Male the Middle Ages ended not with the Renaissance but only in 1517 with the onset of the Protestant Reformation. 

###

 * A convenient paperback collection of excerpts and essays can be found in Emile Male, Religious Art from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century, Princeton, 1982. 

 **Emile Male: Religious Art in France, The Thirteenth Century, Princeton, 1986, pp. 220-1. 

*** Image by Melissa DeStefano 

The Madonna in Art

 

In my interpretation of Giorgione's Tempest as the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” I argued that the nudity of the Woman was Giorgione’s attempt to portray Mary as the Immaculate Conception. Although theologians had debated the dogma for centuries, it was only its resurgence in the fifteenth century that led artists to finally attempt to treat the subject.

Emile Male’s classic three volume study of Medieval iconography included a brilliant discussion of the evolution of the Madonna’s depiction in Medieval art. Princeton University re-published the three volume set in 1986. Below are excerpts from the second and third volumes that trace the evolution from Virgin Queen in the thirteenth century century to Virgin Mother and Mater Dolorosa in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and to Immaculate Conception in the sixteenth century.

Emile Male: Religious Art in France, The Thirteenth Century, Princeton, 1986. Pp. 234-240. This volume has been printed in paperback as “The Gothic Image.”

The cult of the Virgin that grew up in the twelfth century spread during the thirteenth. The bells of Christendom began to ring the Angelus. The Office of the Virgin was recited daily. Our most beautiful cathedrals were dedicated to her. The idea of the Immaculate Conception began to take form in the minds of Christians who for centuries had meditated on the mystery of a Virgin chosen by God. … New religious orders—the Franciscans and the Dominicans—were true knights of the Virgin and spread her cult among the people…. (234-5)

In all the books written to glorify the Virgin, perhaps the idea that recurs most often is that Mary is Queen…. (235)

 Among the many ideas and feelings that clustered around the Virgin in this period, the idea of royalty was the one best understood and most strongly expressed by artists. The Virgin of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries is a queen… Mary is a queen who holds the King of the world. At no other period were artists able to confer such majesty upon the image of the mother of God. (235-6)

Toward the end of the thirteenth century, the Virgin of the theologians, as majestic as pure idea, seemed too remote from man. All the miracles attributed to her in the thirteenth century, all the times she appeared to sinners, merciful and smiling, had brought her closer to mankind. It was then that the artists, faithfully interpreting the feelings of the people, conceived the Virgin of the north portal of Notre-dame of Paris as a mother radiating maternal pride…the virgin had grown to womanhood; she is a mother. (239)

In the fourteenth century, the Virgin and Child group, represented with such solemnity a century before, has only intimacy left. The theological ideas represented by the Virgin, became less and less accessible to artists. They did not comprehend…’that it was the desire of the Infinite God to unite with a Virgin’… they could no longer recreate the superhuman Virgins of the past. They were satisfied to represent a mother smiling at her child.

Soon they would bring the Virgin even closer to humanity through her grief. But the Mater Dolorosa that inspired so many masterpieces in fifteenth-century art, the Virgin old before her time who wept over the bleeding forehead of her son, does not belong to the century under study. [13th]…artists did not yet dare to express her grief….

If the artists liberated themselves fairly early from the ideas of theologians, they remained on the contrary faithful to the legends. They borrowed almost all the episodes in the life of Mary from the apocryphal Gospels….

It did not occur to thirteenth-century artists, as it would to those of the late Middle Ages, to represent the Virgin before her birth. The thirteenth century left this to the sixteenth. It was shortly after 1500 that the young girl with long hair, surrounded by the rose, the star, the mirror, the fountain, and the closed garden appeared in stained glass windows, tapestries, and Books of Hours. This Virgin—a pure concept, anterior to time, an eternal thought of god—did not yet exist. Such a lofty idea, and one imminently suited to serve as inspiration to artists contemporary with St. Bonaventura and Dante, was however unknown to them…. (239-240)

Neither did thirteenth-century artists go back to the father and mother of St. Anne in the genealogy of the virgin…. the artists dealt only with the story of St. Anne and St. Joachim, her first husband…. 

The meeting at the Golden Gate is the subject most frequently depicted. The artists of the late Middle Ages had a marked predilection for it. In fact, it was the only way that had been devised to represent the Immaculate Conception. Although the error had been condemned by the Church Doctors, it was repeated that Mary had been conceived at the moment when Anna and Joachim kissed.

The following excerpts are from the third volume in the series,
Religious Art in France, the later Middle Ages, Princeton, 1986.

toward the end of the fifteenth century, a mysterious idea that had been secretly germinating in man’s soul for more than five hundred years, suddenly blossomed. It now seemed clear to theologians that the Virgin could not have partaken of original sin, being especially exempted from the law by divine decree. Mary, the perfect model of newly created humanity, like Eve at the time she was created by the hands of God, had come into the world free of the burden of sin. (197)

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was an ancient idea that already had its followers in England and Normandy as early as the eleventh century. (197)

This doctrine, supported by the Synod of Basel in 1439, approved by Pope Sixtus IV in 1476, and accepted as dogma by the Sorbonne in 1496, would inevitably have found its expression in art…. (198)

The task was difficult. How was one to represent the Virgin as a pure concept? How convey her creation without sin, by God’s decree, her existence in his thought before the creation of time? (199)

From the fifteenth century on, artists tried to resolve the problem. They first thought of the woman spoken of so mysteriously in the Apocalypse. She has the moon beneath her feet, stars on her head, and the sun envelops her; she seems older than time, no doubt conceived before the universe…. 

In the fifteenth century, in fact, we find manuscripts containing a half-length figure of the Virgin, who seems to rise out of a crescent moon and to shine like the sun….there can be no doubt that the Virgin of the crescent moon was the first symbolic representation of the Immaculate Conception

In the early years of the sixteenth century, a most poetic figure of the Virgin appeared in France. She is a young girl, almost a child; her long hair covers her shoulders…The young virgin seems to be suspended between heaven and earth. She floats like an unexpressed thought, for she is only an idea in the divine mind. God appears above her, and seeing her so pure, pronounces the words of the song of songs: Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te (Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in the). And to express the beauty and purity of the betrothed chosen by God, the artist chose the most pleasing metaphors of the Bible: around her he placed the closed garden, the tower of David, the fountain, the lily of the valleys, the star, the rose, the spotless mirror. (200)

Such an image no doubt answered the innermost feelings of Christians, for it was soon repeated ad infinitum…. (202)

Images of the Immaculate Conception usually appeared alone. Their numbers increased due to the confraternities of the Virgin which celebrated her Conception,… (204)

Thus, the Tree of Jesse was considered a sort of symbol of the Immaculate Conception…. the true reason for the presence of the Tree of Jesse in so many churches lies, I believe, in the cult of the Virgin, and, especially, in the cult of her Conception. (205)

Thus the era of the Middle Ages ended. For more than a thousand years it had worked to fashion the image of the Virgin; this was its ever-abiding thought, its secret and profound poetry. And it might be said that the Middle Ages came to an end at the exact moment when it had made this cherished image as perfect as its dream.  (209)

Of course, Male’s work centered around France and its cathedrals but the cult of the Immaculate Conception was certainly not limited to France. In Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, Rona Goffen demonstrated that Venice itself became identified with the Immaculate Conception by the end of the Quattrocento. 

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Note: Below is an image of the Immaculate Conception as the Woman from the Book of Revelation (Apocalypse) in a stained glass window of Our Lady of the Assumption church in Fairfield, Connecticut. The church was built in 1939 and Mary has an "art deco" look. Notice that her dress is not the traditional red, a sign of her humanity, but white, a symbol not only of her purity but also of her conception in the mind of God. The putti and the colored arcs behind her are traditional symbols indicating a heavenly scene. 

The Madonna in Art

 

In my interpretation of the Tempest as the “Rest on the Flight into Egypt,” I argued that the nudity of the Woman was Giorgione’s attempt to portray Mary as the Immaculate Conception. Although theologians had debated the dogma for centuries, it was only its resurgence in the fifteenth century that led artists to finally attempt to treat the subject.

Emile Male’s classic three volume study of Medieval iconography included a brilliant discussion of the evolution of the Madonna’s depiction in Medieval art. Princeton University published the three volume set in 1986. Below are excerpts from the second and third volumes that trace the evolution from Virgin Queen in the thirteenth century to Virgin Mother and Mater Dolorosa in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and to Immaculate Conception in the sixteenth century.

Emile Male: Religious Art in France, The Thirteenth Century, Princeton, 1986. Pp. 234-240. This volume has been printed in paperback as “The Gothic Image.”


The cult of the Virgin that grew up in the twelfth century spread during the thirteenth. The bells of Christendom began to ring the Angelus. The Office of the Virgin was recited daily. Our most beautiful cathedrals were dedicated to her. The idea of the Immaculate Conception began to take form in the minds of Christians who for centuries had meditated on the mystery of a Virgin chosen by God. …New religious orders—the Franciscans and the Dominicans—were true knights of the Virgin and spread her cult among the people…. (234-5)

In all the books written to glorify the Virgin, perhaps the idea that recurs most often is that Mary is Queen…. (235)

Among the many ideas and feelings that clustered around the Virgin in this period, the idea of royalty was the one best understood and most strongly expressed by artists. The Virgin of the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries is a queen…. Mary is a queen who holds the King of the world. At no other period were artists able to confer such majesty upon the image of the mother of God. (235-6)

Toward the end of the thirteenth century, the Virgin of the theologians, as majestic as pure idea, seemed too remote from man. All the miracles attributed to her in the thirteenth century, all the times she appeared to sinners, merciful and smiling, had brought her closer to mankind. It was then that the artists, faithfully interpreting the feelings of the people, conceived the Virgin of the north portal of Notre-dame of Paris as a mother radiating maternal pride…the virgin had grown to womanhood; she is a mother.

In the fourteenth century, the Virgin and Child group, represented with such solemnity a century before, has only intimacy left. The theological ideas represented by the Virgin, became less and less accessible to artists. They did not comprehend…’that it was the desire of the Infinite god to unite with a Virgin’… they could no longer recreate the superhuman Virgins of the past. They were satisfied to represent a mother smiling at her child.

Soon they would bring the Virgin even closer to humanity through her grief. But the Mater Dolorosa that inspired so many masterpieces in fifteenth-century art, the Virgin old before her time who wept over the bleeding forehead of her son, does not belong to the century under study. [13th]…artists did not yet dare to express her grief….

If the artists liberated themselves fairly early from the ideas of theologians, they remained on the contrary faithful to the legends. They borrowed almost all the episodes in the life of Mary from the apocryphal Gospels….

It did not occur to thirteenth-century artists, as it would to those of the late Middle Ages, to represent the Virgin before her birth. The thirteenth century left this to the sixteenth. It was shortly after 1500 that the young girl with long hair, surrounded by the rose, the star, the mirror, the fountain, and the closed garden appeared in stained glass windows, tapestries, and Books of Hours. This Virgin—a pure concept, anterior to time, an eternal thought of god—did not yet exist. Such a lofty idea, and one imminently suited to serve as inspiration to artists contemporary with St. Bonaventura and Dante, was however unknown to them…. (239-240)

Neither did thirteenth-century artists go back to the father and mother of St. Anne in the genealogy of the virgin….the artists dealt only with the story of St. Anne and St. Joachim, her first husband…. 

The meeting at the golden Gate is the subject most frequently depicted. The artists of the late Middle Ages had a marked predilection for it. In fact, it was the only way that had been devised to represent the Immaculate Conception. Although the error had been condemned by the Church Doctors, it was repeated that Mary had been conceived at the moment when Anna and Joachim kissed.

The following excerpts are from the third volume in the series, Religious Art in France, the later Middle Ages, Princeton, 1986.

toward the end of the fifteenth century, a mysterious idea that had been secretly germinating in man’s soul for more than five hundred years, suddenly blossomed. It now seemed clear to theologians that the Virgin could not have partaken of original sin, being especially exempted from the law by divine decree. Mary, the perfect model of newly created humanity, like Eve at the time she was created by the hands of God, had come into the world free of the burden of sin. (197)

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception was an ancient idea that already had its followers in England and Normandy as early as the eleventh century.

This doctrine, supported by the Synod of Basel in 1439, approved by Pope Sixtus IV in 1476, and accepted as dogma by the Sorbonne in 1496, would inevitably have found its expression in art…. (198)

The task was difficult. How was one to represent the Virgin as a pure concept? How convey her creation without sin, by God’s decree, her existence in his thought before the creation of time? (199)

From the fifteenth century on, artists tried to resolve the problem. They first thought of the woman spoken of so mysteriously in the Apocalypse. She has the moon beneath her feet, stars on her head, and the sun envelops her; she seems older than time, no doubt conceived before the universe….

In the fifteenth century, in fact, we find manuscripts containing a half-length figure of the Virgin, who seems to rise out of a crescent moon and to shine like the sun….there can be no doubt that the Virgin of the crescent moon was the first symbolic representation of the Immaculate Conception.

In the early years of the sixteenth century, a most poetic figure of the Virgin appeared in France. She is a young girl, almost a child; her long hair covers her shoulders…The young virgin seems to be suspended between heaven and earth. She floats like an unexpressed thought, for she is only an idea in the divine mind. God appears above her, and seeing her so pure, pronounces the words of the song of songs: Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te (Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in the). And to express the beauty and purity of the betrothed chosen by God, the artist chose the most pleasing metaphors of the Bible: around her he placed the closed garden, the tower of David, the fountain, the lily of the valleys, the star, the rose, the spotless mirror. (200)

Such an image no doubt answered the innermost feelings of Christians, for it was soon repeated ad infinitum…. (202)

Images of the Immaculate Conception usually appeared alone. Their numbers increased due to the confraternities of the Virgin which celebrated her Conception,… (204)

Thus, the Tree of Jesse was considered a sort of symbol of the Immaculate Conception….the true reason for the presence of the Tree of Jesse in so many churches lies, I believe, in the cult of the Virgin, and, especially, in the cult of her Conception. (205)

Thus the era of the Middle Ages ended. For more than a thousand years it had worked to fashion the image of the Virgin; this was its ever-abiding thought, its secret and profound poetry. And it might be said that the Middle Ages came to an end at the exact moment when it had made this cherished image as perfect as its dream. (209) *


Of course, Male’s work centered around France and its cathedrals but the cult of the Immaculate Conception was certainly not limited to France. In Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice, Rona Goffen argued that Venice itself became identified with the Immaculate Conception by the end of the Quattrocento. 

Below is an image of the Immaculate Conception from my own parish church in Fairfield, CT built in 1939. It is done in the art deco style of the time but still represents the Woman clothed with the sun, with the stars in her crown, and with the moon at her feet. 

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*Emile Male believed that the Middle Ages  came to an end only in 1517, the date of the posting of Martin Luther's 95 theses on a church door in Wittenberg. 

Emile Male: The Gothic Image

                                                

West Rose Window
Chartres

 “in reaching out to the immaterial through the material man may have fleeting visions of God.” Emile Male.

Emile Male was a pioneering nineteenth century French historian who almost single-handedly rediscovered the magnificent art of the French cathedrals of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries. 

I first read The Gothic Image, the English paperback version of Male’s study of the thirteenth century cathedrals while teaching Western Civilization at a small college in Connecticut over 50 years ago. Even after I left academe to pursue a career in the world of finance, I continued to read Male and eventually went through his complete three volume set, Religious Art in France, re-published by Princeton from 1984 to 1986.*

Male was a pioneer not only because he was one of the first to see the real  subjects of the Gothic windows and sculptures after years of “Enlightenment” obscurantism, but also because  he employed the tools of modern historiography. It almost seems that he actually visited every church and chapel in France as well as a host of others on the European continent. He also found the long forgotten texts that provided the key to the understanding of the windows, paintings, and sculptures that filled the sacred spaces.

It may seem commonplace now but for Male the art of the Middle Ages was primarily didactic. Its purpose was to teach and instruct.  Although it often achieved great beauty, art was not to give visual pleasure. 

 Through the medium of art the highest conceptions of the theologians and scholars penetrated to some extent the minds of even the humblest of people. 

Every branch of human knowledge found its way into the cathedrals which resembled great ships carrying the faithful to their final destination. All that was needed to be known could be found on board. Male identified the six major areas of knowledge depicted in the cathedrals. 

•1. History of the World

•2. Dogmas of Religion

•3. Example of the saints

•4. Hierarchy of virtues (and vices)

•5. Range of the sciences

•6. Arts and crafts

Iconoclastic revolutionaries attacked and destroyed the statues and windows of the cathedrals because they believed that they were representations of the history of the French monarchy. Male showed that they were mistaken because the medieval theologians and artists were more interested in “sacred” history. History could be divided into six major subject areas. 

•1. Old Testament

•2. Gospels

•3. Apocryphal stories

•4. Saints and the Golden Legend

•5. Antiquity—secular history

•6. Close of History—Apocalypse

In dealing with such important subjects the artists followed the dictates of the scholars and theologians. 

the artistic representation of sacred subjects was a science governed by fixed laws which could not be broken at the dictates of individual imagination. 

Even in the Renaissance when great artists like Giorgione and Titian were stretching the envelope, they still were true to traditional iconography. When I was searching for an explanation of the two broken columns in Giorgione’s Tempest, I had only to turn to Male’s description of the apocryphal legends surrounding the flight into Egypt. 

Many medieval writers told that when Jesus entered the temple of Sotinen, called Hermopolis by others, he caused the idols to fall, in fulfillment of Isaiah’s words: “Behold the Lord will ascend upon a swift cloud and will enter into Egypt. And the idols of Egypt shall be moved at  his presence”…When the governor of the town, Affodosius, heard of the miracle, he went to the temple; when he saw that all the statues were broken, he worshiped Jesus…. 

The Church adopted the story of the Fall of the Idols, which like many apocryphal legends, grew out of a desire to justify a prophetic text, and it authorized the artists to represent it….The thirteenth century gave an abridged, almost hieroglyphic form to the legend. There are neither town, temple nor priests…two statues falling from their pedestals and breaking in two suffice to recall the miracle. ** 

More than an encyclopedic reference, Male was a true guide for anyone seeking to understand Medieval and Renaissance art. He showed how symbols could be decoded to identify once familiar subjects. The nimbus or halo was a sign of holiness within and was only used to identify Christ, the Madonna, the Apostles, and the saints. Christ is always shown with his unique “cruciform” halo. God the Father, Jesus, and the Apostles are always bare foot, but not the Madonna and the saints. Divine intervention is usually indicated by a hand emerging from above or from clouds. Cherubs indicate the eternal rest of Heaven. 

Well-known Apostles have their identifying characteristics. St. Peter usually has curly hair and a short stubby beard. St. Paul is bald with a long straight beard since he belonged to the Jewish sect that did not cut their hair. He is often shown with the sword used in his own execution. St. John, regarded by tradition as the youngest Apostle, is usually beardless.

Even events must follow the rules. At the Last Supper Jesus and the Apostles are ranged opposite Judas who is bereft of halo. At the Crucifixion the Madonna must stand at the right hand of Jesus and St. John at the left. The right hand always indicates the place of honor. At the Annunciation artists could vary the postures and attitudes of the angel and the Virgin, but there must always be a flower between them.

Male explained why the altar must always be oriented toward the East, the direction of the rising sun. Only after the Reformation would the Jesuits discard this ancient practice. The cold, dark North side of the cathedrals would always depict scenes from the Old Testament while the warm and bright South would be used for the New Testament. The West was the direction of the setting sun and therefore used to depict the end of the world and Last Judgment as seen in the great West Rose window of Chartres.

Numerical symbolism was extremely important. The number 3 represented the Trinity and all spiritual things. Four represented all material things, since matter was made up of the four elements of air, earth, fire, and water. Seven was a particularly important number for it represented humanity, the unique sum of spirit and matter. There were the seven ages of man, the seven virtues with their corresponding vices, the seven sacraments, and even the seven planets that played a mysterious role in governing human destiny. The number 12, the product of 3 and 4, represented completeness. It was the number of the Apostles, the tribes of Israel, and of the universal Church.

Rose Window, Assumption Church
Fairfield CT ***

Consider this little Rose window from the back of my own parish church in Connecticut which was modeled on the Norman Gothic style of the twelfth century. The risen Lamb of God from the Book of Revelation reclines on an altar with the Seven Seals. Around this center the twelve petals of the rose each contain a symbol of one of the  Apostles who represent all the elect. This same circular window representing Paradise can be found in all the great French cathedrals, as well as in Dante’s Paradiso.

 For Medieval artists and craftsmen the choice of subject was extremely important. To paraphrase Male, every form clothed a thought, and thought fashioned the matter and assumed plastic form. 

Sadly, most modern scholars seem to have only a token knowledge of his work. I suppose it is regarded as out-dated and old fashioned but, in my opinion, it is impossible to fully understand the art of the Italian Renaissance without poring through his volumes. For Male the Middle Ages ended not with the Renaissance but only in 1517 with the onset of the Protestant Reformation. 

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 * A convenient paperback collection of excerpts and essays can be found in Emile Male, Religious Art from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century, Princeton, 1982. 

 **Emile Male: Religious Art in France, The Thirteenth Century, Princeton, 1986, pp. 220-1. 

*** Image by Melissa DeStefano