All Saints' Eve

Today begins the Christian season of Allhallowstide - the three holy days dedicated to remembering the dead: those who have been "hallowed" or sainted, all Christian souls and, in some churches, souls in Hell.   A series of ancient feasts that can be dated to pre-Christian times they combine folk traditions with the liturgical.  In both pagan and Christian mythology there was a night when the barrier between the real world and the spirit world became blurred.  It was believe that on that night the restless souls of the dead wandered the earth - particularly those who had not achieved bliss or at the least purgatory.  To appease the benevolent ghosts candles were lit and graves decked in flowers; to ward off the malevolent spirits grotesque images were placed in windows and on door steps, and loud noises made  to keep them at bay.

Scabbard 1 | Scabbard 2 | Image Map

A pen and wash drawing of a scabbard was Hans Holbein the younger's first depiction of  the Dance of Death and is believed to date from 1521.  A left click on either of the two sections will take you to large images of this copy of his work by Swiss engraver Christian von Mechel.  Most of Mechel's engravings were based on Holbein's works as seen by Peter Paul Rubens but in this case he owned the original drawing.

In many traditions people donned disguises to fool Death so that should he be stalking the neighbourhood he was unable to identify them and passed them by.   The finality of all manner and stations joining in the final dance to the grave was an ever present image in most communities. 

The last letter of Hans Holbein the younger's
Dance of Death Alphabet - after the message
of Death the Leveler comes the equally
leveling redemption of the Resurrection.

From the 1300s onward the Dance of Death was a popular subject to both edify the general public and, if possible, scare them on to the path of righteousness.  In line with church doctrine it also made the peasant feel equal to the noble - perhaps it would take the King's silk robe longer to rot in the grave than the beggar's rags but eventual all man would "come to dust".  In a time when death came early, war was constant and violent, and plagues - including the Black Death - emptied entire villages it was a subject of frescoes, paintings, tapestries and engravings.  Often the works were by itinerant church painters but just as often the subject was taken on by known artists such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Bernt Notke and, perhaps most famously,  Hans Holbein the younger.   The first time he took on the subject around 1521 in a pen and wash drawing  of a scabbard for a dagger.  He was to revisit the subject twice in the next three years with his Great Dance of Death (1522) and his Dance of Death Alphabet (1524).  The original woodblocks were created by Hans Lützelburger and became the source material for books in both Catholic and Protestant countries.  They were also to serve as reference for artists for the next four hundred years.  Countless copies and variations were created using woodblocks, copperplate engraving, ink and oil into our own century.

Wer war der Tor, wer des Weise[r],
Wer der Bettler oder Kaiser?
Ob arm, ob reich, im Tode gleich.

Who was the fool, who the wise 
who the beggar or the Emperor?
Whether rich or poor, all are equal in death

Text from a Totentanz
circa 1460

Back in 2012 I created a video using a 20th century setting of an old English (16th century or earlier) dirge meant to be sung at wakes to accompany the dead on their dance with Death to the gates of Purgatory.   The strange juxtaposition of Buffy Stainte Marie singing Benjamin Britten's setting of the Lyke-Wake Dirge fascinated me when I first bought the album back in 1967 and 47 years later still has the power to give me chills.

'Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world.

Hamlet: Act 3

William Shakespeare

October 31 -1863: The Maori Wars resume as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron begin their Invasion of the Waikato.

Una Joia del Gòtic Català* - Part IV

The title of  the posts I've done recently on the Monestir de Pedrables in Barcelona have been entitled Una Joia del Gòtic Català - A Jewel of Catalan Gothic.  And indeed it is!  But within that glorious Catalan Gothic frame rests many jewels of the Catalan Renaissance and Baroque.  The dormitor is a treasure casket of paintings, etchings, sculptures, carvings, fabric and furnishings of the great periods of wealth for the Poor Clares.

The Monastery attracted woman from many of the noblest - and wealthiest - families of Catalonia.  The Roman Catholic tradition of an unmarried girl - or girls - from a family being sent to the cloister was strong in the society of the time.  And it should be recognized that the Monastery was founded by a widow and many of the first sisters were wealthy widows like its founder.  Families were bound to give gifts as part of the "dowry" as their daughters/sisters were "wedded" to Christ.  As well as money the dowry would often include religious objects worked in gems, gold and silver and paintings of a religious nature - often celebrating the patron saints and piety of the donating family.  Royal and wealthy patrons would give gifts as votive offerings and thanks for blessings received.  Over the centuries a religious house could amass a wealth of art and artifacts.

And if the museum of the cloister is any indication the treasury of Pedrables was overflowing.  A favoured way of displaying the wealth was to enclosed several paintings, ceramics or reliefs within an elaborately carved and gilded frame.  These retables or retablos could serve as the backdrop for a portable altar or were hung in sisters' cells as shrines and focuses for mediation.  The themes of the retablos are fairly common - patron saints, the Nativity, the Crucifixion, the Madonna - some with magnificent works of art will-you nil-you incorporated with what could be termed "religious schlock". In some cases they were given to the Monastery as a completed piece but many were created after the fact, at the behest of the Order, from objects donated individually.  There are often stylistic differences in the paintings, ceramics or carvings that would suggest the later.

Amongst the many on display there was one retablo in particular that caught my attention.  Unfortunately I didn't make note of the details and a request for information to the Museum at the Monastery has gone unanswered.

The format is fairly standard: a top piece (in this case the Crucifixion); two framing objects (St Anthony of Padua and, I believe, the Virgin - I can't make out the attributes) and a central portrait of a young Madonna holding a distaff and spindle.  The whole is encased in an intricately carved and gilded frame. 

It was that central portrait that struck me:  Mary, almost a child, dressed in traditional Catalan garb and spinning as legend tells us she did while being prepared in the Temple for her tremendous task.

The Gospel of St James relates that St Anne and St Joachim had given up all hope of having children but were given a heavenly message that Anne would conceive and bear a girl child.  In thanksgiving for this miracle they vowed to dedicate the child to God.  (Always a little cynical where these things are concerned I wonder at longing to have a child in the house and then vowing to give the child up almost immediately - something doesn't compute there!) At the age of three they presented her into the care of the priests of the Temple in Jerusalem and she was to remain there until she was twelve years old.   During that time she was prepared for her role as the Mother of God according to the both James and other pseudo-Gospels.  One of her duties in the temple was to make vestments for the priests which would account for the distaff and spindle in this lovely little painting and perhaps also serves as justification for the working of vestments that became the vocation of many of the sisters.

What I found marvelous about this, admittedly, minor oil painting is the way the subject is treated.  This could be any little girl from the countryside, freshly scrubbed and in her Sunday best - it is possible to see young girls dressed in exactly the same way at various religious and secular festival throughout Catalonia.  As was the tradition she has had her ears pierced and she wears a simple strand of coral beads.  At the time it was not uncommon for children to wear a coral necklace as it was thought to ward off illness and the evil eye.   But in Christian iconography coral has a deeper significance as it represents the blood and the sacrifice of Christ.  The painter was transferring what he no doubt saw in front of him to canvas but there was also an underlying message.  This simple little innocent peasant girl, serenely going about her work, was to become the crucible for the salvation of the world. 

Some how I find this more worthy of meditation and reference than all the bejewelled, velvet robed, silver crowned Queens of Heaven that populate the more revered shrines throughout Spain.

February 4 - 1936:  Radium becomes the first radioactive element to be made synthetically.

The Sunday Christ

As my friends Irini and Fotis mulled over whither Fotis really needed a Darth Vader helmet or a feather boa (sensible boy he bought neither) I wandered out of the Hollywood Costume Exhibition Shop at the Victoria and Albert into a small gallery next door. Though it is located a good deal away from the splendid Medieval Galleries it houses a few lovely pieces of religious art of mixed origins from the period. As often happens I focused in on one lovely piece of the carver's art.

This time the medium wasn't wood but alabaster and as is often the case with works of the period, this figure is dated circa 1500, the artist who created it is unknown. And until I saw this piece I must admit that the subject was unknown to me: The Sunday Christ.  The card in the case explained that this was a unique work probably from Southern England or Wales and was meant not as a devotional object but as an admonition to those who wounded Christ by working on the Sabbath.

Normally the figure of the Sunday Christ appears in paintings and frescoes, often larger than life, and seems to have been particular to southern England, Cornwall, Wales, and the Alpine regions of France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Slovenia and northern Italy.   Frequently situated at the entrance to a church the painting or fresco portrayed "The Man of Sorrows" acquainted not with grief but with the grievous wounds caused by the tools of workmen who had chosen not to "to abstain from those works and affairs which hinder the worship to be rendered to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, or the suitable relaxation of mind and body."  In more than one representation the blood from the wounds have a particularly gory aspect which causes me to wonder why it didn't become the subject for more Southern artists who seem to revel in suffering with a capital "S".   It was hoped that in regarding the Sunday Christ (with or without the gore) the pious could find assurance that they were not amongst those re-crucifying Christ and the repentant would see what their act of impiety had led to.  I'm not sure what effect it would have on those who continued to work as they wouldn't have darkened the door step of the church to view the suffering their sinful behavoir had wrought.

Many of the tools that are inflicting wounds on The Sunday Christ are agrarian in nature - suggesting that this figure was carved as a warning to farm labourers in the surrounding district.  Which church it was created for is unknown as are the details of how it found its way to Portugal before being acquired by the V and A. 

There is a theory that in the wake of the Black Death the Holy days of obligation had increased to a point where if craftsmen, labourers and farmhands had abstained from work on all of the required days that nothing would have been done.  In many cases work was necessary, if crops were to be planted or brought in, buildings to be constructed or water to be drawn that work continue despite it being the Sabbath.  It was very much a case of "damned if you do, damned (or starved) if you don't". 

It is highly unusual for The Sunday Christ to be worked in stone or wood and this little figure is the only known representation in this form in England. The figure was probably stored in a shuttered tabernacle close to the door of the church and may even have been carried in processions on one of the many Feast Days or Days of Obligation.  Perhaps it was when viewed in those processions that the shame of working and inflicting new wounds on their Lord overcame those labouring and they threw down their tools and did their duty.

Thought I have been a trifle tongue in cheek about the purpose of this little figurine I can recall the time was here in Canada when Sunday was indeed a welcome day of rest.  And it was very much the same in our area of Roma and many places in Germany and Austria that we visited.  Sunday was a day to go to church, if you were so inclined, visit the family, stroll through the park or go to lunch with friends.  All of which fit perfectly in to the canonical command "to abstain from those works and affairs which hinder the worship to be rendered to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s day, or the suitable relaxation of mind and body." and none of which would have contributed to the suffering of this little Christ figure.

30 December - 1919: Lincoln's Inn in London, England, UK admits its first female bar student.

A Limited Collection - Part I

The recent trip to the Baltic was bracketed in a way by visits to two of the most famous museums in the world - Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum at the beginning and the Hermitage in St Petersburg towards the end.  Both have unparalleled collections though the Russian museum has to win hands down for size. With over 3 millions pieces it is estimated that only a third of its acquisitions are on display and that a lifetime could be spent going from room to room and still there would be things left to see.

Though smaller in size the Rijkmuseum collection is as rich in its own way with art and artifacts reflecting the Golden Age when Holland was a centre of commerce and world trade, an exceptional Asian collection and a unique collection of drawings, litho and photo graphs.  The collection long ago outgrew its 19th century building and a ten year expansion and renovation programme has been on-going since 2003.  But during that period the Phillips Wing of the Museum has been the location of The Masterpieces - an exhibition that presents all the most important paintings in the collection together with selected items reflecting Dutch culture in the glory years.  And there is even room for special exhibits and currently they are showcasing a selection of the work of master engraver Hendrick Goltzius and a fantastic series of Japanese surimono prints that are part of a collection recently been donated to the Museum.

For anyone who has been accustomed to the museums in many other European countries the most striking difference at the Rijksmuseum is the rarity of images of Christian iconography in theircollection.  Not that they are not there just that when entering a gallery you aren't confronted by painting upon painting of annunciations, virgin births, crucifixions, transfigurations or martyrdom.   During the Golden Age glory was given to God in the word and it was the bounty he had showered upon the good upright burghers of the Netherlands that became the major subject of its art and artisans.

Enter a ceramic gallery in the Bode or the Prado and you will be confronted by Madonnas, Apostles, Saints, Patriarchs and Prophets as well as the usual figures from mythology.  At the Phillips Wing enter the gallery devoted to the ceramics of the Netherlands - the majority from Delft - and the paucity of religious subjects is immediately apparent.  The famous white and blue tin-glazed earthenware ranges from everyday household items to elaborate decorative panels and table pieces with fanciful landscapes, seascapes, flowers and elaborate curlicues.

Perhaps it was the paucity of religious subjects that drew me to one piece amongst the trove of white and blue that gave the gallery a particular glow.

This picture from the Rijkmuseum website gives a clearer picture of St Mathew and a partial view of St Luke that can't be seen in the current display.  It is strange that something like this is not put on a turntable so that all aspects of the artwork and all eight figures can be seen.

 It is difficult to determine the exact purpose of this octagonal flask - perhaps it was meant to be used in a Catholic church (a flagon for sacramental wine) or it may have just been for use in a Catholic household to remind the family of its religious heritage.  Fired somewhere between 1700 and 1710 it features 8 figures (sadly only 5 were visible in the display case) Christ (Ecce homo -Behold the Man), Saint Mary, St Peter, St Mathew, St Thomas, St Bartholomew, St Luke and St John the Baptist.  Each carries their iconic attributes (which denotes it as intended for a Catholic audience) however the other decorations are typical of Delftware: leaf wreaths, lily motifs, putti and angels heads. 

The work of Dammas Hofdijk of the De Witte Starre factory it is intriguing in its choice of Saints: the norm would have been the four Evangelists, Saints Peter and Paul as well as the Virgin, John and Christ.  Here only Peter is included with two of the Evangelists and St Thomas the Doubter and Saint Bartholomew also known as Nathanial.  Perhaps for the Church or family it was intended for these Saints had a particular relevance.

An interesting website devoted to Delftware gives a detailed description on how it was produced.

27 June - 1898: The first solo circumnavigation of the globe is completed by Joshua Slocum from Briar Island, Nova Scotia.

The Burning Bush

A sketch of the famous tower by
Rembrandt (who is buried in the church)
is the Westerkerk logo. A right click will
take you to their website.

The very nice gentleman at the souvenir shop in the Westerkerk explained that the church's origins were Calvinist but that after the merger in 2004 of three of Holland's Protestant sects it became a progressive congregation within the communion of the Protestant Church of the Netherlands. He, rather shyly I thought, invited us to morning worship with the comment that the service would be in Dutch but he was sure the hymns would speak to us and we were welcome to take communion with as part of their congregation.

His invitation was hardly out of place when you consider the church's location. Next door is the Anne Frank House, in the church courtyard stands a statue of its little neighbour who wrote of the comfort its bells brought her and from the green space behind it the Homomonument reaches its pink triangle out to touch the waters of the canal. And within is one of the most eloquent and elegant symbols of ecumenicism I have ever seen: Hans 't Mannetje's The Burning Bush.

Created at the suggestion of Fokkelien Oosterwijkm, the church's minister, it was unveiled on December 9, 2007. Taking as its inspiration a passage that is common to the Torah, Christian Bible and the Koran it also draws on the age old tradition of lighting a candle as a way of bringing our wishes, prayers, cares and joys to the Devine. As anyone who has read my blog over the years knows the lighting of a candle has always been my way of remember people I love and care for, their and my wishes, prayers, cares and joys.  During my four years in Italy it was my common, sometimes daily, practice to drop into a church and take a few minutes to light a candle - I'm not sure if it did any good but if nothing else it brought a little light into a patch of darkness. When Laurent and I were married five years ago one of the things we did was to light a candle to represent all of our friends and loved ones who could not be there on that day.   For us that small flame embodied all those we loved, past and present. 

A stylized bush made up of clusters of leaves enclosing candle cups, Hans 't Mannetje's brass sculpture
is a reminder of the commonality of many of the faiths that often seem to stress only their differences.

't Mannetje's magnificent brass monument reminds us that in Judaism, Christianity and Islam the story of Moses and his encounter with his God is common to all three.

Torah תּוֹרָה / Bible
And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then He said, “Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground.” Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

Koran القرآن
Has the story of Moses reached Thee? Behold he saw a fire: So he said to his family, "Tarry ye: I perceive a fire; perhaps I can bring you some burning brand therefrom, or find some guidance at the fire." But when he came to the fire, a voice was heard: "O Moses! "Verily I am thy Lord! Therefore (in My presence) Put off thy shoes: thou art In the sacred valley Tuwa. "I have chosen thee: Listen, then, to the inspiration (Sent to thee). "Verily, I am God: There is no god but I: So serve thou Me (only), And establish regular prayer For celebrating My praise." But when he came to the valley a voice was heard from the right bank of the valley, from a tree in hallowed ground: "Oh Moses. I am Allah, the Lord of the Worlds."

So this morning I lit a candle and placing it into one of the hundreds of cups that make up the Burning Bush  and I remember all my loved ones - their wishes, prayers, cares and joys and for a few minutes a small patch of darkness was illuminated.

10 June -1829: The first Boat Race between the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge takes place.

Heads You Lose

Today is the Feast of Saint John the Baptist - one of those secondary feast days in the church calender that becomes a major celebrations in some regions of not just Italy but the World. As an example in Québec June 24th has always been a major celebration of Saint Jean-Baptiste the patron of the province. It has since taken on a slightly more nationalistic nature but the traditions of the older celebration still hold on.

You have to admit that the story of John the Baptist is a pretty good one. Its got everything - religion, sex, politics, sex, political descent, sex, intrigue, sex, death and did I mention sex? Its no wonder it's attracted writers, artists, composers, choreographers and movie makers.

In paintings the child John is normally seen with the Madonna, his smug little cousin Jesus and his mother Elizabeth. Often he's holding a lamb or a cross and when he gets older is dressed in camel skin. However this sculptor seems to think he started his career as an ascetic - howbeit a chubby well-fed one - early in life.

The story of Salome dancing for her step-father Herod on his birthday and, at the insistence of her mother, demanding the head of John has been expanded from a few lines in two of the gospels. She is not even mentioned by name but historically it is known that the daughter of Herodias was called Salome.
The idea of Salome as an icon of dangerous female seductiveness is an old one that became more entrenched in our modern sensibilities with Oscar Wilde's play and later Richard Strauss opera based on it.

The Feast being celebrated today is his birth - which is exactly 6 months before Christmas, no doubt to jibe with the story of Mary's visit to his mother Elizabeth. The Beheading - a much lesser Feast in the calender - isn't celebrated (?) until August 29.

All the photos here were taken in the Bode Museum during our trip to Berlin late last year.

24 giugno - Natività di San Giovanni Battista