{"id":290930,"date":"2010-02-07T22:00:02","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T03:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/firedoglake.com\/?p=65621"},"modified":"2010-02-07T22:00:02","modified_gmt":"2010-02-08T03:00:02","slug":"art-at-fdl-seeing-and-being","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/290930","title":{"rendered":"Art at FDL: Seeing and Being"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Annunciation and Two Saints, by Simone Martini<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What did the people of his time who looked at this Annunciation<\/a> by Simone di Martini see when they looked at it? You can get a close look at central image using the image viewer at the excellent Artchive Site<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Annunciation is important<\/a> in the Catholic Church, celebrated on an appropriate Sunday near March 25. It is one of the Joyful Mysteries, a subject of meditation in recitation of the Rosary. The biblical text is Luke 1:26-38; I put a Catholic translation, the Douay-Rheims Bible<\/a> at the end of this diary.<\/p>\n

The painting is simple: an Angel, bearing an olive branch and wearing olive leaves in his hair, kneels before Mary, his wings arched. Mary sits on a chair, wearing a blue robe and holding a book. Between them is a lily, a symbol of purity<\/a>. Above them are tiny angels; on either side in a panel are two saints, Margaret and Asano. I imagine St. Asano was associated with the parish for which this work was created, or perhaps the patron who commissioned the work.<\/p>\n

Luke says the first words of the Angel are \u201cHail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee\u201d, in Latin, that would be Ave, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Those words are in this painting: they are the raised line that moves from the mouth of the Angel towards the Virgin. Mary\u2019s response is natural, she reaches her hand to her throat, she twists away, as if to protect herself. We shouldn\u2019t read a lot into her expression, because this is a stylized form of painting, but it clearly expresses some emotion, maybe distrust or fear. To me the emotion is dismay. It is as if she recognizes the implication of the message, and is upset and slightly miserable. But maybe I am reading to much into the painting because that’s how I would feel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Paintings like this one were used to teach the Bible and Catholic doctrine to the illiterate masses. I don\u2019t have a clue what the average person of 1333 saw when they looked at this work. I have little in common with those people. In exactly the same way, I don\u2019t see much when I look at Chinese calligraphy<\/a> like this at the Freer Gallery in DC, which dates from roughly the same period as the Martini. I have no connection whatever to the mindset that created this, no way to gauge its beauty or ordinariness, no context in which to put it. It would take long study just to get an intellectual grip on the work, and I\u2019m sure I could never relate to it emotionally in the same way people of that culture would. Here\u2019s a story<\/a> that gives some hint of the similarities and differences between us and the people of a small town in France.<\/p>\n

Martini comes from the Sienese school. Here is a late work<\/a> from that school by Sano di Pietro, located at the Duomo of Montepulciano, a hill town in Tuscany. The movie The English Patient<\/a> was filmed there, and the church appears in the scene where Kip takes Hana on a motorcycle ride. The robe of the Madonna, and the shape of the face is quite similar to the Martini. The Baby Jesus has the sinuous shape of the Madonna. Neither has much expression. But how can you resist the detail of the bird in the hand of the Baby? Or his bright red hair? Were all the local folk redhead? Was the bird the symbol of the local Lord? Did the artist have a boy child with red hair? Did his girl friend keep a bird in a cage?<\/p>\n

The Baby Jesus is looking at something other than the artist, and the Madonna looks with him. It reminds me of my own children, who were always looking around at the world and not at the thing I thought was important. Again, who knows what the people saw then?<\/p>\n

This painting is dated 1450, and the only significant change in the form from the Martini is that the background isn\u2019t gold. At the same time, dramatic changes in art and life were underway in Italy with the advent of the Renaissance. For a taste of the change, compare the Sano di Pietro to this Expulsion<\/a> from Masaccio, dated to 1424-8. We don’t feel that separated from this kind of art, so maybe our differences aren’t as great as all that.
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\n26 And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God into a city of Galilee, called Nazareth, 27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. 28 And the angel being come in, said unto her: Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. 29 Who having heard, was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be. 30 And the angel said to her: Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found grace with God.
\n31 Behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. 32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the most High; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of David his father; and he shall reign in the house of Jacob for ever. 33 And of his kingdom there shall be no end. 34 And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? 35 And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.
\n36 And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she also hath conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her that is called barren: 37 Because no word shall be impossible with God. 38 And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.<\/p>\n

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The Annunciation and Two Saints, by Simone Martini What did the people of his time who looked at this Annunciation by Simone di Martini see when they looked at it? You can get a close look at central image using the image viewer at the excellent Artchive Site. The Annunciation is important in the Catholic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4416,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-290930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290930\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}