Ad Imaginem Dei: July 2013

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Glorious St. Anne – The Iconography of St. Anne

Masaccio, Madonna and Child with St. Anne
Italian, 1424
Florence, Uffizi Gallery

The course of the year has come round, once again, to the middle of July and the start of the period in which the Church turns to honor St. Anne and her husband, St. Joachim, parents of the Virgin Mary and grandparents of Jesus. As it has every July since 1892, my home parish in New York will be honoring St. Anne during the nine day novena and feast day, from July 17th to July 26th. You can see the schedule here.

During this ten-day period in 2011, I posted a series of essays on the iconography of St. Anne. The list of topics is shown below. I refer readers to them. I've updated some with additional images, as I've found them during the past year.

1. Introduction, Background of Joachim and Anne plus Annunciation of Mary's Birth
2. The Meeting of Anne and Joachim at the Golden Gate
3. Birth of Mary
4. Presentation of Mary in the Temple
5. St. Anne as Teacher (Education of the Virgin Mary)
6. Anne, Root of the Tree of Salvation (the Anna selbdritt image)
7. St. Anne, Grandmother
8. St. Anne, Matriarch of the Holy Kindred

Luca Vescia, St. Anne and Mary
Italian, 1911
New York, St. Jean Baptiste Church,
Shrine of St. Anne

9. St. Anne in the Communion of Saints
10. St. Anne, Patron and Intercessor

In the meantime, you may want to join in the daily prayer to St. Anne, recited during each day of the novena.

"O glorious St. Ann, you are filled with compassion for those who invoke you and with love for those who suffer! Heavily burdened with the weight of my troubles, I cast myself at your feet and humbly beg of you to take the present intention which I recommend to you in your special care.

Please recommend it to your daughter, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and place it before the throne of Jesus, so that He may bring it to a happy issue. Continue to intercede for me until my request is granted. But, above all, obtain for me the grace one day to see my God face to face, and with you and Mary and all the saints to praise and bless Him for all eternity. Amen."

Uniquely among the monotheistic religions Christianity permits the use of images of God. Why? The answer lies in the Christian belief in the reality of the Incarnation. Since God has assumed human nature and form the Biblical prohibition against making images of God ceases to apply. As the second Council of Nicea declared in 787 "Following the divinely inspired teaching of our holy Fathers and the tradition of the Catholic Church (for we know that this tradition comes from the Holy Spirit who dwells in her) we rightly define with full certainty and correctness that, like the figure of the precious and life-giving cross, venerable and holy images of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, our inviolate Lady, the holy Mother of God, and the venerated angels, all the saints and the just, whether painted or made of mosaic or another suitable material, are to be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and vestments, walls and panels, in houses and on streets."
(Council of Nicaea II: DS 600)

This decree of Nicea II was promulgated for the entire church, East and West, and was a response to the strongly held beliefs of the iconoclasts, who wished to suppress the use of images, which had convulsed the Byzantine Empire and the eastern churches for almost 100 years. In addition, St. John Damascene, last of the Greek Fathers and a staunch defender of images, had written in De imagine ("In Defense of Images") "Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, (Bar. 3.38) I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter." (St. John Damascene, De Imagine, Part I, 15-16, from Internet Medieival Sourcebook.)

The ways in which this imaging of the divine has been accomplished in the course of time is the subject of Christian iconography. To quote from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, iconography is "1: pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject; 2: the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject; 3: the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art".

The iconography of any subject develops and changes over time. Christian iconography develops and changes too, as reflection on the Gospels and Tradition develops over time and as the act of making art develops and changes as well. This is the background for this blog.

Ad Imaginem Dei

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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Glorious St. Anne – The Iconography of St. Anne

Central Park Sunset

Oscar Wild 1997(?)-2014