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The Sacredness of Everyday Life
Every morning I sit on our terrace and just look at the plants and the bees and the butterflies that visit them. Save for the purrs of Volver, our cat, there is silence. The crisp air on my skin feels like a tender caress.
It is my terrace that gives me solace and helps me regroup those energies that have been scattered by the aggressiveness of the world outside. For me, my terrace is a sacred place. And, in this Age of Decadence, sacredness is a rarity.
Anna Jameson became interested in sacred art on her first trip to Italy. In 1842 she began writing Sacred and Legendary Art but, due to the extensive research and travel required, it took years to finish.
In c. 1845, Anna spent a winter in Rome and, in her lodgings at Piazza di Spagna, hosted many soirees where friends came and offered her new ideas to explore. It was here, in Rome, that she discovered religious art. Anna was Anglican. For her, as for most Protestants, Catholic iconography could be mystifying. All those paintings based on popular Catholic legends seemed like hero worshipping. The Reformation had rejected the tradition of Catholic art and, like the Taliban, had no problem in destroying it. But then came along Romanticism and with it an interest in medieval art inspiring people to learn more about the Catholic legends it was based upon. It was an Antique Mythology that was still, in the words of Anna, “vivid and vivifying”. These legends were “the intense expression of that inner life which revolted against the desolation and emptiness of the outward existence.”
After a long time in the dark ages when humanity was afflicted by “ignorance, idleness, wickedness, & misery” and when the powerful inflicted atrocities upon the weak forcing them to seek shelter from this outrage, “when the manners were harsh, the language gross; when all the softer social sentiments as pity, reverence, tenderness found no resting-place in the actual relations of life”, when all of this and more pushed man into “the dreary monotony of a stagnant existence”, finally, finally “arose a literature which reversed the outward order of things” and “refreshed the fevered and darkened spirit with the images of moral beauty and truth.” And it is of this legendary art that Anna writes about.
In Italy, the arts were generally pressed into the service of the Church. But, although the Church would have desired to impose its dogma more, she was “obliged to accept and mould to her own subjects the exotic elements she could not eradicate”. So a sort of compromise was made.
Anna’s Sacred and Legendary Art is divided into six sections: Introduction, Angels & Archangels, the Four Evangelists, the Twelve Apostles, the Doctors of the Church, and the Beatified Penitents.
In each section, among other things, Anna speaks of the different artists’ styles towards approaching the same subject matter and has no problems criticizing artists including the greats. For example, she criticized Michelangelo because, as with Greek mythology, he focused on the worship of beauty, immortality, and power—all of which were antithetical to the values of Christianity. In his “Last Judgement”, Michelangelo made the Apostles look like Titans holding a war council, she wrote.
Sacred and Legendary Art is almost 500 pages long as Anna had much to say in order to explain the legends art was based upon as well as describe those elements (such as emblems and attributes) needed to help a viewer identify the various people represented.
In the section on angels, says Anna “there is something so very attractive and poetical, as well as soothing to our helpless finite nature, in all the superstitions connected with the popular notion of Angels, that we cannot wonder at their prevalence in the early ages of the world.” Going from a plurality of gods to just one must have been a challenge for many believers. Angels helped as the monothetic God was so very far away but angels made him seem closer. But not all angels are good.
“After the period of the Captivity, the Jewish ideas concerning angels were considerably extended and modified by an admixture of the Chaldaic belief, and of the doctrines taught by Zoroaster…it is then that we first hear of the good and bad angels, and of a fallen angel or personation of evil, busy in working mischief on earth and counteracting good….”
Angels had three main functions. They are Messengers, Choristers, and Guardians. But they are also Bouncers as seen in the many paintings of angels escorting Adam and Even out of the Garden of Eden.
Apparently, in the New Testament angels appear more often than in the Old and appear more as a reality than as a vision (which brings to mind Julian Jayne’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind).
Anna makes reference to many artists and their renditions of angels. One of my favorite paintings is Cimabue’s “Santa Trinità Madonna and Child Enthroned”. Set against a gold leaf background, Mother and Child sit on a huge throne flanked by six angels. Anna describes the angels as being rather stern but that’s because, she continues, of Cimabue’s inability to express beauty. She much prefers the Cimabue angels in the Basilica of Assisi.
Anna begins the section on the evangelists by quoting Gregory of Nazianzus, theologian, archbishop, and ex-patron saint of Bosnia: “Matthew wrote for the Hebrews, Mark, for the Italians; Luke, for the Greeks; for all, the great herald John.”
I, personally, can testify that on many church facades in Italy, there are base-relief sculptures of the symbols representing the evangelists. Mark is symbolized by a winged man, Mark by a winged lion, Luke by a winged bull, and John by an eagle.
Writes Anna: “I have dwelt on these fanciful interpretations and disquisitions, because the symbols of the Evangelists meet us at every turn; in the mosiacs of the old Italian churches, in the decorative sculpture of our old cathedrals, in the Gothic stained glass, in the ancient pictures and miniatures, on the carved and chased covers of old books, everywhere, in short, where enters the idea of their divine mission—and where is it not?”
“The earliest representations of the Twelve Apostles appear to have been, like those of the four Evangelists, purely emblematical: they were figured as twelve sheep, with Christ in the midst, as the Good Shepherd, bearing a lamb in His arms; or, much more frequently, Christ is Himself the Lamb of God, raised on an eminence and crowned with a cruciform nimbus, and the apostles were ranged on each side as sheep.”
The most well-known representation of the Apostles together is that of the Last Supper. And for this reason, Anna dedicates ample space to it in her book.
The Doctors of the Church were the representatives of the Church Militant, that is, those on Earth who are in constant warfare against its enemies (such as the flesh and the devil) as opposed to the Church Triumphant in Heaven. Anna writes that “as teachers and pastors, as logicians and advocates, they wrote, argued, contended, suffered, and at length, after a long and fierce struggle against opposing doctrines, they fixed the articles of faith thereafter received in Christendom.” In other words, they were the ones who created the dictates for the others to follow. In Western Art, the Doctors of the Church are represented by the Latin Fathers: St. Jerome, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory.
St. Jerome is often represented as an emaciated old man, bald, bearded, and half naked with a lion next to him. As he’s known for his translation of the Bible, he’s generally seen holding a book and a pen. And as for the lion, legend has it that St. Jerome was sitting in the monastery at Bethlehem when a limping lion walked in. Whereas the other monks got up and ran away, Jerome went to the lion and treated him as a guest. The lion lifted his paw exposing a thorn stuck in it. Jerome extracted the thorn and the lion no longer limped. Animals, it would seem, have a capacity to express gratitude many humans don’t have. The lion was eternally grateful to Jerome and that’s why he is often portrayed in representations of the saint.
The best known Beatified Penitent is undoubtedly Mary Magdalene. She also is one of the figures whose identity has been most disputed. But there is no amount of theological dispute that can take away her fame. Religious tradition has her “sanctified in the imagination and in the faith of the people in her combined character of Sinner and of Saint, as the first-fruits of Christian penitence.”
Of all the many Mary Magdalene paintings Anna saw, Correggio’s “La Maddalena” was unsurpassed. The only problem with it, said Anna, was the woman’s virginal beauty comparable to a Psyche or a Seraph.
Mary Magdalene is shown with her breasts exposed lying on the ground reading a book. Nearby is her famous alabaster jar and a skull. The jar represents the ointment used in the Anointing of Jesus whereas the skull and the book are symbols of penitence and of the contemplative life.
Thich Nhat Hanh says “Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.” Tomorrow morning on my terrace I will look as if I am kissing the Earth with my eyes.
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Related: Is this the skull of Mary Magdalene? + Diary Writing and other Spiritual Practices + Anna Jameson and Sacred and Legendary Art
Bibliography:
Jameson, Anna. Sacred and Legendary Art. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Cambridge.1895. Read on archive.org HERE.
Macpherson, Gerardine Bate. Memoirs of the life of Anna Jameson. Roberts Brothers. Boston. 1878. Read on archive.org HERE.
A Feminist Madonna
It came as a surprise to learn that, for some early feminists, the Virgin Mary was a symbol of the feminine ideal. In Our Lady of Victorian Feminism: the Madonna in the work of Anna Jameson, Margaret Fuller, and George Eliot, author Kimberly Van Esveld Adams explains how Victorian feminists made considerable use of the Madonna to help empower women. In part thanks to the representations of Mary in art, the Virgin Mary was often presented as independent, powerful, and wise.
Anna Jameson (1794-1860) was born in Ireland but raised in England. Her father, a miniature portrait painter, taught his daughter basic art principals. At the age of 31, Anna married Robert Jameson but the marriage was an unhappy one. Jameson was emotionally aloof, prone to drink, and a whiner. Luckily, a book Anna had written previous to her marriage, The Diary of an Ennuyée, was published and launched Anna’s literary career creating a means for her to become economically independent. She wrote popular versions of the lives of queens and poets, accounts of her travels, and literary and art criticism.
As women at the time were not permitted to frequent universities, Anna was self-taught. Her scholarship was shaped in large part by her activism of behalf of women. In the late 1830s, Anna began visiting private art collections in the London area and taking notes. To help those without a background in art better understand paintings, Anna wrote a series of art related books.
At a certain point in her studies, Anna began focusing on the Madonna. Although many scholars see the Marian tradition as extremely misogynist, Anna, as well as many early feminists, had another outlook. Christianity was the cult of Jesus who represented the highest form of manhood. However, a Godhead must be whole thus Mary, representing the highest form of womanhood, is Jesus’ counterpart. Like Jesus, Mary is both human and divine and the implication is that Mary and Jesus are equals and their roles are complementary. What can be more feminist than a man and a woman being equals?
Anna’s appreciation of Mary came from carefully studied paintings she saw in art galleries and not from religious indoctrination. For Anna, the worship of Mary and of the other mother-Goddesses who came before her is “an acknowledgement of a higher as well as gentler power than that of the strong hand and the might that makes the right.”
Mary was the Queen of Heaven and sat on a throne with a crown on her head. There was thus nothing docile or submissive about her although certain “motherly” traits are seen, by men, as being passive and accommodating. But compassion and care for another are anything but a sign of weakness. And this, for women, is empowering.
According to the Mariology of John Henry Newman, the fall of man was Adam’s and not Eve’s fault as Adam, not Eve, represented the human race. Eve, instead, is the “Mother of All Living” and had no fault other than that of satisfying Adam. Mankind, said Newman, had a second chance with Jesus as the new Adam and Mary as the new Eve. But Newman’s Mary, obedient, pure, and self-abnegating, is nothing at all like Anna’s Mary who is a merciful mother standing between humankind and an offended Father. She is not a shy cloistered virgin but the Queen of Heaven and ready to show it.
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Bibliography:
Adams, Kimberly Van Esveld. Our Lady of Victorian Feminism: the Madonna in the work of Anna Jameson, Margaret Fuller, and George Eliot. Ohio University Press. Athens. 2001. Read on archive.org HERE.
Adams, Kimberly Van Esveld. “Feminine Godhead, Feminist Symbol: The Madonna in George Eliot, Ludwig Feuerbach, Anna Jameson, and Margaret Fuller”. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 41-70 (30 pages). Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of FSR, Inc. Read on JSTOR HERE.
Feuerbach, Ludwig. The Essence of Christianity. Harper. New York. 1957. Read on archive.org HERE.
Jameson, Anna. Legends of the Madonna. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Cambridge. 1881. Read on Project Guttenberg HERE.
Thomas, Clara. Love and work enough; the life of Anna Jameson. University of Toronto Press. Toronto. 1967. Read on archive.org HERE.
Shadow Decor
grapevine shadows on a breeze blown curtain
“Another good reason that we ought to leave blank, unvexed, and unencumbered with paper patterns the ceiling and the walls of a simple house is that the plain surface may be visited by the unique designs of shadows” writes Alice Meyhell. Of all her essays, “Shadows” is the one I’ve most enjoyed.
Alice suggests playing with shadows. Like putting long sedges and rushes in a vase so that their silhouette will be projected on the wall thanks to the light coming in from the windows providing a much better work of art than some cheap and trivial decoration bought in a shop.
“The shadow has all intricacies of perspective simply translated into line and intersecting curve, and pictorially presented to the eyes, not to the mind. The shadow knows nothing except its flat designs. It is single; it draws a decoration that was never seen before, and will never be seen again, and that, untouched, varies with the journey of the sun….”
And, if the day is grey and the sun doesn’t shine thus robbing your wall of sprinkled shadows, then keep a painting or a plaque in a closet ready to be whipped out to fill up the empty space.
Mixing and matching her observations on nature, art, literature, and human sentiment, Alice’s essays are like little “sermons of enlightenment” that, in the words of one critic, “discern self-evident things as yet undiscerned.”
Although a suffragist, Alice spares women no indulgence. The women in Goldsmith’s The Vicar of Wakefield are highly criticized. So is the Lady of Lyrics, the troubadour heroine, who, says Alice, has no more individuality than has the rose, her rival.
Alice also criticizes the poetry of George Crabbe (I had to look him up as I’d never heard of him) and says he will never measure up to Milton.
Motherhood subjects women to a life without boundaries and Alice uses the example of the letters French poet Marceline Valmore wrote to her daughter.
Habits can be lethal as shown by Tolstoi, a keen observer, who illustrates how certain habits can make someone hate you. “Anna Karenina, as she drank her coffee, knew that her sometime lover was dreading to hear her swallow it, and was hating the crooking of her little finger as she held her cup.”
Nature also plays a big role in Alice’s essays. She compares the greens of leaves in July and quips that the Romans, with the invention of aqueducts, made water their prisoner.
A precursor of grounding theories, Alice stresses the importance of walking barefoot outdoors. “If our feet are now so severed from the natural ground, they have inevitably lost life and strength by the separation. It is only the entirely unshod that have lively feet.”
And if you meet a mendicant on the streets, “obviously it is not easy to reply to begging except by the intelligible act of giving.”
As for rain, what else can it do if not fall? “The long stroke of the raindrop, which is the drop and its path at once, being our impression of a shower, shows us how certainly our impression is the effect of the lagging, and not the haste, of our senses.”
Personally, I find no flow in Alice’s writing style simply because Alice and I come from different times. Unlike myself, she lived well before TV, internet, and images of mass production when visuals were created with the sound of words.
Reading certain passages, I can imagine Alice sitting somewhere, observing her surroundings, and taking notes. Just looking at the world around her was like watching a movie. It was a DIY entertainment and contemplation was a marvellous pastime.
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Related: In the Shade of a Tamarisk +Two Plants in a Pot + Shadows are Stalkers + Shadow people + When love leaves without you
Bibliography: Meynell, Alice. The Spirit of Place, and Other Essays. John Lane the Bodley Head. London and New York. 1890. Read on archive.org HERE
Remnants
My friend Alexandra gave me a bag of remnants that she, in turn, had gotten from a friend. I was moved by how each piece of fabric had been washed, ironed, and folded. Such reverence for something most people would have simply thrown away. True abundance comes not from quantity but from appreciation.
Posted in Lifestyle, Living With Less, Mend & Repair, Paros
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The Narrative Within 