115 – Role Models

Correggio, The Madonna of the Basket, about 1524, National Gallery, London.

Hello again! And before we get to Correggio, an apology – for those of you who are able to come to The Scrovegni Chapel from top to bottom I got the timings wrong on the last blog: the talks are from 14.00 – 15.00 UK time. At least they were right on the diary page, and if you got as far as booking with ARTscapades you would have seen the right times there: thanks to those of you who noticed the mistake!

So now to Correggio, and a charming painting I referred to when answering a question during a National Gallery talk recently, but didn’t have an image to hand. The question was about the Madonna breastfeeding – an issue I covered not so long back when discussing Artemisia, and Mary. One of the reasons for its representation was to show the Virgin as a good role model – and in today’s painting Joseph joins her. And before you get all 21st Century on me (or 20th Century, for that matter, but some people are still catching up) I know that gender roles have changed – as have our ideas about gender itself – but this is a painting from the 16th Century. It will be just one of many works I will include in the short course I am giving for the Wallace Collection (most of them from the Wallace itself) on 2 and 3 December from 11.00 – 13.00 (and yes, I’ve got the time right, I just checked!) on The Childhood of Christ in Art.

Correggio The Madonna of the Basket about 1524 Oil on wood, 33.7 x 25.1 cm Bought from C. J. Nieuwenhuys collection, 1825 NG23 https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/NG23

At first glance this might appear to be any other image of the Madonna and Child, an image which does not encapsulate any specific part of the biblical narrative, but is a devotional abstraction, on the whole, meant to illustrate the nature of the relationship and to emphasize the respect due to the Son of God and his mother. However, this is not an iconic Madonna and Child Enthroned, let alone a Maestà, in which the full ‘majesty’ of Mary, and the respect due to her as Queen of Heaven, is shown through the use of symbolic props (e.g. a crown), furniture (a throne) and supporting cast (the heavenly host, assembled in serried ranks). No, she is sitting on the ground, in all humility. The word in itself is related to sitting on the ground, as it has the same root as humus, meaning earth. She is seated at the foot of a tree, which takes up the top left hand corner of the picture, and I can’t help thinking that the two trunks – one broader, on the left, and another narrower, on the right, are in some way related to the figures of Mary and Jesus, who appear to have the same relative age, width and position as the two trunks: they represent strength, and our future growth. The ground is green, growing with lush vegetation, which adds to the sense of pleasant harmony created by the apparently smiling mother holding her son, still too young to be fully coordinated, who is sitting on her lap. She wears her traditional colours – a red robe, albeit seen here as a powdery pink, with a blue cloak, just visible on the left of the painting beneath her elbow. Jesus’s gesture, with his arms reaching out in both directions, forms a diagonal that is continued by the grassy slope on which they are seated, alongside which is a path, with a low stone wall on the other side, leading to a rough wooden fence.

Beyond the fence we see the carpenter Joseph at work, using a plane to smooth a post, or something similar. Correggio’s control of atmospheric perspective (the way in which the air, or atmosphere, affects the way we see distant objects) is superb, and Joseph is painted almost in monochrome, as if the air were misty, or full of dust.  He appears to be marginalised, a subsidiary part of the painting: this would have been Correggio’s intention. Poor Joseph, he is excluded from the verdant garden in which Mary and Jesus share such an intimate relationship. But then, when you remember that the word ‘paradise’ is derived from an Old Iranian word meaning ‘walled enclosure’ – or effectively, ‘garden’ – not only is the garden, but also the wall, explained. Jesus, as Son of God, is already – and is always – in paradise, even if temporarily with us on Earth. Mary, free of sin (see Picture Of The Day 71 and POTD 72 – The Immaculate Conception), would never have to suffer the penalty of expulsion. Joseph, on the other hand, as a descendant of Adam and Eve, is excluded from paradise until Christ’s sacrifice redeems him. Not only that, but, unlike Mary, he is not physically related to Jesus – he may be Christ’s stepfather, and an honourable man, but he has no exemption from damnation should Christ’s mission fail. Which, admittedly, we know it won’t.

As for Jesus’s brief period, ‘temporarily with us on Earth’, what exactly was he? God? Or man? The answer, settled as early as 451 at the Council of Chalcedon, was that Jesus was both God and man – he had two ‘natures’ – but as mere humans, this is difficult for us to reconcile. Even if we accept he was the Son of God, and for that matter, as part of the Holy Trinity, God himself, how could he be like any other man while down on Earth? Well, it helps to show him naked, so that we can see that he was like any other man, which is why there are so many images of the Baby Jesus inadequately clad. By the time the Counter Reformation came along, the theology seems to have been secure, but the nudity of Our Lord, even at this tender age of innocence, was deemed, in contemporary parlance, ‘inappropriate’ – and so nappies were introduced, or skirts lengthened.

Behind Joseph – and so you could argue, even further from paradise – there are a whole array of ruins. Steps lead up from him past the base of a half-column, attached to stone pier, behind which are the remains of a rough stone wall, the lower part of which is still covered in plaster. Further back still is a collection of columns topped by a sloping roof (a memory of the unstable stable in Bethlehem, perhaps?) then another, more massive, ruined wall, and the base of yet another column. In Nativity scenes the symbolism is quite specific: it relates to at least two texts in the bible, and early Christian theology. During the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17) Jesus says, ‘Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil,’ and in John 2:19 he also says, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ In St Augustine’s The City of God, written in the early 5th Century, the author suggests that as Christianity continued to grow, the Roman Empire would fall. All three of these ideas add up to the same thing – Jesus hadn’t come to destroy the old order, whether that be Judaism or Rome, but to rebuild it – and that is the idea that the ruins represent. Notice that Joseph is hard at work, part of the process of rebuilding.

So Joseph, marginalised as he is, is a good role model, working hard to support wife and family, while also furthering God’s purpose. Mary, too is a good mother. In the bottom left hand corner is the basket which gives the painting its name, beautifully woven, and, for that matter, beautifully painted. In it are a pair of shears, or scissors, a ball of thread and some cloth. Mary’s skills as a seamstress are not mentioned in the bible, but the implication is that, like all good mothers, she must have stayed at home and made clothes for her son. One of the many stories about her – in the apocryphal 2nd Century Protoevangelium – relates to her activities in the temple as a child. After she was presented to the temple (POTD 73 – Mary), and before she found a suitable husband (POTD 31 – The Suitors Praying), she spent her time with the other virgins spinning thread and weaving the veil of the temple. Lots were drawn to see who would spin which colour, and Mary was chosen to spin the purple – the colour associated with royalty – which, as she would become Queen of Heaven, was entirely apt.

In this 12th Century mosaic Annunciation from ‘La Martorana’ in Palermo we see Mary, wearing the imperial purple, in the process of putting down the thread she has been spinning as Gabriel approaches. We might not see this as purple, but the meaning of the word itself was not fully defined for centuries, and could refer to almost anything between red and blue. This thread needs to be distinguishable from her own clothing, but also to look rich – and it works on both counts.

When we look back to Correggio’s painting, we can see what Mary has been making – a coat in Correggio’s typically muted colour range, but definitely purple: this is the boy born to be king, after all. So far he has only managed to put his right arm into its sleeve, and as his little hand emerges, it seems to be blessing. But also, with both arms extended, and that right arm going upwards from the shoulder, it seems clear that Jesus already knows when his arm will find that position again. Which might make us question what it is that the carpenter Joseph is actually working on? And is Mary really smiling – or has Jesus’s gesture temporarily stopped her in her tracks, as she bows her head and takes a breath, aware of the implications? In order to rebuild this tiny temple, it would first have to grow to adulthood, only to be destroyed: one day in the future this baby will be nailed to the cross. All of the family know this. It is part of the process of rebuilding.

114 – Giotto in Assisi

Giotto, The Institution of the Crib at Greccio, 1297-1300, Upper Church, San Francesco, Assisi.

I’m thinking about Giotto again for a number of different reasons. The first is that Giotto is, quite simply, always worth thinking about. The second is that I am about to embark on a short course, a series of three lectures entitled The Scrovegni Chapel from top to bottom, which is the first project of a new venture, ARTscapades, which aims to raise money for museums and galleries – and you can contribute simply by booking tickets for their events. If you click on the title above it will take you to the page for the first of the talks, which is on Tuesday 17 November between 2pm and 3pm UK time. The 2nd and 3rd talks will be on the following Tuesdays at the same time (these and other upcoming events are listed in my diary). Another reason to think about Giotto is that I was delighted to receive a copy of Laura Jacobus’s Giotto and the Arena Chapel as an early Christmas present from my wonderful sister… thank you! Just in the nick of time, you could say. I might even have time to read it before Tuesday!

But for today I want to move away from Padua, and head to Assisi, the town in which St Francis was born, and where he died. There is a sequence of 28 frescoes in the Upper Church of San Francesco devoted to the life of the saint which run along the bottom of the walls, just above the fictive tapestries. At least 25 are believed to have been painted by Giotto himself – although not everyone is convinced, with some art historians identifying the hands of at least three different anonymous masters, the Master of the Legend of St Francis, the Master of the Obsequies of St Francis, and the Cecilia Master. Having said that, there are those who believe that they were all designed by Giotto, even if he didn’t paint them himself. It’s one of those art historical problems which may never be resolved – so let’s not worry about it too much, and look at the painting instead.

I’ve chosen this image as I have often used it to illustrate the way in which medieval churches ‘functioned’. You should always be careful about using paintings as source material, though, because the artist is trying to tell a story, and not to explain the nature of ecclesiastical architecture. However, for someone like Giotto, who may himself had a hand in the design of the Scrovegni Chapel, such details were important – and the more the viewers believed that the building depicted was real, the more they were likely to believe the story that was being told. This particular narrative takes place in a church, and we find ourselves in the chancel, with the high altar to our right. It is surrounded by four columns which support a canopy. The most famous example of this type of structure is Bernini’s baldachino in St Peter’s, with its twisted Solomonic columns, so called because it was believed that the temple of Solomon had columns like this – indeed, it was believed that St Peter’s had one of the originals. However, for most medieval churches standard cylindrical columns sufficed. The structure as a whole is called a ciborium – the same name that is given to the covered cup used to contain the host during the Eucharist. The baldachino is a ciborium, as it happens, but gets this name from its canopy, which imitates the fabric that all good baldachins should have. As well as ‘crowning’ the altar, a ciborium is there to frame it, and enhance its status. Like the covered cup, it effectively protects and ‘contains’ the host.

To the left of the altar we see a lectern, or reading desk, surrounded by a number of singing Franciscans. We know they are singing, as all of their mouths are open at the same time, and it seems unlikely that so many Franciscans would be so unruly as to talk at the same time as their brothers. Lecterns such as this would often be used for hymnals, with the music being as large as possible – with all books being written by hand there would only be one for the whole choir, although they would not all read it from a distance. Much of the music would have been learnt by heart, and a choirmaster could indicate the flow of the music through appropriate gestures. Gathered around the altar are a number of clerics – the officiating Priest, for example, who turns away from the altar to look down at a haloed cleric – St Francis – who has taken a baby – also with a halo – from a wooden box. Next to the box are two animals – a goat and a diminutive cow, it seems – and nearby are a number of laymen, who appear to be well-dressed: aristocrats and successful merchants, presumably. Behind these people is a wall, and peering through a hole in the wall are a group of women.

The nature of this ‘wall’ is made clear by the features which top it, most importantly a cross, leaning away from us, and hanging from a simple support – a vertical post, held up by two diagonals, with a chain, or rope, attached from its apex to the heart of the cross. The brown colour, and the shape of the batons, tell us that this is wood, and that we are looking at the back of a painted crucifix, the medieval English name for which was the Rood. Having identified this, we realise (if we hadn’t before) that this ‘wall’ is what in Britain would be called a ‘Rood Screen’ – or choir screen. You might assume that the space beyond the screen – the choir, or chancel – was only accessible to the clergy. But no, the screen was more ‘porous’, and certain people were granted privileged access. However, it is only men who are allowed beyond the screen – the women are excluded, which is why they are left peering through the door. The same situation prevails to this day in much of the Orthodox Church, which continues the use of a ‘screen’, called an iconostasis (‘stand for icons’) to enclose the Holy of Holies. If you want to know what the crucifix looks like from the front, it was almost certainly meant to resemble Giotto’s own painting in Santa Maria Novella in Florence, which probably dates from the same decade as the fresco. I’d love to show you a photo of the back of this painting, to show you that the wooden support was put together in the same way, but I cannot find an image online… Why is the back of a painting not interesting enough to warrant this? It was interesting enough for Giotto to paint in his fresco, after all!

At the top left of the fresco is a pulpit, the idea being that the clergy could preach to the congregation without leaving the chancel. There is a staircase leading up to it, visible above the heads of the men on the far left. The word ‘pulpit’ is derived from its location, coming from the word pulpitum, meaning a scaffold, or platform – a raised structure from which to speak (I discuss all the elements of church ‘furniture’ in my book The Secret Language of Churches and Cathedrals, by the way – I’ve just edited the link to go to the new bookshop.org – supporting local bookshops rather than corporate internationals). Now, although Giotto’s intention is to tell a particular story, part of his storytelling technique is to give the narrative a convincing location, and Italian churches really did look like this. Indeed, the Scrovegni Chapel originally had such a screen cutting across what now appears as a continuous nave, and this had a pulpit with a staircase leading up to it. However, do you remember ever seeing a choir screen, or rood screen, in an Italian church? Run through all the ones you’ve visited in your mind’s eye! I can only think of one, off the top of my head, and that is in the Frari in Venice. The fact is that most choir screens in Italian churches were removed as a result of the Counter Reformation, enabling the congregation to participate more fully, as they would have greater access to the liturgy. As a result, when new churches were built, starting with Palladio’s glorious Redentore (also, coincidentally, in Venice), the choir was constructed behind the altar, so that it wouldn’t be in the way. In several churches the choir, which was originally in front of the altar, was moved behind, after an extension had been built at the back of the church. I’ve never known why the choir in the Frari was not destroyed. It is a fantastic choir, though, and maybe that was reason enough.

You may be wondering what the curious structure between the back of the crucifix and the pulpit is. Quite simply, it is part of the church, the base of a corbel supporting one of the overlying structures. Of course, you may also be wondering what exactly is going on in this fresco.

The story dates back to Christmas 1223, and was first told in Thomas of Celano’s Life of St Francis. The Order of Friars Minor (‘Franciscans’) was founded by St Francis in 1209, and Thomas joined six years later: he would have known Francis, although probably not well. His ‘Life’ was commissioned by Pope Gregory IX in 1228, the year in which Francis was canonised. This was only two years after his death, a mark of the high regard with which he was held (by means of a contrast, although St Dominic died five years before St Francis, he was not canonised until six years after). Thomas completed his first version of the biography within a year, and wrote a second, fuller version, some 17 years later. Here is a link to a 1926 translation of the relevant section, Chapter 30, of the first text. However, it seems likely that Giotto relied on the Life of St Francis written in 1260 by St Bonaventure – also a Franciscan, but too young to have known the founder (the link is to a translation from 1904).

According to Bonaventure, “It happened in the third year before his death [i.e. 1223], that in order to excite the inhabitants of Greccio to commemorate the nativity of the Infant Jesus with great devotion, St. Francis determined to keep it with all possible solemnity; and lest he should be accused of lightness or novelty, he asked and obtained the permission of the sovereign Pontiff. Then he prepared a manger, and brought hay, and an ox and an ass to the place appointed.” From this it is quite clear that we are not talking about a conventional Christmas Crib – these are real animals, not models. Back to Bonaventure: “The brethren were summoned, the people ran together, the forest resounded with their voices, and that venerable night was made glorious by many and brilliant lights and sonorous psalms of praise” – and indeed, we can see all the Franciscans singing.

“The man of God [St. Francis] stood before the manger, full of devotion and piety, bathed in tears and radiant with joy; the Holy Gospel was chanted by Francis. Then he preached to the people around the nativity of the poor King; and being unable to utter His name for the tenderness of His love, He called Him the Babe of Bethlehem…

A certain valiant and veracious soldier, Master John of Greccio, who, for the love of Christ, had left the warfare of this world, and become a dear friend of this holy man, affirmed that he beheld an Infant marvellously beautiful, sleeping in the manger, Whom the blessed Father Francis embraced with both his arms, as if he would awake Him from sleep.”

At this point, everything becomes hypothesis. Thomas of Celano mentions ‘a lifeless child’ – but not a doll – and both say that Francis acted as if to rouse him from sleep. This is not unlike a number of Renaissance paintings in which it is clear that the sleeping child is a premonition of the future dead Christ – and in the same way that sleep is followed by waking, Christ’s death is followed by his resurrection. The message is clear. By recreating the situation of the Nativity in all its humility, Francis enabled his followers to believe in the story – and to believe in it so entirely that they could see the Christ Child himself there among them. What Giotto is doing is essentially the same: painting the narrative with as much naturalism as he could muster, to make the miraculous appearance of the divine infant entirely natural. Such is the power of art.

113 – Artemisia, and Mary.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Madonna and Child, c. 1613-14. Galleria Spada, Rome.

Hello! It’s been a while… over a month, bizarrely enough, although I can’t tell whether time is going quickly or slowly. The time has been filled with numerous adventures, I’m glad to say, including two trips to Venice, one working, one holiday, and both a joy! I’ve also managed to take in a number of exhibitions, including a return visit to Titian at the National Gallery, and a first encounter with the NG’s glorious Artemisia, the inspiration for today’s musings. I continue to make plans for the future, plans which, as you will realise, are constantly subject to change. Among the most exciting is A Flash Trip to Stockholm, 2 – 5 November – and if you’re free and want to get away while we still can, please do join us. For a reminder of just one of the things we will see, have a look back to Picture Of The Day 36 – St George. More of the plans later on – let’s concentrate on Artemisia.

She truly was a remarkable woman, and a great artist. I’ve already written about her twice (POTD 17 and POTD 69), but she is always worth coming back to, and if you haven’t managed to make it to the exhibition, it really is worthwhile. Her strength of character is well known, and frequently discussed, and the fortitude and determination of the women she paints is also rightly celebrated, notably in a number of images of Judith and Holofernes. But amidst the focus on her personal life and misfortunes, on her strength and on the strength of her subjects, and on her genuine understanding of the plight of women which was born of personal experience (something which no male artist could possibly have had, of course), I can’t help thinking that today’s painting has not received the attention it deserves. Apart from anything else, I think it is a wonderfully beautiful image, its delicacy, and the affection it depicts, matched by a beautifully conceived composition.

The Madonna fills the full space of the painting, bringing her closer to us, and making the subjects more immediate, more ‘present’. The Christ Child sits on her lap in a position more sophisticated than we would expect for a toddler – but then, this is the Son of God.

She sits on a low chair, and in order to prevent her son from slipping off her lap, her feet are tucked to one side, so her right thigh remains horizontal. Her left knee is not so strongly bent, allowing the child to lean on her left thigh, which is slightly higher. The overlapping zig-zags of her legs – one in dark shadow, and another in brilliant light (the chiaroscuro developed by the recently-deceased Caravaggio being used to full advantage) is then echoed by the ‘v’ of her blue cloak, lying over the seat of the chair, swept back by her leg, and curving out and around, a fuller expression of the folds seen in the pink robe. She is seated on this cloak, and we see it again tucked around her right arm, framing the leg in the dark shadows, and enclosing the form of the child. Her left arm supports him, but doesn’t hold him – almost as if she is wary of the touch, and the gap between her thumb and forefinger opens up toreveals a deeply shadowed hollow, allowing the brilliant white fabric loosely held around Jesus – a hint of the shroud to come, perhaps? – to shine out.

There is another deep void between them, a dark shadow that makes them look entirely sculptural, and seems to represent the gap in their respective experience – she would have been little more than a girl, whereas he is the Son of God. And it is he who bridges the divide, his left arm reaching up to touch her neck with delicacy and with concern, as he looks into her eyes with ineffable love. There is a sense of divine understanding in this look, and in this gesture, which, like the elegant way in which he reclines, is far beyond his human years. Mary looks down with humility, as she offers her breast between her middle- and forefingers. The thin, white hem of her chemise, seen again at her wrist, create another link to him, as this hint of whiteness echoes the white fabric which enfolds him.

The dark space between them forms a diagonal which reaches to the top right corner of the painting. Their torsos and her legs are roughly parallel to this line, while his arm, and the gaze between the two, follow an opposing diagonal. That this was a hard-won composition can be seen from the numerous pentimenti – or changes – which are now visible: a phantom elbow and some transparent drapery curving out from her waist can be seen against the back of the simple chair, and the dark background around their heads appears to be filled with other ghostly presences, almost as if adding to their sanctity, which is defined by their haloes, hers almost solid, his, an undefinable glow.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Madonna and Child, c.1613-14. Galleria Spada, Rome.
School of Marcantonio Raimondi, Holy Family, c.1515-34. Royal Collection Trust.

Hard-won, yes, but not entirely original, as it happens. Ultimately it is derived from a print attributed to the School of Marcantonio Raimondi, the first engraver to base his works on other people’s paintings, and usually, on Raphael’s. It shouldn’t surprise us that Artemisia was inspired by a print. The painting is dated ‘About 1613-14’ in the catalogue of the National Gallery’s exhibition, although some authorities date it earlier – around 1609 – when Artemisia would have been 16. I don’t doubt the catalogue’s later date. Apparently, X-Rays of this painting suggest that, as well as the Raimondi engraving, a later painting which she would have seen in Florence was probably another source for this image, and she didn’t get to Florence until late 1612 or early 1613. But something that is worth bearing in mind is that, as a woman, she would not have been able to move freely through the city, and certainly, as a girl, should would not have been allowed out on her own. So her first knowledge of art would have come directly from her father, Orazio, who trained her, and from small, portable works of art – such as prints – which could have been owned, or borrowed, by the family. But she has not simply copied the print. Apart from the obvious omission of Joseph, she extends the reach of the child to touch his mother’s neck, tucks his right elbow within her enfolding arm, and ensures that they look at each other. Artemisia alone is responsible for the intimacy, and for the love between mother and son, that are such important features of the composition.

Why these changes? Should we read something about Artemisia’s own life from them, as people tend to with so many of her paintings? Probably not. Dating from her early years in Florence, shortly after she married and moved away from Rome, her experience as a mother at this stage was short-lived and harsh. She had five children, but only two of them survived infancy, and only one reached adulthood. The first, Giovanni Battista, was born in September 1613, but lived little more than a week. The second, Agnola, arrived in December of the following year, but died before she could be baptised. This means that by the time the Madonna was painted, Artemisia would have had next to no personal knowledge of breastfeeding. Of love, and of loss, on the other hand, she was only too aware.

The subject itself is more common than you might realise: the Madonna Lactans – the Madonna breastfeeding, or about to feed. It was popular in medieval times, and survived into the 16th Century for a number of reasons. One, which seems oddly contemporary, is that some were aware of the benefits of maternal breastfeeding, and were concerned that aristocratic women were all too willing to hand their babies over to wet nurses. But that is probably irrelevant here. The genre is one of the ways in which Mary could be shown as a good role model for all women: a good mother, not only pure, but also willing to stay at home and look after her baby. However, feeding the infant Christ can also be seen as the source of some of her influence. Recently I’ve become particularly interested in a rather unusual painting attributed to Lorenzo Monaco (I have no doubts about the attribution – I can’t imagine who else it would be by) which is currently in the Cloisters in New York, but which was originally painted for Florence Cathedral.

Attributed to Lorenzo Monaco, The Intercession of Christ and the Virgin, before 1402. The Cloisters, New York.

The painting shows the Holy Trinity, with God the Father at top centre, gesturing towards God the Son at bottom left, the Holy Spirit flying between, as if released from the Father’s right hand. Christ gestures to the wound in his chest, while indicating his mother, who holds something in her left hand, and gestures to a group of diminutive individuals kneeling in prayer before Jesus. The gestures tell us they are interceding with the Father, asking him to be merciful to us mere mortals. Jesus asks him something, referring to the wound, and to his mother, in support of his request, while Mary’s concern is for the people. The text, written onto the background, makes everything clear.

“My Father, let those be saved for whom you wished me to suffer the Passion,” says Jesus, as Mary addresses him: “Dearest son, because of the milk that I gave you, have mercy on them.” Even from the detail above it might not be entirely obvious that Mary is displaying her right breast. For one thing, accuracy with human anatomy was never Lorenzo’s concern, and for another, it is not something you would expect to see in a church. But what the painting really makes clear is that Mary’s physical nourishment of Jesus with the milk from her breast was seen as an equivalent of the way in which Jesus nourishes us spiritually with the blood and water that flowed mingled down from the wound in his chest. She shares his role in our redemption, and as such, was given a wonderful title, Co-Redemptrix, which went out of fashion in the 16th Century. I’m not at all sure that Artemisia would have been aware of any of this as she painted her Madonna. For her, and for her audience, the intimacy between mother and son, and the devotional nature of the image, would have been its chief charms. More abstruse elements of theology are all very well and good in a church, but wouldn’t make art sellable to the great and the good of 17th Century Florence, Artemisia’s target audience. Nevertheless, the theology of the Madonna Lactans hovers somewhere in the background of this beautiful image.

I discussed these ideas at length recently in my short course for the National Gallery, inspired by their exhibition Sin: the art of transgression. If you missed that, I will be reshaping the highlights into an online talk for Art History Abroad on 2 December. It’s not on their website yet, but as soon as it is I will put a link on my diary page. I am also starting to think about a short course looking at the ways in which Jesus is represented in the Wallace Collection, which should happen at about the same time – the beginning of Advent. More details of this, and of the National Gallery’s Stories of Art: Module 3 – on the 16th Century – when I have them, although Stories of Art will start on Wednesday 6 January for 6 weeks. In the meantime, do come to Stockholm if you’re free. If not, then until the next time, farewell!

112 …and so, ‘Farewell’…

Giotto, The Scrovegni Chapel, c. 1305, Padua.

This is it, the very last ‘Scrovegni Saturday’. When I started out on this strand I had no idea what was coming, but I feel I understand Giotto’s decoration far better than I did before – and inevitably I also have far more questions about it than previously! I am enormously indebted to Ingrid Wassenaar who kicked the whole project off, simply because of her interest in the Virtues and Vices. Only gradually did I realise why. As I mentioned (Picture Of The Day 45), they were known to Proust, and Ingrid just happens to be an authority on Proust, whereas I know nothing. Nevertheless, it triggered this exploration of the entire fresco cycle, which I for one do not consider to be lost time.

The next thing is to learn something more about it. I confess that I have never read a book on the subject – I tend to glean, picking up scraps here and there, and learn most by looking. As with all of this blogging, a lot of what I have said about the chapel is my personal opinion, based on years of experience, and, with these frescoes, easy access online to the bible and the Golden Legend. But I am bound to have made some mistakes – indeed, I know I have: my brief foray into the British Library told me as much! So I wanted to share a couple more things with you, to give you my suggestions for further reading, and then to try and synthesize the whole thing (which I have been trying to do all the way through).

Three books, all of which seem to be rather good, were published in the space of a couple of years just over a decade ago. They would all be worth reading, I think. I’ll give you a link to Amazon, too, in case you want a closer look, although you might prefer to order them from your local book dealer. Come to think of it, you might prefer to go to your nearest library…

Laura Jacobus, Giotto and the Arena Chapel: Art, architecture and experience, Harvey Miller, 2008.

Of the three, this is the one I think I will start with when I next have the chance to get to the British Library (I’ll do that because I’ve just checked Amazon – sadly the book is out of print, but there is a copy selling for £250!!!). It is a thorough investigation of everything relating to the Chapel, from its history, its architecture and it setting through to Giotto’s decorations – which is the only aspect of the site that I have talked about. There is so much more to know about the building itself, and the patron. But also there is more to know about the lived experience of the chapel – of which, there is a little hint below. The illustrations in the body of the text are mainly black and white, and there is a section with the paintings in narrative order. I was a bit surprised to see that none of the books discuss the frescoes in this way, but that is surely because they are so interlinked that it could be more valuable to explore the themes and relationships between the separate images. However, I do think it helps to have an understanding of the flow of the narrative. One of the reasons I want to read this first is quite simple: I met Laura once when I was doing my PhD research, and she was both generous with her time, and spot on with her advice – so she’s clearly a good person! And, of course, she is one of the acknowledged authorities on Giotto and on Enrico Scrovegni.

Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, The usurer’s heart: Giotto, Enrico Scrovegni, and the Arena Chapel in Padua, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008.

This is a rather academic book, I suspect (my brief visit to the British Library only allowed enough time to flick through the three books, so I can’t vouch for every aspect of the text – although they are clearly all first rate). It deals very specifically with Scrovegni himself and the reasons behind his commission. In the process the authors explore the history of usury and the Church’s attitude towards it. Although it has the largest format of the three books, the illustrations are mainly black and white as before. There is a sequential arrangement of paintings at the end (although not all are included) and it has some wonderful fold-out ‘panoramic’ views, helping you to understand the layout of the decorations as a whole. The book’s title comes from one of the miracles of St Anthony of Padua, a miracle which in some ways seems to combine the reputation of Scrovegni’s father as a usurer (even though he lived after St Anthony) with the reputation of Padua as one of the few places where human anatomy was studied. Legend has it that an autopsy was carried out on a recently-dead miser, who was found to have no heart. St Anthony predicted that it would be found with whatever he loved the most, and inevitably it turned up in his treasure chest. Below is a photograph of Donatello’s relief illustrating the miracle, which was part of the elaborate bronze altarpiece he made for the Church of St Anthony – know universally as Il Santo, ‘The Saint’ – between 1447 and 1450. The miser is in the centre, his rib-cage cut open, while the treasure chest is on the far left, the very heart-shaped heart being lifted out at the end of a long, ribbed artery by a bearded man surrounded by what could be a group of bemused-looking students.

Donatello, The Miracle of the Miser’s Heart, 1447-50, Il Santo, Padua.

Andrew Ladis, Giotto’s O: narrative, figuration, and pictorial ingenuity in the Arena Chapel, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009.

Andrew Ladis sadly died while this book was being edited, so it might be missing some of its polish. Nevertheless, as he starts from the premise that every single image in the chapel is placed in relationship to everything around it for very specific reasons, then we must be on the same wavelength. All of the illustrations here are in colour, which always adds to the joy of the world, given that all are of high quality. This would be my second choice – although both this and the previous volume are selling for around £69.00… Libraries have always been inviting, but this makes them more so (though if anyone was wondering what I wanted for Christmas…)

And I have two specific points – one I have never fully considered, and another I have always misunderstood. I really don’t know why. As it happens, they are at either end of the chapel, directly opposite one another.

When introducing Enrico Scrovegni himself (POTD 38) I said that he was presenting a model of the chapel to three angels. I was wrong. My excuse, and I’m sure it’s a feeble one, is that there is so much going on in the vast fresco of The Last Judgement that I have never had time to stop and look at every detail properly. The three people are clearly holy as they all have halos, but they have no wings. Now, not every painted angel has wings, but nevertheless, they are not angels. They appear to be wearing white, red and green, which are the colours related to the three Theological Virtues, Faith, Charity and Hope respectively – but that could be a coincidence, as all three are saints, and there is, in any case, some evidence that the colours have changed. Authors dispute the identity of these figures, but about the central one there is no doubt: it is the Virgin Mary. This may come as a surprise, as anyone versed in Italian religious painting will assume she wears blue – but this was not always the case. The connection with Charity is not a coincidence, as it happens: the chapel was dedicated to Santa Maria della Carità – St Mary of Charity, or St Mary of Love, or even, St Mary of Mercy. The hope was that she would be charitable – even merciful – towards Enrico Scrovegni’s father, and intercede on his behalf with her son. But who are the other two? There is some debate, and some would go so far as to suggest that the other two figures are different embodiments of the Virgin. I cannot agree with that. The one on the left does not have any form of hair dressing, hat, or even head covering, so must be male. The logical conclusion would be St John the Evangelist. Although I haven’t talked about them at all, aside from a brief mention, there are two side altars in the chapel. They are dedicated to St John the Evangelist and St Catherine of Alexandria. I have remarked before that a lot of Giotto’s inspiration came from the Gospel of St John and, if I am right, this would be why. The third person, wearing a crown, must be St Catherine (who was supposed to be a princess). Given that the chapel is dedicated to Mary, John and Catherine, it is surprising that there has been any debate about the identity of these figures – their presence here effectively maps out the dedication of the chapel. I’m only surprised that I hadn’t stopped to think about it more. I was probably too caught up with all the torments of hell – and every other detail in the enormous fresco – to pay it enough heed. Nevertheless, consider my wrist slapped!

At the other end, above the Chancel Arch, there is an image of God the Father painted on a wooden panel. I don’t know how I got the idea that this was a door (POTD 80). There comes a point, when one has been talking about something for over twenty years (and my first visit to the chapel with a group of students was in 1999), when you realise that you don’t know where your information came from. There were, as I mentioned, regular staged performances of a dramatized version of The Annunciation associated with the chapel. Indeed, on the feast day itself, 25 March, there was more than one performance which took place in different locations in Padua. But this wooden panel has no connection to them. It replaces a stained glass window which is presumed to have depicted God the Father. The light which entered here would have been partly practical, but mainly symbolic, representing Jesus, the Light of the World, coming into the world. I’m just sorry I didn’t know this until now, and look forward to reading more about it.

The dedication of the chapel to St Mary of Charity – or Love, or even Mercy – is embodied in the detail we saw above from the enormous Last Judgement which takes up the whole of the ecclesiastical West wall of the chapel. Christ is enthroned beneath another window – the light of truth, perhaps, shining down on his judgement – with the blessed gathered under his right hand (on our left) and the damned, with all the torments of hell, under his left (on our right).

Directly opposite this is another vision of heaven, with God the Father – initially in a window, so actually made of light, but now on a wooden panel – surrounded by some of the angelic host. Directly opposite hell we see Judas receiving the thirty pieces of silver, his fee for betraying Jesus, whereas opposite the blessed, who are approaching heaven, we see the Annunciate Virgin, wearing the same red as in the dedication, and below her, The Visitation, with Mary visiting her cousin Elizabeth. This story includes the first recognition of Jesus, even though unborn, as Saviour. The two side altars, dedicated to Sts John the Evangelist and Catherine of Alexandria, are clearly visible at the bottom right and left of this photograph.

Stretching from hell to Judas, along the bottom of the ‘North’ wall, are the seven Vices. On the other side, we see the seven Virtues. As we approach the High Altar, we should remember that Christ sits in Judgement behind us – and, like him, the Virtues are on our right hand, the Vices on our left – we have the capacity to choose right from wrong, and to be more like Mary than Judas. The story of Salvation is told within this overlying framework.

The Virtues are at the bottom – the High Altar, and the Visitation, are to the left, and the Last Judgement, with the blessed entering heaven, to the right

On the ‘South’ wall, spread around the windows, we see the Story of Joachim and Anna at the top, starting with Joachim’s rejection from the temple and ending with him being welcomed at the Golden Gate by his loving wife. Below this, we see the childhood of Jesus, from his Nativity, to the Massacre of the Innocents – he is born to save us, and they die to save him. At the bottom, closest to us as it is most important, we move from the Last Supper to The Mocking of Christ – Jesus moves from authority to humility. He institutes the Eucharist, the communion with God which could ultimately save us, near the altar, only to be brought gradually lower as the frescoes approach the scene of the Last Judgement. With no little irony, the injustice of his betrayal takes place above the depiction of the personification of Justice. And wow! I’ve just noticed something new, while proofreading the blog just before clicking ‘publish’! Directly above Justice we see Jesus, betrayed by Judas. To the left of Justice is Temperance, and again, Jesus is directly above, washing Peter’s feet – but only his feet. To the right is Faith, directly underneath Jesus in Christ before the Caiaphas and Charity is below him in The Mocking of Christ. These scenes do not line up vertically because of the space taken up by the windows, but Giotto still contrives to associate the evenly spaced Virtues with Jesus himself, by designing the composition of the narratives so that Jesus is directly above them: Genius. I keep being astonished by this remarkable man, and the amount of planning that must have preceded the execution of these frescoes.

Here the Vices are at the bottom, with the torments of hell to the left, and Judas receiving the 30 pieces of silver on the chancel arch to the right

On the ‘North’ wall, at the top, we see the birth and betrothal of the Virgin, ending with a procession – not unlike the processions that led to the chapel on the Feast of the Annunciation – which leads to the chancel arch, and to The Annunciation itself. In the lower two tiers, slightly separated from the top one, the narrative scenes are framed by the same decorative strips as above, but they also contain pictorial typological references to the Old Testament, which both illuminate the New Testament story, and make the whole decoration resonate with even greater depth.  The mission of Christ is in the centre, starting with his debate with the doctors in the temple, to which he returns on the far right to expel the money lenders. At the bottom, leading us away from the picture of hell – and away from hell itself – Christ takes his cross and is crucified. His victory over death is paralleled by the repentance of Mary Magdalene, and although he has been brought as low as is possible, he now rises, and then ascends to heaven. The Church is left to the apostles, now empowered by the Holy Spirit. They could, if it were possible, step out of the painting and preside over Mass at the altar which is just to the right of this image.

And so, ‘Farewell’ to the Scrovegni Chapel. Virtually, at least – all that remains is to go and see it in person. Sadly, when you book your ticket you will only get 15 or 20 minutes inside, but if you go in prepared I hope you can breathe it all in at once, resonating as it does with the whole history of salvation!

That’s not the end of the blog, though. I shall carry on, I hope once a week, maybe more if I can, talking about anything that grabs my fancy – or anything you might suggest. It may also evolve into something of a newsletter to let you know what I am up to, and to tell you about any events, online or in person, that you can attend. I will try and update the diary page regularly (do nag me if I don’t!), but for now there still isn’t much. However, if you happen to be free the week after next there are still a couple of places available on our spontaneous escape, A Flash Trip to Venice, organised by Art History Abroad from 21-24 September!

So, until the next time, Addio! But before I go, one last thing – a phenomenon, and one that I knew nothing about until the other week. This is a picture I took from Laura Jacobus’s book. The original photographs were taken by Hans-Michael Thomas, and show the path taken by a shaft of sunlight falling across the fresco of The Last Judgement one 25 March – the Feast of the Annunciation, the day on which the chapel was dedicated. This, in itself, is a miracle. And one that, like everything else, Giotto must have planned. As I said above: Genius.

Mary, revisited…

Giotto, Stories from the Life of the Virgin, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

Yesterday was the Feast of the Birth of the Virgin, and I had meant to post then – but sadly I seem to be getting busy again. However, I thought, ‘Why not have a look back to the end of May, when I looked at Giotto’s Birth of the Virgin?’ – so here it is again. As her birth falls exactly nine months after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (for reasons which should be evident), you might want to look at those entries too, as they are as essential to the Birth of the Virgin as the Annunciation is to Christmas. I looked at paintings by Crivelli and Velázquez – and the blogs on those paintings should help to explain why yesterday was such an important date in the Catholic Calendar. As for my calendar – well, as I’ve said, it is getting increasingly full, and if you check on my website, on the diary page, you will see that I am starting to update it more regularly. To start off with there are a couple of talks at the National Gallery, and a trip to Venice. My friends at Art History Abroad have reasoned that it’s very hard to plan anything at the moment – so we should just be spontaneous. So I’m taking a group to Venice for the week after next! Yes! We leave Monday week for four days. If you’d like to come on this ‘Flash Trip to Venice’ it would probably be as well to book as soon as possible (click on the blue text!), as there are only a few places left… Meanwhile, back in May, this is what I was thinking about:

Welcome back to the Scrovegni Chapel – we’re well into the story. Joachim has been rejected from the temple, and as William Caxton put it back in 1483, ‘And then Joachim, all confused for this thing, durst not go home for shame’ (POTD 66). Meanwhile, Anna is waiting at home, and an angel has announced the birth of a daughter. Joachim (not Zacharias – yes, I did stick in the wrong name last week…) gives a sacrifice to God, which is accepted, and an angel tells him to go and meet his wife at the Golden Gate. Will he go? Of course he will!

Joachim and Anna meet outside the Golden Gate to the City of Jerusalem and embrace. Giotto gives us no doubt of the fact that they are together, and united, as he doesn’t leave a single gap between the two forms. With the haloes on top of their heads, the self-contained arching form resembles nothing so much as the Golden Gate itself – which was probably Giotto’s intention. One of the epithets applied to Mary was Porta Coeli – the ‘Gate of Heaven’ – as the birth of Christ meant that we could be admitted into the presence of God. Joachim and Anna are part of that journey – the gate to the gate, if you like. 

Neither of them has come unaccompanied. One of the shepherds has made what I assume is a rare visit to the big city, probably just to make sure that Joachim actually gets there. I love the way he is slightly sheepish, just emerging into the scene from behind the picture frame: people think this type of ‘photographic’ cut-off originated with the Renaissance in the 15th Century, but as with so many other things, they learnt it from Giotto. Anna is chaperoned by her maid, who we last saw dutifully spinning on the porch. She is carrying an expensive fur-lined coat, presumably in case Joachim is chilly. As it is, he is dressed remarkably like Jesus, with a red cloak over a blue robe. There must be a reason for this – his role in our salvation is the most likely thing I can think of at the moment, but if I come up with a better idea, I’ll let you know!

And the kiss! Ah – the kiss! Always one of the true joys of this chapel, given the way he firmly clasps her shoulder, and she tenderly cradles his head between her hands, running her fingers through his beard. They go almost cross-eyed, looking at each other in such close proximity, and there is that sense of a nose-bump, narrowly avoided, as their lips touch. They just touch, with no sense of parting, and certainly no tongues – the ultimate chaste kiss. It was at this moment, some people believed, that the Virgin Mary was conceived. But very few people ever thought this – hers was not a virgin birth. However, it does represent the Immaculate Conception (POTD 71 &72), given the chastity of Anna and Joachim’s love. And let’s face it, you’re not going to show the conception in any other way, this is a chapel, for heaven’s sake, not the Palazzo Te (POTD 44 & 53). Look at the delicate transparency of Anna’s veil – and the careful attention paid to every single grey hair of Joachim’s head. It’s a miracle. It’s also the point in the story when things start to get interesting in terms of the arrangement of the paintings. 

First of all, we have a cast of characters – quite apart from Joachim and Anna, we have the shepherd, and the maid, who reappear from earlier paintings.

Also, we have a complete story – ‘Chapter 1’, if you like – starting with Joachim’s rejection from the temple, and ending here with his acceptance at the Golden Gate. Both buildings are angled inwards, each with its own entrance. Joachim’s role as protagonist is done now: he has come home, and his part of the story is over. At this point, we have to cross the chapel, and start at the top of the left-hand wall.

‘Chapter 2’ starts with the Birth of the Virgin. Mary has been born, and is washed and swaddled by two midwives, who are sitting on the ground: one of them is the trusty maid, showing her true value to the household, as she can perform more than one role. Anna sits up in bed, covered by a sheet and a rather grand bedspread. No, they didn’t have twins, this is a continuous narrative, with different stages of the story shown together. The maid was preparing a finer fabric to wrap around the swaddling clothes, and duly prettified and safely contained, Mary is presented to her mother. Friends have come round to visit the newborn miracle, and yet another turns up with a gift at the door. And if you think you recognise the setting, you would be right.

It is the same house that we saw on the opposite wall. I wouldn’t mind betting that it was the maid who took out the chest and bench to allow more guests to visit. Like all good theatre designers, Giotto has allowed the furniture to be flexible. It is the same: the same bedspread, the same curtain hanging from the same frame, but slightly shifted to enhance the narrative. The lighting is different, too: it’s the same building, but at a different time of day. In fact, it is night time: it looks dark through the window. I know the sky is still blue, but that is ‘heavenly background’ as much as anything else. It also needs to fit in with the other frescoes, and wouldn’t look that good if it were all black. Notice that, whereas Anna was kneeling in prayer, looking to the right (the direction of the narrative), it is now Mary who is handed over to the right. This is her story.

According the Golden Legend, when Mary was three, Anna and Joachim took her to the temple. This is from Caxton’s translation:

…they brought her to the temple with offerings. And there was about the temple, fifteen steps to ascend up to the temple, because the temple was high set. And no body might go to the altar of sacrifices that was without, but by the steps.  And then our Lady was set on the lowest step, and mounted up without any help as she had been of perfect age, and when they had performed their offering, they left their daughter in the temple with the other virgins, and they returned into their place. 

Two things are actually different here – one is that there are only 10 steps, rather than 15, and the other is that Mary has not set off on her own. Like any small child on their first day at school Anna has had to encourage her all the way to the top. Mind you, faced with that priest I don’t suppose most 3-year-olds would have been that keen. There’s no particular reason why Giotto should diverge from the text – but then, there was no particular reason why he should stick to every detail.

The Golden Legend doesn’t specify what the ‘offerings’ were, but they were clearly heavy. Joachim doesn’t carry them himself – they have a servant for that – and even though they only fill one basket, the servant is bent low by the weight. Giotto attempts a particularly daring foreshortening, quite hard to read from a distance, and one of the most unusual views of the human figure I know before the 16th Century.

It is the same temple as we saw in the very first painting – and yet we are on the other side. You see the same ciborium or ‘canopy’ over the altar, and the same raised pulpit, high enough over the screen for the entire congregation to see. These are features of medieval churches, of course, rather than having anything to do with Solomon’s temple, or, for that matter, a synagogue. One of my friends said it reminded him of a piece of theatrical scenery on wheels, and he’s absolutely right – Giotto has simply turned it round. I say ‘simply’ – this is a rather complicated thing to do, and, if we’re honest, it is another one of those theatrical tricks where it looks like the same building, but in reality it is slightly modified.

Mary lives with the other virgins (small ‘v’) in the temple until she is 14, when all of the others find suitable spouses. This is where I started back on the very first Scrovegni Saturday, POTD 31. If you re-read that, you will get the long story – but here it is, short. All the eligible bachelors were asked to come to the temple with rods, and place them on the altar. Nothing happened, so they put out a second call, and it turned out that an old guy called Joseph hadn’t come forward. When he did, his rod flowered, and a dove landed on it – so he got to marry Mary. The rest were furious. At this stage, they are only being betrothed – i.e. engaged – the wedding was to follow some time later. Now you might want to argue that this is not the same temple we saw before, but the reason for this comes from Caxton’s text. He talks of  ‘the altar of sacrifices that was without’ – which is the one under the ciborium, and the one which Joachim had attempted to go to before. For this part of the story we are clearly at an altar that is ‘within’.

After the betrothal, Mary was taken in procession to the house of her parents, followed by the other virgins, and led by a viol player, and a couple of elders. She is welcomed home by two ceremonial trumpeters. I’m afraid I don’t know why this particular part of the fresco is in such a bad condition – it is due to humidity, but I don’t know why that should have been so bad here. It might have something to do with the part of the Scrovegni Palace which was, until the 19th Century, behind this wall, or whatever happened to this bit of the wall when the Palace was destroyed. The two trumpets were clearly painted a secco – after the plaster had dried – meaning that the paint was not bound to the wall, and has completely gone. Alternately, they could have been gilded, although why the gold should go here, and not on the haloes, I don’t know. A bay window from the house makes it onto this wall: we’ll see more of that when we come back next week.

p.s. As suggested yesterday, I will be giving two online lectures this week:

• if you want to tune in to Artemisia on Monday morning at 11am, please email trish@summerleazegallery.co.uk

• if you would like to sign up for Seeing is Believing: van Eyck and the Art of Illusion at 6pm this Wednesday, 3 June, please go to the Art History Abroad website by clicking on the words Art History Abroad! Mix yourself a cocktail before you sign on – I will!

I’ll start updating the ‘diary’ on the website soon…

111 – Full circle

Giotto, Pentecost, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

One last image for Scrovegni Saturday before a final summing up next week: Pentecost, in which God hands over responsibility to man, and Giotto remains entirely human, and entirely poetic. I have covered the story before – twice, in fact: on the day itself, with Plautilla Nelli’s little known version in Perugia (Picture of the Day 74), and the following day, with El Greco’s visionary telling of the story now in the Prado (POTD 75) – so do re-read them if you want more background to the story itself.

Giotto gives us a calm and straightforward rendition which, unlike either of the paintings we have seen before, does not appear to be a drama performed for our eyes. On the contrary, there is evidence that we are entirely incidental. But before we look at the painting, let me remind you what the bible says on the subject, in Acts 2:1-4:

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The text doesn’t say how many of them ‘they’ were, but Giotto simplifies to twelve. The apostles sit in an enclosed room, one of the very few identifiably ‘gothic’ buildings that Giotto depicts in the Scrovegni Chapel. It is at a slight angle, and oddly, has no visible door. It’s not at all clear how they managed to get in there, short of clambering through the arcade and over the benches, on which they now sit. Their bottoms spread across the hard wood as they do in the Last Supper, and their feet are visible in the shadows under the seat. In another echo of the Last Supper, those with their backs to us appear to sit with their halos in front of their faces. We don’t actually see the Holy Spirit, but the tongues of fire which reach towards the apostles suggest that the dove must be hovering some way above the roof. This is the point in the biblical narrative when the people gathered outside the room could understand the apostles as if they were speaking in their own language, although Giotto does not include any of these witnesses – but then neither did Nelli or El Greco. However, he doesn’t include Mary either – unlike most other depictions of the story. More on that below.

Matthias was appointed to replace Judas at the very end of Chapter 1 of the Acts of the Apostles, so he should be present here. If we compare this image to others in the cycle, the only ‘type’ who hasn’t been seen before is the person on the far right, a young man with a short – or at least thin – dark beard. This must be Matthias, at the far end of the table from Peter. He is wearing yellow, as Judas used to, almost as if he has taken over the same position on the ‘team’. Six apostles sit along the back of the room, and four along the front. John the Evangelist sits next to Peter, a little further back, and one of the columns of the arcade cuts across his face. This is the evidence I mentioned that suggests that we are incidental – Giotto is not pretending that the apostles have arranged themselves so that we can see them clearly. Despite the column, though, we can still identify him: young, beardless, and wearing the same blue and pink he has elsewhere.  Further along, though, another of the apostles is completely hidden by the architecture, a nod to naturalism which we would see as almost photographic. Perhaps it is even a tacit acknowledgement by Giotto that we would probably not be able to work out who this was anyway. The others are equally difficult to identify, as far as I am concerned, with the exception of St Andrew, just to the right of centre with his back to us, sporting the long, curly grey hair, and green toga over a red robe that we have seen before (e.g. 105). Next to St Andrew, chatting away to the newcomer Matthias, is St Bartholomew in his flashy patterned fabric.

I said above that this image is poetic, and yet initially it might seem rather mundane: there is apparently nothing remarkable about it. The first thing to suggest otherwise is the overtly Gothic architecture. Despite their ‘Roman’ clothing, the apostles are seated in what was for Giotto a contemporary building – and this is entirely apt. This is the point in the biblical narrative at which the apostles can be understood by all the nations of the world, thus enabling them to head out and evangelise. In other words, this is the point at which they take over from Jesus, and become his vicars – his representatives on earth: the priesthood is born. There are no women present – Mary would have been out of place in this particular version – and the reason why becomes clearer if we remind ourselves where we are in the chapel.

We are at the bottom right of this image, at the end of the story, and close to the high altar. From here, you can almost imagine the apostles stepping out of the fresco to officiate over the mass. Their role, Giotto says, is the same as that of the contemporary priest, who is effectively their successor, and of course, when this was painted, the idea of a female priest was unthinkable (as for some it still is today) – hence Mary’s absence. And, if they are like the contemporary priest, it makes sense that they would be in a gothic building.

It is not irrelevant that the scene directly above Pentecost is The Expulsion of the Money-changers from the Temple (see 102), in which Jesus effectively cleanses his Father’s house. The temple itself is depicted with round-topped arches. This comparison of architectural styles is quite common in Northern European paintings of the Nativity, and represents an idea of progress. The round arches, like those used in classical Roman and subsequent Romanesque architecture, represent the old order – as embodied here by Solomon’s temple. On the other hand, pointed Gothic arches were seen as ‘modern’, and so stand for the new order – the Church. Above these two paintings, Mary processes towards her parents’ house, and, in terms of the Scrovegni Chapel, towards the Annunciation, effectively a mystical marriage between herself and God. When she becomes pregnant, she is effectively, like Temple and Church, the house of God. In much medieval theology there was a direct equivalence between Mary and Ecclesia, the personification of the Church. Thus in the column of three images close to the altar we have different representations of the church, the temple and the church again, one on top of another.

In this view of the chancel arch Pentecost can be seen, at an angle, at the far end of the wall on the left: its proximity to the High Altar is, I hope, clear. Almost directly opposite, just this side of the window at the far end of the wall on the right, is The Last Supper, the painting to which it is most obviously related in terms of composition and setting. We have come full circle. On the right Jesus presides over the Last Supper, as he institutes the Eucharist. His passion, death and resurrection lead us away from the altar and back again, until with Pentecost the apostles are once more next to the altar, and are ready to continue Christ’s mission on earth.

So much is similar between these two images. Peter and John still occupy places at the ‘head’ of the table – although in the Pentecost they are facing towards the high altar in the chapel. Indeed, Peter is either looking at us, or at the altar itself, which lies on the diagonal in which he is looking. Andrew and Bartholomew are sitting next to each other again, although, without Jesus, the latter has turned to talk to Matthias. The gothic arcade creates more of an enclosed space, perhaps, but we still have access to the scene, in the same way that we would if looking through the rood screen in an Anglican church (although I’m afraid this is not entirely relevant to Giotto’s Italian experience). As previously mentioned, the apostles have the same weight in both, with their bodies pressing down on the bench and their shadowy legs visible below. And while those with their backs to us still have halos apparently in their faces, those halos are notable different. In The Last Supper they were silver, although this has tarnished to black. By the time we get to Pentecost they have been ‘promoted’, and all rejoice in the same gold halos previously only given to Jesus. They are now his representatives on earth, and should be seen as such. It is a minor difference, perhaps, but poetic genius nonetheless.

110 – The Ascension

Giotto, The Ascension of Christ, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

Welcome back to Scrovegni Saturday – and I mean the Saturday bit specifically! Having said that, I think there are only two more to go. One next week (or the week after, to be honest), to look at the final image, and a ‘coda’ to sum things up. On Tuesday I went to a library for the first time since we went into lockdown – the British Library, no less – and I can recommend the experience. They have put all sorts of systems in place which meant that I felt totally secure – a one-way route, allocated desks, allotted times… Unfortunately, given the way things fell out, I could only stay for an hour. I had ordered three books on the Scrovegni Chapel (what else?!), and oh, how useful they would have been for this endeavour! I only had time to skim through them, to look at the way they are organised, and illustrated, but I will give you a brief summary in a couple of weeks should you be interested in ‘further reading’. And maybe by then I will have had the chance to go back and read them properly!

Today, though, I want to think about The Ascension of Christ, a subject which I discussed on the feast day itself, which this year fell on 21 May. The picture was by Pietro Perugino, painting at his poised and elegant best. Do look it up (Picture Of The Day 64) to remind yourself about the narrative and its source in the bible.

Giotto has painted Jesus at the very top of the image – so far up, in fact, that his fingers are hidden behind the inner green frame of the nearly-square field. This is a standard ploy to convey the sense of movement – indeed, in many medieval versions of the Ascension all that remain to be seen are his feet. The upward motion is conveyed in other ways too – the fact that all the figures kneeling on the ground are looking up, for one thing. The two angels occupying the central space are looking down to this ‘audience’, and point upwards, not only indicating Jesus’s direction of travel, but also directing the kneeling figures – and us – to look up towards him. I’m fairly sure Perugino would have known this image: he certainly uses the same technique, with angels pointing the way. This wouldn’t be his only quotation from the Scrovegni Chapel.

On either side of Jesus are more figures, whose gestures of prayer and praise add to the swooping, upward movement. All of the figures have haloes, and those in the lower row also have wings – they are angels. However, those in the upper row are not – no wings – so they must be souls of the formerly ‘mortal’ already in heaven. The only ones I would want to identify (this is where those books might have come in useful!) are the two closest to Jesus. My guess would be (and that’s all it is) that these are John the Baptist (on our left) and Adam. After all, Jesus would have seen them – and freed them from their bonds – during the Harrowing of Hell, a scene which is notably absent from the Scrovegni Chapel (but see POTD 24 and POTD 25).

Down below we see the apostles and Mary. Unlike Perugino, who seemed to include a couple of excess apostles, Giotto sticks to what I would think is the logical number – eleven. Judas is dead, having hung himself with guilt (he can be seen hanging among the damned in hell in the Last Judgement as it happens), and Matthias has not yet been appointed to take his place. Mary is slightly separated from the other figures, and more central: both of these features help to emphasize her status. She is also, if Jesus were to face forward, at her son’s right hand, always the position of honour. Immediately behind her (to our left) is Peter, in his mustard yellow cloak, his left hand raised to shield his eyes as he follows Jesus’s progression heavenwards. Next to him is John the Evangelist, and behind him, in the foreground, St Andrew, who has been a prominent figure throughout the frescoes of the lower two tiers. The only other apostle I would identify with any security is St Bartholomew, who, for reasons I have never fathomed, often has the most elaborately patterned clothing. Now that I’ve said that you will see him straight away!

Not only is Jesus heading up towards heaven, but he is moving from left to right – the direction of the narrative in almost all of the images in this cycle. As a result, he looks not a little like Hope, one of the three theological virtues we saw in POTD 45. As so often, this echo is deliberate, and profound. The virtue of Hope is an ambivalent one. With true Faith, you might assume that hope was not necessary – but ‘hoping for’ in this context would effectively mean ‘waiting in full expectation of’. I’ve cropped the fresco here, but Hope is reaching up towards a crown being held by an angel in the top right of the field: it is the crown awarded to the blessed on arrival in heaven. And, positioned as it is on the South wall, the figure reaches towards the image of heaven on the West wall. Jesus, likewise, is heading towards heaven – not just in terms of the narrative, but physically, in the chapel. There are two images of heaven, one at either end. Above the chancel arch God the Father sits enthroned in a section of the painting which is on a wooden support (POTD 80 – but more about that in a couple of weeks).

If you can see The Ascension towards the bottom right of this image, you will see that Jesus’s direction of travel will take him towards the top of the chancel arch, which would be directly to our right when looking at this wall. Jesus is about to enter heaven, and Hope lives in expectation of the same.

This particular image also reminds us that, on the North wall, there are decorative panels between the vertically arranged pictures, and in the lower two tiers (dealing with the life of Christ), these contain vignettes relating to a typological interpretation of the bible – I’ve discussed some of these already in POTD 100. They always refer to the picture which follows, the one which is just to the right of them. They don’t seem to be discussed very often, probably because they are so small, but they are significant. I can’t even find an image of the one to the left of the Crucifixion, but it shows Moses with the brazen serpent. While the Israelites were on their long journey in search of the promised land, they were attacked by a plague of serpents, which threatened to kill them all. God advised Moses to erect a sculpture of a serpent made of bronze (hence ‘brazen’), promising that anyone who saw it would be cured. Given that the serpents were threatening death, from which you could only be saved by looking at something raised up above ground level, it seemed fairly obvious to early Christian theologians that this was in some way related to the Crucifixion, when Christ was raised up on the cross. After all, anyone who looked on him would be saved from serpent-related sin. The brazen serpent was therefore identified as a ‘type’ of Christ at the Crucifixion. This is ‘type’, as in ‘typeface’ – the shape or form that would ‘print’ the proper image.

In this image we can see the vignettes which precede The Lamentation over the Dead Christ, The Resurrection, and, even though the scene itself isn’t included, The Ascension. However, they are rather small – so here they are on their own:

In between The Crucifixion and The Lamentation we can see an enormous fish swallowing a person. This is Jonah, who, according to the eponymous book, was swallowed by a ‘great fish’. It was not a whale. That was Pinocchio. However, regardless of species, genus or even class, Jonah was thrown overboard and was swallowed, ‘And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights’ (Jonah 1:17), after which he delivered God’s message to the people of Nineveh and they were saved. According to the Apostles’ Creed, as translated in the Book of Common Prayer (1662), Jesus,

Was crucified, dead, and buried:
He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven…

The similarity between Jonah’s ‘three days and three nights’ and Jesus rising on ‘The third day’ is striking. Having been eaten by a fish, Jonah should surely have died, but he was regurgitated as if resurrected. So Jonah’s experience was a type for the death and resurrection of Christ. Here we see just the death – disappearing into the fish – preceding the image in which we see Jesus dead. So what is represented before the resurrection? Well, it’s a lion (it has a mane), which appears to be roaring at three cubs. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, said that lion cubs were born unformed, and that their mothers had to lick them into shape. However, the medieval mind had a different point of view, which might have evolved from Pliny, or, from the same animal behaviour (cleaning the newly born cubs, whose eyes are closed) which Pliny had misinterpreted. It was widely believed that lion cubs were born dead, and that after three days their father breathed life into them – which is what he is doing here. One of the cubs is apparently still ‘dead’, while another looks more alert. The third, on the right, is actually looking quite perky. It’s a bit like an animation. The connection to the resurrection of Christ, on the third day, through the agency of God the Father, is clear, telling us that it is not just elements of the Hebrew scriptures that can be ‘types’ but the whole of God’s creation. In the third example, which precedes the Ascension, there is another, more traditional type. In 2 Kings 2:11, Elijah had been preparing Elisha for his departure, when the following happened:

11 And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

Elijah was only the second person to get to heaven without dying (the first being Enoch – although the bible is not entirely clear whether he was taken by God dead or alive), but Elijah and the Chariot of Fire are a fairly obvious type for the ascension of Christ, and Giotto makes the angle of departure similar for both. Elisha’s face can just be seen, as can his hand reaching up for Elijah’s mantle, ‘which fell from him’.

These details may be small, but they are significant, and add so much depth to the interpretation of the chapel – I could so easily finish here. But in the same way that I ended with what I called ‘the story of Mary Magdalene’ last week, this week I’d like to finish with a ‘story of Jesus’. It’s just a small part of the narrative, obviously – two whole tiers of the decoration are concerned with the life, death and afterlife of Jesus, after all – but like last week’s ‘triptych’, this one episode is beautifully and poetically represented using body language and composition alone. Even without the other people present in each image, I think the narrative would be clear.

In The Lamentation Jesus is dead. He lies at the bottom of the image, on the far left. In The Resurrection he is standing, his feet now on the ground, his head higher than that of the kneeling Mary Magdalene, and some way to the right of her. As Jesus said, ‘I am not yet ascended to my Father’ (John 20:17) – but his elbow is hidden by the frame, he is on his way out. In The Ascension, mother Mary kneels as her namesake did before, and again Jesus is higher and to the right – although this time, at a far steeper angle. Jesus has left the ground, and his fingers are behind the frame. Like the lion cubs we have something like an animation, an animation of resurrection and ascension.

I love the fact that these two elements of the narrative overlap. When seen on the wall of the chapel, as in the illustration above, a line drawn between Mary Magdalene’s face and Jesus’s hand in the Resurrection continues to the face of Christ in the Ascension: Mary’s repentance means that she is looking towards heaven. There is an insistent upward movement along most of this wall, from the slope of the hill in the Lamentation and Mary’s gaze in the Resurrection to the direction of travel in both the Elijah vignette and the Ascension. And, while we’re there, have another look at the position of the Ascension on the wall: Jesus’s entry into heaven is immediately underneath his entry into Jerusalem. He could so easily leave this picture and enter through the same gate.

There is one more image to go – but I’m afraid it will have to wait for a while. Next week – and I really can’t quite believe this – I will be in Italy. I’ll let you know how it goes – and get back to you as soon as I can!

109 – Death and Resurrection

Giotto, The Lamentation over the Dead Christ and The Resurrection, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

I know – the whole idea of ‘Scrovegni Saturday’ was blown apart weeks back when I first failed to hit the deadline, but never before have I been early. So welcome to the first, and presumably only, ‘Scrovegni Friday’. I’m off to Norfolk later, and suspect I might not have the necessary bandwidth to post this tomorrow! Two more images today, and two more wonders, inevitably. But, to understand how and why they go together, here they are with the preceding image, The Crucifixion.

The death and resurrection of Christ are inevitably tied together – in the Christian message one is not possible without the other. However, while the Crucifixion and the Resurrection are both part of the biblical narrative, The Lamentation over the Dead Christ is not. It is part of church tradition, and, as such, it is as much a part of the pictorial tradition as any of the other scenes which are represented in the chapel. Giotto includes it to give us a chance to stop and meditate on the implications of Jesus’s death. The Crucifixion is presented as the Ultimate Sacrifice, with Christ lifted high above the gathered witnesses, but in The Lamentation he has been brought low. The angels continue their own lamentations, flying through the sky in their almost inexpressible grief, and below them Jesus is surrounded by the mourning figures of family and friends. The Crucifixion appears almost like an exclamation mark, something which exists on its own, symmetrical, with Jesus fully centred, whereas in The Lamentation over the Dead Christ he is at the bottom left of the image, the left always marking the beginning of a journey. When seen together, we can see that the landscape, as often before, is a part of the narrative. A hill leads our eyes upwards from Christ’s head, at the bottom left of the Lamentation, towards the right of the image. In The Resurrection it reaches its summit, and then leads downwards, taking us towards the Risen Christ on the right hand side. It is almost as if the hill expresses the unseen exertion that Jesus went through when he ‘descended into hell’, the very exertion that Donatello depicts so powerfully in the relief we saw back on Easter Sunday (Picture Of The Day 25).

This hill is such a profound metaphor, and Jesus, as we have said, is at the very bottom. He is surrounded by women – Holy Women, presumably, although only four of them have halos. Of these, two can be identified with ease: Mary, his mother, cradling him in her arms, wearing her traditional blue, and Mary Magdalene, at his feet as she was in the Crucifixion, with her long red hair, and her green-lined red cloak. Oddly, neither of the other two haloed women is wearing the yellow worn by the person I assumed last week was Mary’s sister, Mary Cleophas – although there is a woman wearing precisely that colour who is supporting Jesus’s head. My suggestion would be that this is the same woman – Mary Cleophas, if I was right last week – and that Giotto chose not to include her halo here as it would get in the way. He would not be the only artist to make that choice. So who are the other two? This is from Matthew 27:55-56:

55 And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him: 56 Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedees children.

The ‘many women’ are certainly there – there are at least 8 standing around the haloed figure, who must be a young woman as her hair is not covered. Mark 15:40 also mentions ‘many other women’, as well as ‘Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome’, while Luke, who does not name any of the women present at the Crucifixion, says later (24:10) that, on Easter Sunday, the tomb was visited by ‘Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary, the mother of James’. So we should have little doubt that one of these haloed women is Mary the Mother of James, who in medieval tradition was Mary Cleophas. Likewise, in medieval tradition, the ‘Salome’ mentioned here was known as Mary Salome, and like Mary Cleophas was also one of the half-sisters of the Virgin Mary (long story short: according to the Golden Legend, St Anne’s husband Joachim died, and she remarried. The second husband also died, and she remarried again. With each husband she had a daughter called Mary: there were three half-sisters with the same name). It was also assumed that Mary Salome married a man called Zebedee, which would make her the woman mentioned by Matthew. Confused? I’m not surprised. I must talk about a painting of the Holy Kindred one day. Still, if Mary Cleophas is the woman in yellow with her back to us, one of the two haloed women – one above Jesus’s head and the other holding his hands – must be Mary Salome. The other is possibly Joanna, who was one of the women who, according to Luke 8:3, ‘ministered unto [Jesus] of their substance’ – i.e. helped to provide for him.

And then there are the men. Fortunately they are far easier to identify. All three have halos, and could be characterised as young, old, and middle aged, going from left to right. The young man, with no beard and short hair, is John the Evangelist, his arms flung backwards in his despair and disbelief. Giotto shows he is important by making him stand out clearly – and he does that by placing him on his own, and against the rising hill. The other two are both mentioned in John 19:38-39 (and elsewhere…): Joseph of Arimathea, who ‘took the body of Jesus’, and Nicodemus, who ‘brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes’ which will be used immediately after the Lamentation when they wind Jesus’s body in the shroud, which Joseph currently has slung around his shoulders. At the top of the hill is a tree. At first glance, it is devoid of leaves – but look again: there are leaves, but they are tiny, just breaking out of the bud – the promise of new life. This would suggest that we should move straight on to The Resurrection, but before we do, I want to look back, in order to point out one of Giotto’s most subtle, but most moving echoes.

I’m comparing Jesus’s first appearance in the Scrovegni chapel – in chronological terms – with his last, or rather, what would be the last were Jesus not the Son of God. These are the moments of Jesus’s greatest humanity: his birth and his death. In the first – The Nativity – he is handed to the Virgin Mary by a midwife, and in the last – The Lamentation over the Dead Christ – he lies equally helpless in his mother’s arms, but for altogether different reasons. To make the parallels clearer, have a look at these details.

In both, Mary wears blue (although the surface has worn in The Nativity), and leans over her son. Her right arm goes behind his back, to support him, her left reaches across. The angle of her body, the angle of her head, and the direction of her gaze are the same. It is the emotion that is different. At his birth we see awe, at his death, profound grief – but the motherly love which provokes both echoes across the chapel, making the space resonate with a depth of profound feeling. Giotto makes this echo resound more fully by providing a witness to each emotion, a supporting figure helping Mary to hold her helpless son, her hands delicately touching the swaddling clothes, or the back of his lifeless head.

If we now move on to The Resurrection, we might realise that the burial of Christ has not been represented. It is hinted at in the decorative panel in between these two scenes, but there is so much to talk about today that I will have to come back to that next week. As so often, Giotto subtly elides different parts of the story. It is Easter Sunday, and Christ has risen – but the soldiers are still fast asleep. No hint here, as in many other versions, that they might actually have awoken and witnessed the resurrection themselves. The hill keeps us moving towards Jesus, who is on the verge of leaving the story altogether – indeed, his left elbow is already behind the frame. He reaches down towards Mary Magdalene, keeping her at bay, and although his mouth is clearly shut, the words that would be spoken at this point are ‘Noli me tangere’– ‘Don’t touch me’ – the part of the story we saw depicted by Fede Galizia just a few weeks ago (104). There too the two angels were present, although looking more like a couple of toddlers than the men in white we see here, who are sitting – or almost floating – on the edge of the tomb, and pointing towards the saviour. But for Fede – and most artists who depict the Noli me tangere – the soldiers are nowhere to be seen. They have usually cleared off by the time Mary Magdalene gets to the tomb. Their presence here helps to evoke the resurrection itself, filling in that moment of the story by reminding us of its pictorial tradition. Jesus is now dressed entirely in white, although he does not appear to be wearing the shroud as a toga as he does in some paintings. Both robe cloak have gold hems, a heavenly garb like that of the two angels. He carries the Cross of Christ Triumphant – the red cross on a white background, his suffering and his purity – which we have seen before (e.g. POTD 25 and POTD 50).

To understand this image fully, it is really important to know where it is in the chapel – and I’m very glad that a good image of this section of the wall is available!

The Resurrection of Christ is directly below The Resurrection of Lazarus – and if that’s not a stroke of genius, I don’t know what is. We saw in POTD 100 that the decorative strip which precedes Lazarus includes an image of the Creation of Adam: God gave Adam life, but Adam sinned, and the wages of sin, according to Christian theology, are death. But Jesus gives us new life – as he demonstrates with Lazarus. And how do we have new life through Jesus? Well, through his sacrifice on the cross, and his triumph over death, witnessed by The Resurrection. Notice how the death and resurrection of Christ are linked to the resurrection of Lazarus by the landscape. The hill may rise and fall from one scene to another on the bottom tier, but the hill in The Lamentation can also be seen as continuing upward in The Resurrection of Lazarus: they are part of the same message. Notice how Lazarus wears his white shroud in the middle tier, and the Risen Christ wears white more-or-less directly below. Notice also how Mary Magdalene kneels to Jesus, wearing her red cloak, in both. And now, notice how Mary Magdalene, forming a red triangle at the bottom of the wall, is kneeling directly below the kneeling priest – forming a very similar red triangle – at the very top. In that scene, one of the very first from the Scrovegni that I discussed (POTD 31), the suitors are waiting for a sign, a message from God. At the bottom, Mary Magdalene is the first witness to a different sign, which would be counted as God’s greatest – a sign which speaks of the promise of new life: the resurrection. I have previously described the painting at the top right of this image as a dramatic pause – nothing is happening. The closest equivalent would probably be The Lamentation over the Dead Christ – which earlier today I suggested represents a moment for reflection, and not, strictly speaking, part of the biblical narrative – they are not directly linked vertically, but the resonance is there. But can we find these connections between the other paintings here? Is there a connection between The Wedding at Cana and The Lamentation, for example? I’m not sure. You could argue that, after The Baptism, Christ’s mission has started – turning water into wine was his first miracle, whereas The Lamentation represents Christ’s last appearance as ‘merely’ human (although he is believed to have been entirely human and entirely God throughout his time on earth). So you could say that they represent ‘first and last’. And how about the placing of the rods on the altar in the top tier? Well, they are planning a wedding – the suitors are seeking the hand of the Virgin Mary in marriage – and a wedding takes place below. But these are not as convincing as the more obvious connections, which are remarkable enough. Given the needs of the narrative it would be impossible for this to work in all directions, like sudoku! However, there is one last idea that I want to consider this week – and it is one of the things I find most beautiful, and most poetic, in the entire chapel. It is the story of Mary Magdalene.

Look at her appearance in these three images. And if it’s not clear what I mean, look at these three details.

At the Crucifixion her long red hair, with which, according to tradition, she had washed Christ’s feet with her tears and with precious ointment, flows freely down her back. It reaches to waist level, and spreads out around her, beautifully displayed. Her red cloak has fallen to the ground, lying around her knees and ankles. Next, while lamenting over the dead Christ, her hair has been dressed – wound around her head, restricted in some way, and only reaching as far as her chest – and her cloak has been brought up around her waist, covering her legs more fully. And finally, at the resurrection, as she reaches in longing towards Jesus, the cloak has been pulled up over her head. Her hair and her body – the tools of her trade – are completely enveloped, hidden from view. I do not know of a more moving expression of the penitence of the Magdalene than this.

108 – The Crucifixion

Giotto, The Road to Calvary and The Crucifixion, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

And so we begin the final chapter in the epic that is the Scrovegni Chapel, and to give you a better sense of where we are, I have found an image of the whole of the North Wall – clearly taken from a double spread in a book, as there is a fold down the central decorative strip.

We see the stories of the Birth and Betrothal of the Virgin running along the top (Picture Of The Day 73 and POTD 31), and the Mission of Christ (POTD 93, 100, 102) in the middle. Along the bottom we can see the trompe l’oeil marble wainscoting, with seven imaginary niches, each containing a fictive sculpture of one of the seven Vices (POTD 52 and POTD 59). These connect the West Wall, with its image of the torments of hell, with the depiction of the Temptation of Judas on the North side of the chancel arch (102). Today we are starting the journey along the bottom tier, with The Road to Calvary leading directly to The Crucifixion. The first thing to notice is that Jesus is walking out of the city of Jerusalem as if he were walking away from the image of hell on the West Wall. Although his whole life and mission so far have been leading up to this moment through the implacable left-to-right movement of all of the narrative scenes, he is now approaching the point at which he will truly give up everything to free mankind from the implications of sin. Working one the level of metaphor, his actions here allow others, like him, to walk away from hell.

The way is led by the two thieves, who are just about to exit the picture field on the right. It might not be obvious who they are, but they can be identified by looking back at pictorial tradition: the two thieves regular precede Jesus in the procession to Calvary, almost as if they are an ‘introduction’, while he is the ‘star attraction’, left until last. The thief on the right carries something over his shoulder – the base of his cross, most of which was painted a secco and has been lost. Much of the surface of this particular image has gone, probably the result of the destruction of the Scrovegni Palace, which, as you may remember, was originally on the other side of this wall. The destructino of teh palace in the 19th Century rendered the North Wall of the chapel more susceptible to the adverse effects of weathering. The thief on the right has darker clothes and hair than his companion, who is turning round and looking back. My guess would be that the man on the right is the Bad Thief, whereas the blonder one (with hair more like Jesus), who repents – and looks back to Jesus – would be the Good Thief. Including them here means that Giotto doesn’t need to depict them in the Crucifixion itself, thus enabling him to focus on Jesus, who stands out all the more clearly in both images thanks to the space all around him. Despite the soldier who reaches out to push him on, no other figure touches him or overlaps him. He is surrounded by clear blue sky, and looks over his shoulder, enabling us to see his face clearly. He is already more than halfway across the picture, driving the action forward and leading us inexorably on to the next image. Indeed, he is just about to arrive at the foot of the hill – Golgotha – on which he will be crucified: the ground has started to rise under the feet of the thieves.

But before we get there, there are other things to notice. What will be the horizontal of the cross forms a diagonal in this image. Not only does this add to the forward movement of the narrative, leading our eyes to the right, but it also leads upwards, and ultimately, to heaven, as the Crucifixion could eventually lead the faithful to Heaven. A group of soldiers are gathered at its lower end, almost as if they are weighing it down, their ghost-like spears being one of the losses to the image, as are their silver leaf helmets. There are also priests, and other figures, including a man who tries to make the Virgin Mary turn back, her face distorted in her grief. This marks her reappearance in the narrative – if you look back to the scenes on the lower tier of the South Wall, she does not appear at all. Another element that is not so obvious, is that Jesus appears to be leaving the City by the same gate through which he had entered only five days previously. If it is the same gate we have crossed the road, and if not, it is at least of the same type, flanked by two octagonal towers. The triumph of Palm Sunday (102) has been replaced by the bitterness and shame – as it would have been seen – of Crucifixion.

The Crucifixion itself is presented entirely formally. Jesus is central, and raised up on the cross. It is the same structure that he carried in the previous scene – more a ‘T’ than a ‘cross’, but now the titulus has been attached. The titulus is the panel at the top of the cross which here bears the inscription ‘Iesus Nazarenus Rex Judeorum’ – Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews. According to the Bible (John 19:20), this ‘was written in Hebrew, in Greek, and in Latin’, although often we only see the abbreviation, I.N.R.I. The angels fly around Jesus in paroxysms of grief, wringing their hands, throwing them up in despair, gathering the precious blood from the wounds in his hands and chest, and tearing their clothes – and this happens directly opposite the scene in which the High Priest also ‘rent his clothes’ (107). Below, the gathered assembly is divided much as it is in the Last Judgement on the end wall (POTD 38), with the good under Jesus’s right hand and the bad under his left. At the bottom left of the image we see Mary, who has fainted as a result of her grief, supported by John the Evangelist and one of the holy women. Presumably this is one of the people mentioned in John 19:25 who were present at the Crucifixion, who is described as Jesus’s ‘mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Cleophas’ (John 19:25). Mary Magdalene, her red hair streaming down her back, kneels at the foot of the cross, with all her attention directed towards Christ’s feet, which she had previously washed with precious ointment using the hair which is so prominent in this depiction.

Although we saw the foot of the hill just outside the city gates in the last image, there is little hint of it here – but that is because we are at the summit, apparently consisting of a plateau, with a small central mound into which the cross is buried. At its foot is a skull, and other bones – explained by the fact that Golgotha means ‘the place of the skull’. However, the Bible does not explain is how the hill got this name. According to the Legend of the True Cross, one of the stories told in the Golden Legend, the skull which we see belonged to none other than Adam: part of God’s ineffable plan meant that Jesus was crucified in the self-same place where Adam had been buried.

On our right – under Jesus’s left hand – are those who will be condemned to hell. A mass of soldiers are gathered in the background, their tarnished silver leaf halos forming an ill-defined black area above the more visible faces. In the foreground an argument is taking place. Two men hold a red robe – this belongs to Jesus – and they pull at its shoulders. The man on the right wields a knife – it could be used to threaten his opponent, and to prevent any violence a third man grasps his wrist. It could also be used to cut the garment into sections. It is a seamless robe, which cannot be unstitched, which would have allowed the men to share the precious material between them. In the end they will neither fight over it, nor cut it up. Instead, they will gamble for it. Often paintings of the crucifixion show them rolling dice, or drawing straws, in fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy. This is what it says in John 19:23-24, immediately after the mention of the titulus, and just before the presence of John and the three Maries is noted:

23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. 24 They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did.

In the King James Version, this prophesy is found in Psalm 22:18:

18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

However, one figure stands out on this ‘bad’ side – how could he not? He has a halo, after all. He gestures up to Jesus, and looks towards the priest standing to his left. The unusual form of his helmet, with two pointed ‘ears’, suggests he is no normal soldier. It is not a standard ‘western’ form – the implication is that he was somehow foreign – he appears to be marked out as an outsider. However, his halo tells us he was a Christian. This suggest he could be a recent convert, and indeed, he has only just had this revelation. He is the centurion mentioned in Mark 15:29:

39 And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God.

As with so much of the painting in this Chapel, the attention to detail seen in every one of the images is only enhanced when we look at the relationships between the different elements of the narrative. Here, for example, are the first two scenes on all three tiers of the North Wall, with the decorative panels in between omitted (we will return to them next week – or soon after).

At the top left, we see the Birth of the Virgin – this is, for obvious reasons, Mary’s first appearance in the narrative. Directly below, in Christ Among the Doctors, she enters the scene from the left, having temporarily lost Jesus – he had been left behind in Jerusalem. We see her again, directly below the depiction in the middle tier, as she follows the procession from the city gate. The physical position in the image is the same, but the emotional one could hardly be more different – having found what was lost in the middle tier, she is about to lose her son to death. If the top tier marks her first appearance in the narrative, the lower two both represent her return: ‘Enter Mary, Stage Right’. She was not present in the Massacre of the Innocents, which is opposite Christ Among the Doctors, nor in the whole of the lower tier of the South Wall.

Jesus is not yet present in the top tier, but starts his ‘mission’ by debating with the doctors in the middle tier, his bright red robe making him the most prominent figure in the room. This red is also what makes him stand out against the blue sky in the lowest tier, where he is enacting God’s plan, surely the subject of the discussion taking place in Christ Among the Doctors, which is painted directly above..

There is always more of a connection between the lower two tiers – indeed, there is an additional decorative frieze which separates the story of Mary from the central tier. Nevertheless, The Presentation of Mary to the Temple, where she is received by the priesthood, and her status is effectively acknowledged, sits above The Baptism of Christ, where God the Father acknowledges his Son. The connection between The Baptism, and The Crucifixion below it, is especially profound. Both are more or less symmetrical, with Jesus in the centre, facing front. In both Jesus is presented as entirely humble, and entirely human, naked in The Baptism and all but naked in The Crucifixion. On the left of The Baptism two angels hold Jesus’s clothes – the blue cloak and the red robe, which hang limply from their hands. In The Crucifixion the same red robe hangs down from the hands of the soldiers on the right, but where is the blue cloak? There is apparently no sign of it, but it is evoked: Mary, in her typical blue, hangs limply from the arms of Mary Cleophas and John the Evangelist much as the blue cloak hangs from the arms of the angel above. And look below the red robe held by the angel. Even if Jesus’s robe has been taken to the ‘bad’ side, by the soldiers, another red item has been let drop: Mary Magdalene’s cloak, which lies on the ground around her knees. This cloak will take on more significance in the next week or so… but until then… keep looking!

107 – Jesus in Custody

Giotto, Christ before Caiaphas and The Mocking of Christ, c. 1305, Scrovegni Chapel, Padua.

OK – so – Scrovegni Monday. Apologies… However, I will cover two pictures today – I will, I will, I will… They are the scenes which lead directly up to the Crucifixion of Christ, and as such form a cliff-hanger in the chapel: what will happen next? Obviously, we know, because we know the story and we’ve seen the pictures, but in the chapel itself it is worth point out that this focus on the bad deeds leads us directly to the depiction of heaven at the end wall – without Christ’s sacrifice, it says, there is no hope of getting there.

In both cases we are in an enclosed room. Like Christ among the Doctors, on the opposite wall (Picture Of The Day 87 – you may remember that I put it on the wrong wall for a week, apologies again…), the room itself takes up most of the picture – the cutaway walls form a double frame to the left and right, leaving a slice of blue sky at the top – despite the fact that it is after sunset, as it was for the Arrest of Christ last week (106). This is acknowledged in two different ways in these two pictures. On the left, Christ before Caiaphas, the servant in brown (third from the right) holds a flaming torch – this was painted a secco in its entirety. Although the torchbearer himself is solid and clear, the torch he is holding appears to have worn away, and the flame is, even for a flame, rather immaterial. However, it does light up the back wall of the room, leaving the ghostly flame slightly darker than the wall, the pool of light gradually darkening to the sides. The shutters of the windows are closed, as they might well be at night, although what are apparently shutters on the left wall are open. However, this is probably the door through which people have entered.  In The Mocking of Christ by contrast, there are no shutters – just bars across the windows (this is, after all, some form of prison) – and we can see the dark night sky through them, even though, at the top of the painting, we see the normal daylight blue. Giotto does everything to maintain unity within the chapel as a whole – we see it all by daylight, after all, even if the settings tells us that some scenes take place at night. Whereas in the first image everyone is comfortably within the room, and safely contained, in the second some people are in front of the slim columns which mark the end of the walls. The action has been pushed forward, making it more intense, and more immediate.

The cycle moves rapidly from the Last Supper and the Washing of the Feet (103 and 105) via The Arrest (106) to Christ before Caiaphas, and several scenes are omitted, as I have mentioned before. The Agony in the Garden is just one of these. John’s Gospel mentions that Jesus is taken from one authority figure to another. The first is Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, and then Annas ‘sent him bound unto Caiaphas’. From thence Jesus was taken to the ‘hall of judgement’, which is where he encounters Pilate. The meeting with Caiaphas is the only one of the three which is represented: Giotto is presumably abbreviating the story to fit this complex part of the narrative into one ‘chapter’, i.e. just one wall of the chapel. However, it is worthwhile remembering the other episodes: so much took place between Thursday night and Friday morning. Having said that, Giotto appears to be combining the first two meetings into one picture. The two priests seated on the right hand side could easily be Caiaphas, in green, and his father-in-law Annas, seated beside him in red. I would take the longer hair and beard as a sign of greater age, for one thing. Also, the figure on the right can be identified as Caiaphas, because of his action, tearing at his clothes. Matthew 26:65 and Mark 14:63 both mention that the High Priest ‘rent his clothes’ in his anger at Jesus’s perceived blasphemy. Although Giotto has him do this without much energy – his elbows are neatly tucked in – the fabric has parted and gapes wide, revealing a slightly hollow chest and just a hint of paunch. Jesus’s hands are bound, as John says they were when Annas sent him to Caiaphas, but the soldier in red and gold has raised his right hand to hit him. This comes from John 18:22, ‘one of the officers which stood by struck Jesus with the palm of his hand’ – and this happens before he is sent over to Caiaphas. Jesus looks out – though not directly towards us. He gazes off to our right, deep in thought, contemplating what is to come. This allows us to see his face clearly, perfectly framed by the circular halo as it is, and bears witness to his long-suffering patience, calmly enduring all of these sacrifices for the salvation of mankind.

The image of The Mocking of Christ is a similar combination of different ideas. Given that the accounts in the four gospels are sufficiently varied, this almost always happens. There are actually two points in the narrative when Jesus is mocked. According to the synoptic gospels, on the Thursday evening, he is blindfolded, then beaten and spat at. The following morning, he is taken to Pilate – John’s gospel also suggests that he is taken to Pilate early on Good Friday. There is then a second ‘mocking’, when Jesus is dressed as a king, and taunted. Matthew suggests he was dressed in scarlet, whereas Mark and John both go for purple, but little should be read into this. Both colours denote royalty, after all, and, in any case, the term ‘purple’ was not fully defined for centuries. Luke, on the other hand, says that Jesus was dressed in ‘a gorgeous robe’, and this is the option Giotto chooses. He makes it white, with an elaborate gold pattern, combining a sense of royalty with one of purity. The crown of thorns is thrust onto his head, and he is given a reed as a sceptre, which they then take to beat him with. Giotto shows some of them pulling his hair, and preparing to hit him, while another kneels in mock homage.

Pilate himself is curiously side-lined in this cycle. He is there though – standing on the right of the scene, dressed from head to foot in red, a regal band around his head, not unlike the crown of thorns in appearance. He gestures towards Jesus, as do members of the priesthood: a debate is clearly taking place about Christ’s future. This could easily be an illustration of Luke 23:4-5:

4 Then said Pilate to the chief priests and to the people, I find no fault in this man. 5 And they were the more fierce, saying, He stirreth up the people, teaching throughout all Jewry, beginning from Galilee to this place.

Yet more elements of the biblical narrative are missed out – there is no flagellation, no debate over the freeing of Barabbas, and Herod doesn’t even seem to get a look in (however, see below…). Jesus’s fate is sealed though, and we know what is to come. It is not just that Giotto feels free to edit at will, he is obliged to do so: there is no more space on the wall.

Having completed this penultimate chapter, I shall stop and think about the placement of these scenes in relationship to those above, as I asked you to two weeks ago. Whereas for the first two pairs, I think the relationship is one of similarity, for the remaining three, we are dealing with opposition. In the first pairing, the Nativity is above the Last Supper, with Jesus at the far left of each, closest to the altar of the chapel: he is seen in relationship to the bread of the Mass, the Body of Christ. In the second pairing, the eldest Magus kneels to Jesus, whereas below it is Jesus who kneels to Peter. Although this reads like an opposition, it still speaks of essential good – the recognition of Christ as King, and the recognition Jesus himself suggests we award one other.

However, things change in the last three pairings – although I should make clear that I am hypothesising here. It could be that the placement of the stories occurs through necessity, although it might help to explain which of the various elements of the narrative were chosen for the lower scenes. Above the Arrest of Christ is the Presentation in the Temple. In the earlier story Jesus is given, in the later one, he is taken. Both involve identification – the High Priest recognises Jesus as the Messiah, whereas Judas betrays him as Judea’s ‘most wanted’. In the next pairing the Flight into Egypt is above Christ before Caiaphas. The upper story is one of escape, while the lower focuses on Jesus’s captivity. And finally, the Massacre of the Innocents is paired with the Mocking of Christ. The upper scene is unusual in the narrative of the Childhood of Christ, as it is the only one in that chapter in which Jesus himself does not appear. The Innocents suffer and die, thus saving Jesus: it was widely believed that, as a result, their souls went straight to Heaven. The lower scene is another violent one, with the cruelty finally directed towards Jesus – the delay in his death is finally coming to an end. Both stories should include ‘King Herod’ – although, historically speaking, this is not the same character. To be honest, it is quite difficult to pin down the Herods. Herod the Great, who ordered the Massacre of the Innocents, married at least ten times and among his descendants were three sons, a grandson and a great grandson, all of whom were called Herod. Two of the sons married a woman called Herodias, which doesn’t help. It was one of these last two, Herod Antipas, the older half-brother and second husband of Herodias, who ordered the death of John the Baptist. He also wanted Jesus killed, some 33 years after his father had failed to achieve the same end. In the upper scene Herod the Great points down from his balcony, ordering the massacre (a common feature in the iconography of this story, even though he would have been nowhere near Bethlehem at the time). He appears in profile, looking down to the right, wearing a white robe and a red cloak. Notice how, in the lower scene, over Pilate’s outstretched arm, is a man with a similar profile, similarly dressed. If Herod Junior (i.e. Herod Antipas) is included in this scene, this must be him. This would mean that Herod Senior is effectively pointing to his son. However, as I say, these connections could be coincidental. If you can see any other links, though, please do let me know – I’d love to know more! Next week – or for that matter, later this week – we shall start the final chapter.