Ad Imaginem Dei: "New" Images of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary

Thursday, August 14, 2014

"New" Images of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary

Master of Claude de France, Assumption
from Prayer Book of Claude de France
French (Tours), ca. 1517
New York, Morgan Library
MS M 1166, fol. 23v
Photo: Schecter Lee

On Friday we will be celebrating the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (August 15). I wrote two essays a few years ago on the iconography of the death and assumption of Mary. They can be found at these links.

I don't have any new material to add to the explanation of the iconography, but just today I found some gorgeous new images.

Master of Claude de France, Dormition of the Virgin
from Prayer Book of Claude de France
French (Tours), ca. 1517
New York, Morgan Library
MS M 1166, fol. 23r
Photo: Schecter Lee

I visited the Morgan Library today to see the current exhibition called "Miracles in Miniature: The Art of the Master of Claude de France".

The images are indeed miracles in miniature and I plan to write about the exhibition very soon, but for now I want to share several that were encompassed within the show.

Master of Claude de France, Coronation of the Virgin

from Prayer Book of Claude de France

French (Tours), ca. 1517

New York, Morgan Library

MS M 1166, fol. 24r

Photo: Schecter Lee

Most of the illuminations were from the hand of the Master of Claude de France, an artist who flourished for a relatively short time (1508-1520 is the period named), at a turning point in the history of the art of the illustrated book. He (or possibly she) belongs to the last generation of artists who practiced the very fine art of manuscript illumination. These amazing works stand at the pinnacle of the art, with absolutely amazing detail crammed into the tiniest of spaces. Little in the exhibition measures more than about 4 inches square! The highly readable writing is the tiniest you've ever seen, provided you have good reading glasses!

Jean Bourdichon, Assumption of the Virgin
from Book of Hours
French (Tours), ca. 1515
New York, Morgan Library
MS M732, fol. 56v

However, I found the most compelling image in the show to be a page from a much larger book, a Book of Hours, illuminated by Jean Bourdichon, who was the teacher of the Master of Claude de France. It is a beautiful image of the Assumption, in which Mary, surrounded by a golden glow, is raised to heave by admiring angels lifting her on a cloud, as other cherubic angels cluster in the upper corners. The whole is contained in a classical frame of columns with Corinthian capitals. The image I was able to retrieve does not, by any stretch of the imagination, do the delicate coloring full justice.

No comments:

Post a Comment

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, both Greek and Latin speaking, 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

Pages

Thursday, August 14, 2014

"New" Images of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary

No comments:

Central Park Sunset

Oscar Wild 1997(?)-2014