Holy Week 2012

Over the last few weeks I've been struggling with the decision on what to do about Holy Week. Last year I used Giotto's marvelous paintings in the Arena Chapel at Padua to illustrate the events of the final week of Jesus' earthly life.

Duccio di Buoninsigna, Entry Into Jerusalem
Italian, 1308-1311
Sienna, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo

One option for this year was to use the similar series of paintings by Giotto's slightly older contemporary, the Siennese Duccio di Buoninsegna. These pictures occupy the back portion of Duccio's altarpiece dedicated to Mary, known as the Maestà, which was painted a few years after the completion of Giotto's masterpiece. Although they are comparable in the choice of subject, Duccio's paintings are small, with limited pictorial space available. This means that the images are often crowded and compressed or stripped down to the basic elements. An example is his Entry into Jerusalem.

Another option was to focus, not so much on images of the events of that final week, but on paintings that meditate upon those events in some way. This is a different approach, but an intriguing one, I think.

It is this second approach that I have decided to undertake. Therefore, for illustrations of the events of Holy Week I will refer you to my essays from 2011, while also offering the new essays on a group of paintings that meditate on the Passion.

© M. Duffy, 2012

The Annunciation – The World Created Anew

Fra Angelico, The Annunciation
Italian, c. 1424-1426
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

“The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin's name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
"Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you."
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
"Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his Kingdom there will be no end."
But Mary said to the angel,
"How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?"
And the angel said to her in reply,
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.

Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word."
Then the angel departed from her."
(Luke 1:26-35, 38)
Excerpts from Gospel for the Feast of the Annunciation

The Annunciation is one of those Gospel episodes that are really difficult to write about. The tale is simple in many ways, although it opens the door to a mystery that is beyond our comprehension. An angel comes to a young, completely inexperienced girl and tells her she has been specially favored by God and will be the mother of His son. The girl, very sensibly, asks how that can be as she has not had sexual relations with any man. The angel explains that the Holy Spirit will engender the child. The girl accepts the Divine Will. It is a story with only two visible characters: a girl and an angel (who is presumably visible since the girl can see him). There is no description of the location of the encounter and no other visible characters.

Because of the non-specificity of this encounter artists have been free to imagine it in all sorts of ways. They have created thousands and thousands of works of art in a bewildering array of styles and settings. There are, in fact, so many depictions of this scene that it is extremely difficult to choose examples to study. A query for “Annunciation” on the Metropolitan Museum of Art website yielded 274 works from their collection alone. A similar query to a larger art historical search engine yielded 6,316 examples. Many of these are minor examples, of course, but even among major works of art the number of Annunciations is huge. Yet all boil down to two major figures: a girl and an angel.


Fra Angelico, The Annunciation
Italian, c. 1424-1426
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

Consequently, I have decided that, instead of giving you many examples of various types of Annunciation images, I will focus once more on just one. This is the transcendental lovely image by Fra Angelico in the collection of the Prado Museum in Madrid. It was painted on panel sometime between 1424 and 1426, possibly for the church of San Lorenzo in Florence, possibly for the for the Dominican convent of St. Domenic in Fiesole, near Florence where it was historically placed. 1


The entire right hand side of the picture presents the actual Annunciation scene in a very traditional Italian manner. There we see Mary, seated on a bench draped in fabric which also drapes the wall behind her, forming a kind of cloth of state. She sits in an open, groin-vaulted loggia, an open prayer book on her knee, and responds gently to the approach of Gabriel, her gesture mirroring his. Gabriel appears to have just landed, his wings still half open, his knees just beginning to bend. He is dressed in a magnificently embroidered tunic, which from its soft folds appears to be made of fine silk. His wings, in shades of gold, are eyed, like the tail feathers of the peacock.

Detail of the hand of God the Father

From the upper left corner of the picture, the hands of God send streams of golden light toward her and, on those beams, the Holy Spirit is seen as a dove descending (just above Gabriel's head).

Detail of center of the picture

Above the column that divides Gabriel and Mary is an image of Jesus, presented as a bust in relief. Thus, all the Persons of the Trinity appear in some way within the picture. On Mary's side of the space, seated on the iron cross bar between the pillars, is a swallow, symbolic of the Incarnation.2




Detail of left side of painting.

The entire left side of the painting is occupied by a garden filled with highly detailed representations of plant life. And, in this garden appears the scene from Genesis in which Adam and Eve are being driven out of the Garden of Eden by an angel. This angel bears a striking resemblance to Gabriel himself. And Eve bears a resemblance to Mary.

We see here the tipping point of salvation history. Mary is being invited to participate in righting the wrong done by Adam and Eve. Her obedient "fiat" (Be it done to me) will cancel their disobedience in eating the forbidden fruit.

The equation between Mary and Eve is an old one in Christian thought. Already in the 2nd century Irenaeus, bishop of Lugdunum in Roman Gaul (modern Lyons, France) had written in his treatise Against Heretics “thus also it was that the knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief, this did the virgin Mary set free through faith.”3




This equation of Mary and Eve derives from the New Testament equation of Christ with Adam made by St. Paul who, in his great reflection on the Resurrection in Corinthians I, states “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead came also through a human being. For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life…” (I Corinthians 15:21-22).

This equation between Jesus and Adam and between Mary and Eve was a familiar one in medieval art. For example, in the Klosterneuburg Altarpiece by Nicholas of Verdun, one of the greatest works of 12th century art, the plaques that illustrate Biblical events are arranged in three rows:  scenes before the Law of Moses on the top, scenes of the Old Testament after the Law of Moses on the bottom, and related scenes from the New Testament in the middle.


Thus, the plaque of the Annunciation is placed between the annunciation to Abraham of the birth of Isaac (top) and the annunciation of the birth of Samson to Samson’s previously barren mother (bottom). 4 All of these annunciations have about them an element of the miraculous, but only the Annunciation to Mary will result in the birth of the Son of God.

Nicholas of Verdun, The Annunciation of the Birth of Isaac

Top Row - Events Before the Law

Mosan School, 1181

Klosterneuburg Abbey, Austria

Nicholas of Verdun, The Annunciation of the Birth of Jesus

Middle Row - Events Under Grace

Mosan School, 1181

Klosterneuburg Abbey, Austria

Nicholas of Verdun, The Annunciation of the Birth of Samson

Bottom Row - Events Under the Law

Mosan School, 1181

Klosterneuburg Abbey, Austria

In the Biblia Pauperum produced in the late 15th century by the Rambures Master, now in the Meermano Museum at the Hague, the Annunciation is placed between the Temptation of Eve, in which the half-human, half-reptile tempter approaches Eve and the annunciation of a sign from heaven by an angel to Gideon. The sign given to Gideon is that dew had formed only on a fleece, not on the underlying ground. This miraculous dewfall is itself a type of the Virgin Birth, which Gabriel is about to announce.

The Rambures Master, The Temptation of Eve, The Annunciation, The Sign for Gideon
From a Biblia pauperum
Hesdin or Amiens, c. 1470
The Hague, Meermano Museum 
MS MMW 10 A 15, fol. 21r

What Fra Angelico is showing us in the Prado altarpiece is the moment just before the world begins anew. Gabriel has not yet announced his mission. When he does, Mary's yes will begin the new creation, with Jesus as the new Adam and Mary herself as the new Eve in a new Garden of Eden of the spirit.

For more on the iconography of the Annunciation see the following links:

• The Annunciation, Part I, Simplicity
• The Annunciation, Part II – Enter A Dove
• The Annunciation, Part III – In the Garden
• The Annunciation, Part IV: "As If She Were A Dove That Dwelt There"
• The Annunciation, Part V: Telling The Whole Story
• The Annunciation, Part VI: The Annunciation Witnessed
• The Annunciation, Part VII, In the House
• The Annunciation, Part VIII, In the Bedroom

© M. Duffy, 2012, updated 2017
_______________________________
1. Kanter, Laurence. "Fra Angelico: A Decade of Transition (1422-32)" in Fra Angelico, New York, New Haven and London, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2005, pp. 80-83. This is the catalogue of an exhibition of the work of Fra Angelico held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, October 26, 2005 - January 29, 2006.

2. Ferguson, George. Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, New York, Oxford University Press, 1966, pp. 25-26.

3. Irenaeus of Lyons, Against Heresies (Adversus haereses), Book III, Chapter 22, Section 4. Translated by Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut. From Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. Edited by Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe. (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885.) Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. <http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103322.htm>.

4. The arrangement of the plaques is detailed at http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/etext/wiretap-classic-library/Latin/Malin/verdun.txt

Purification of the Temple

Francesco Bassano, Purification of the Temple
Italian, 1585
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

"Since the Passover of the Jews was near,
Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
He found in the temple area those who sold oxen, sheep, and doves,
as well as the money changers seated there.
He made a whip out of cords
and drove them all out of the temple area, with the sheep and oxen,
and spilled the coins of the money changers
and overturned their tables,
and to those who sold doves he said,
"Take these out of here,
and stop making my Father's house a marketplace."
His disciples recalled the words of Scripture,
Zeal for your house will consume me.

(John 2:13-17)

Excerpt from the Gospel for the Third Sunday of Lent, Year B




The episode in which Jesus comes to the temple in Jerusalem and drives out the traders who had established their businesses within its walls is one of the most dramatic of the events of His life, prior to the Passion. The writers of the Synoptic Gospels place it in the early days of what we now call Holy Week, the last week of Jesus’ life and may have been the last straw that gave the Jewish temple faction their excuse for stage managing His crucifixion. On the other hand, John, the writer of the Gospel used on the Fourth Sunday of Lent in Year B of the reading cycle, places it earlier in Jesus ministry. Its actual chronology in His life is, however, less important than its meaning.

Valentin de Boulogne, Purification of the Temple
French, c. 1626
Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum

In Jesus’ time the second temple, built only in recent decades by Herod the Great, had certain requirements. First, there was a temple tax, which needed to be paid. It could not be paid by using Greek or Roman coins, which were marked by images of the gods or of deified emperors. Therefore, there were merchants who provided the services that we today call foreign exchange, buying the unacceptable coins in exchange for allowable coins (at a profit, of course).

In addition, to supply pilgrims with the animals needed for the temple sacrifices, there were traders who provided the animals, among them oxen, sheep and doves. While all these businesses served legitimate purposes related to the temple worship, they had encroached on areas of the temple that were off limits for such activities, therefore, defiling the sanctity of those areas. And this is not even to mention the potential for corruption that the association of commerce and the temple rituals could cause: bribes, kickbacks, price gouging, etc. Jesus reacted to this by an outburst of spontaneous, prophetic action.

Rembrandt, Jesus Overturning the Tables of the Moneychangers
Dutch, 1626
Moscow, Pushkin Museum

The image of the outraged Jesus, assembling a makeshift whip out of cords, and then driving these merchants out of the temple is one that still astonishes. Indeed, it may be more astonishing today than at times in the past.

The image of Jesus that today exists in many minds is more that of a gentle guru than an outraged and zealous prophet. A couple of centuries of “gentle Jesus meek and mild”, accepting and affirming everyone and everything, have blinded us to the possibility that some things might actually matter to Him.  It is a huge stretch of the imagination to picture a Jesus who would create a whip out of cords and use it to drive people out of the building or who would overturn the foreign exchange tables, spilling the piles of coins to the floor.

This wasn’t the way earlier centuries saw this episode.

As far as I have been able to determine, the earliest images of the Purification occur during the Middle Ages in manuscript illumination and wall painting.

Early images seem to be more like symbolic representations of the event than imaginative records of it. 

Jesus Overturning the Tables of the Moneychangers
From the Gospel Book of Otto III
German (Reichenau), c. 1000
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 4456, fol. 119v

The Purification of the Temple (Jesus, the sellers of doves, the moneychangers)
German (Rhineland), c. 1151-1165
 Schwartzrheindorf, Saint Clement Church

Jesus Overturns the Tables of the Moneychangers
Byzantine, c. 1180-1190
Monreale, Church of Santa Maria la Nuova

Hand B of the Munich Psalter, Purification of the Temple
English (Oxford), First quarter of the 13th century
London, British Library
MS Arundel 157, fol. 6v (detail)

Jesus Expelling the Animal Sellers
Italian, c. 1255
Assisi, Basilica of San Francesco, Upper Church

If you look closely at this image you will see the rear ends of two sheep and three cattle behind the merchants.  So, these are the sellers of livestock for the sacrifices, not moneychangers.

Giotto, Purification of the Temple
Italian, c. 1304-1306
Padua, Arena Chapel

The beginnings of a more realistic view of the event.  In Giotto's painting the defensive reaction of one of the traders implies an actual action, not a symbolic one. 

Scenes from Holy Week
From the Angevin-Hungarian Golden Legend
Hungarian or Italian, c. 1320-1345
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS M 360, fol. 5r (top)

Master of the Harvard Hannibal, Purification of the Temple
From a Meditationes vitae Christi
French (Paris), c. 1420-1422
London, British Library
MS Royal 20 B IV, fol. 82 (detail)

Jesus Orders the Moneychangers to Leave
From Le Mirouer de la redemption de l'umain lignage
French (Paris), c. 1493
Paris, Bibliotheque nationale de France
MS VELINS 906, fol. 73r

Jesus Expels the Moneychangers
From a Book of Hours
French (Paris), c. 1495-1505
New York, Pierpont Morgan Library
MS H 5, fol. 44v

During the Renaissance and later periods, as artists became more comfortable with using such tools as scientific perspective, this changed and the representations of the Purification or Cleansing of the Temple began to show more violence.

Lorenzo Ghiberti, Purification of the Temple

Italian, c. 1403-1424

Florence, Baptistery

Rambures Master, Purification of the Temple
From a Biblia pauperum
Hesdin or Amiens, c. 1470
The Hague, Museum Meermanno
MS MMW 10 A 15, fol. 27r (detail)

In these two images (from Ghiberti's doors to the Baptistery of Florence cathedral and from the 1470 Biblia pauperum) there is no doubt that the action of Jesus is a real action, as the other figures react to it. 

The level of violence and the number of figures and animals involved increased over time, until by the Baroque period, Jesus sometimes became lost in the crowd.

Pieter Aertsen, Purification of the Temple
Dutch, c. 1570-1575
Sold at Christie's Amsterdam on November 9, 1998

Jacopo Bassano, Purification of the Temple
Italian, 1580
London, National Gallery

El Greco, Purification of the Temple
Greco-Spanish, 1570
Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art

El Greco, Purification of the Temple
Greco-Spanish, 1610
London, National Gallery

Valentin de Boulonge, Purification of the Temple
French,  c. 1618
Rome, Gallerie Nazionali Barbarini Corsini

Jacob Jordaens, Purification of the Temple
Flemish, c. 1640-1645
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Giovanni Battista Castiglione, Purification of the Temple
Italian, c. 1645-1655
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Here Jesus is a tiny figure in the background, almost swallowed  up by the crowds of animals and people scattering before Him.

Luca Giordano, Purification of the Temple
Italian, c. 1675
St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum

Jean Jouvenet, Expulsion of the Merchants from the Temple
French, 1714
Paris, Musée du Louvre

Cosmas Damian Asam, Purification of the Temple
German, c. 1731-1732
Osterhofen (Bavaria), Church of St. Margaret

During the 18th century, and into the 19th century and beyond, artists began to expand the temple setting to concentrate more on the surroundings of the Purification.  Consequently, it is as if the viewpoint of the artist has moved from the mid- to close range into a long distance view.

Giovanni Pannini, Purification of the Temple
Italian, c. 1724
Madrid, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection

Bernardo Bellotto, Purification of the Temple
Italian, 1773
Warsaw, National Museum

Joseph Mallard William Turner, Purification of the Temple
English, c. 1832
London, Tate Britain

At the same time the image of Jesus became more and more that of the gentle, meek, quiet victim. And, in keeping with this, the images of the Purification of the Temple become quieter, assuming, once again, a more symbolic character. This time, however, the world presented to our view is not the barely indicated one of the medieval image, but the carefully constructed, even archaeological, setting of 19th century historicism.

Raymond Balze, Purification of the Temple
French, 1850s
Montauban, Musée Ingres

James Tissot, Purification of the Temple
French, c. 1886-1894
New York, Brooklyn Museum

William Brassey Hole, Purification of the Temple
Illustration from the Life of Jesus series of watercolors
English, 1906

© M. Duffy, 2012

 

Excerpts from the Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States of America, second typical edition © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. Used with permission. All rights reserved. No portion of this text may be reproduced by any means without permission in writing from the copyright owner.