St Francis for Protestants

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk Os
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Work Of Art

Lorenzo Monaco's striking fifteenth-century portrayal of the stigmatisation of St. Francis was once owned by the art collector Otto Lanz. What prompted Lanz to buy Monaco's painting in the 1920s? Was it simply because he saw it as a beautiful, unique work of art? Or was there something more-could Lanz have been drawn in by the mystical experience that the painting depicts? In this essay, Henk van Os attempts to uncover the motivation for Otto Lanz's purchase, in the process raising provocative questions about our relationship to religious art in a more secular era.

Seven Sacraments Compositions in English Medieval Art

1929 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. McN. Rushforth
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Medieval Art ◽  
Christian Art ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Great Tradition ◽  
Speculum Humanae Salvationis ◽  
Church Art ◽  
The Church

Émile Mâle says that medieval Christian art in its last period had lost touch with the great tradition of symbolism which had been so important in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and still largely dominated the art of the fourteenth. But there was one great symbolical idea which survived, and that was the harmony of the Old and New Testaments; and so we find among the most popular subjects of fifteenth-century Church art the concordance of the Apostles and Prophets in the Creed, and the series of parallels between the life of Jesus and episodes of Old Testament history, which were summed up and digested in the Biblia Pauperum and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis. The reason for the popularity of these subjects was, no doubt, their didactic value, and though Mâle does not develop this side of the subject, we may say that one, though not the only, characteristic of the religious art of the fifteenth century was that, instead of being symbolical, it became didactic. We find in this period a whole series of subjects which reduced the articles of Christian faith and practice to pictorial form, and seem to have been intended to illustrate the medieval catechism by which the teaching of the Church was imparted.

‘Por una gentil floresta’: Invention, Discovery and Desire in a Fifteenth-Century Villancico

2021 ◽  
Vol 98 (5) ◽  
pp. 453-469
Author(s):  
E. MICHAEL GERLI
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Rich Source ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Human Understanding

We persistently fail to appreciate the very status of cancionero poetry as an innovative art form, as literature worthy of serious analysis, and as an intellectual and humanistic pursuit. The villancico ‘Por una gentil floresta’, attributed to both the Marqués de Santillana and Suero de Ribera, is a case in point, a composition that is very well known but grossly underappreciated as a work of art, a cultural commentary, or for its social significance. It exists in multiple incarnations, in both the manuscript and early printed traditions of the cancioneros, attesting to its ample circulation and popularity. While the object of intense philological enquiry regarding issues of authorship, transmission, and possible influence, the numerous studies dedicated to this villancico do not foreclose further discussion of it to achieve greater appreciation of its artistic and human complexity. Close reading illustrates the abundant literary, thematic and cultural possibilities it offers, and allows us to articulate the wealth, intricacy, human understanding and artistic significance of fifteenth-century Castilian courtly verse; possibilities that reach well beyond philology and textual criticism and prove it a rich source for fruitful interpretation that exemplifies the kind of poetry and hermeneutical potential that can be found in the cancioneros.

“Song of Myself” as Inverted Mystical Experience

PMLA ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol 70 (4-Part-1) ◽  
pp. 636-661 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Walt Whitman ◽  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Leaves Of Grass ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Frequent Change ◽  
The Many ◽  
Made In

Whitman's “Song of Myself” has long been considered a loosely organized, perhaps even chaotic poem which is held together, if at all, by his own robust personality. He himself may have contributed to this concept of the poem. Untitled when it appeared in the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855, it was called “Poem of Walt Whitman, an American” in the 1856 edition; “Walt Whitman” in the 1860 edition, and was given the present title in the 1881 edition. This frequent change of title together with the many revisions made in the numbering of the sections and in the text itself suggests one of two possibilities: either Whitman was uncertain, perhaps confused as to the basic nature of what he was writing; or he was struggling to perfect a work of art the execution of which had fallen short of the conception. Too frequently the critics have assumed as self-evident the first of these possibilities. Inability to find a structure in “Song of Myself” has resulted, I believe, from a failure to find a center of relevancy, an “informing idea,” to which the parts of the poem may be related. It is the purpose of this paper to propose such a center, to show how it gives structure to the poem, and to examine the parts of the poem in detail to test their relevancy to this central “informing idea.”

Squeezing, Squirting, Spilling Milk: The Lactation of Saint Bernard and the FlemishMadonna Lactans(ca. 1430–1530)

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 868-918 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutta Sperling
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Visual Context ◽  
Bare Breast ◽  
Saint Bernard

AbstractThe focus on three drops of milk issuing from the Virgin’s breast in “The Virgin in Front of a Fire Screen” was inspired by contemporary representations of the Lactation of Saint Bernard. This latter iconography provides the visual context for the vivid address of eroticized depictions of the Madonna’s “one bare breast” in Flemish art and shows the intricate connections between visuality and materiality in fifteenth-century Flemish religious art. Some depictions of Saint Bernard’s lactation transform the Madonna’s jets of milk into rays of light aiming for his eyes, stressing the interchangeability of materiality and visuality as modes that were expected to facilitate and/or authenticate miraculous appearances of the Madonna.

Jewish Magic with a Christian Text: A Hebrew Translation of Ramon Llull'sArs Brevis

Traditio ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 283-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey J. Hames
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Adriatic Sea ◽  
Mystical Experience ◽  
Divine Illumination ◽  
Ramon Llull

In July or August 1474 in Senigallia, a town on the coast of the Adriatic sea, a translation into Hebrew was completed of theArs brevis, a work by the medieval Christian philosopher, mystic, and missionary Ramon Llull. Within a couple of years, this translation had been copied a number of times, and from the colophon of one of these copies, it appears that this work was rated very highly by its Jewish readers as an aid for achieving mystical experience. Any interest shown by the adherents of one faith in the texts of another is important for shedding light on common intellectual interests and contacts. This translation is of especially great significance in that there appears to have been in Italy in the fifteenth century a circle of Jewish scholars willingly engaging with a Christian text in order to achieve divine illumination. Here, I will try to shed some light on this group of Jewish savants and to situate their interests within the wider context of the Renaissance.

scholarly journals “To the honour and worship of Almighty God and his saints:” Lay Patronage at All Saints’ Parish Church, Bristol

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Gearin
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
High Volume ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Medieval Art ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Art Objects ◽  
Written Word

Countless objects across England were destroyed, leaving comparably few traces of late medieval art, architecture, and religious practice for examination today. Written documents, however, were not an active target of the Reformation. In some cases they are the best resource available for understanding and imagining the appearance, importance, and role of parish churches in the late medieval era. They provide glimpses of very personal relationships between the laity and the churches they used, and help to discern some of the ways in which benefactors could actively shape the interiors of these buildings to assert their authority within the community, and obtain prayers for salvation after death. Additionally, the laity helped form the congregation’s sensory perception of the Mass through donations of objects that engaged sight, touch, and sound. This will be demonstrated through the use of primary source texts written in fifteenth century English and accompanying modern translations of those texts, surviving artistic and architectural elements, and secondary interpretations of medieval documents. Original fifteenth century wills, churchwarden accounts, and inventories can be extremely thorough and difficult to follow; therefore, this research requires careful close reading of a high volume of documents spanning decades. Constructing a visual narrative based solely on written word is challenging, yet ultimately rewarding in cases in which a church’s religious art objects do not survive. Doing so can lead to significant revelations about the realities of late medieval religion. 

scholarly journals When Art is Religion and Vice Versa. Six Perspectives on the Relationship between Art and Religion

Perichoresis ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Frank G. Bosman
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Religious Art ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Digital Game ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Religion And Art

AbstractIn the discussion of religion and art, it is quite difficult to exactly define what makes art ‘religious’. In this article, the author suggest six different perspectives in which a work of art—any work of art—could be interpreted as ‘religious’, as an embodiment of the complex relationship between art and religion. These perspectives are not mutually exclusive: one and the same art work could be approached on multiple levels at once. Nor do they disqualify other methodologies of studying art and religion. These perspectives provide conceptual windows to understand what people (could) mean when they discuss religious art. The six perspectives are: (1) material, (2) contextual, (3) referential, (4) reflexive, (5) ritual, and (6) existential. They vary from the more or less objective to the more subjective, and as such from artist-intended to viewer/listener-perceived (with or without help of clues provided by the artist and/or the object itself). The author illustrates who these different perspectives can vary in defining certain pieces of art as religious by using three very different case studies: the Isenheimer Altarpiece, one of Hugo Ball’s famous sound poems, and the digital game Child of Light.

Aspects of Patronage in Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Venice*

1993 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 712-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Romano
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Social Relationship ◽  
Specific Work ◽  
Renaissance Art ◽  
Specific Service ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Restricted Sense ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

Michael Baxandall's Study Painting and Experience in Fifteenth-Century Italy opens with the useful reminder that a “painting is the deposit of a social relationship,” that is, a relationship between patron and client. When Baxandall and other historians of Renaissance art use the term patronage, they generally do so in a restricted sense to indicate the relationship that existed when an individual or an institution such as a guild, confraternity, or monastic establishment commissioned a specific work of art from an artist or artisan. Often formalized through a contract, the relationship between patron and client was essentially a legal one in which the artist agreed to render a specific service in return for a preestablished or a negotiable sum of money. With the completion of the commission, the relationship essentially ended, unless succeeded by another commission.

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