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This post picks up the ongoing journey through the arts of the West - and by extension the roots of the West - on our long march to the Armory Show of 1913. We've set this destination because it symbolizes the arrival of modern art in America. But to understand that blast of cultural degradation, there is a lot of background - what the arts of the West actually are, and how the societal structures developed to allow them to be so completely perverted. The plan for this post was to look at the Gothic period - particularly how the rising aristocracy begins the separation of an art of faith and beauty from the episteme that we identified as fundamental to the Western notion of art [click for a post on this]. And how that opened the path to subversion.
Barcelona Cathedral (Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia), 1298-1420; façade and central tower, 1913, Barcelona
This seems bizarre at first glance - Gothic art like this stunning church is pretty much synonymous with the beauty of holiness. But within that beauty lurks a poison fruit.
But this meant addressing the inversion of modern Christianity more directly then we have in the past. Specifically how a body of metaphysical Truths known through scripture by faith was warped into something called churchianity - a different flavor of the typical modern satanic inversion. This meant we only got to the origins of the Gothic before the post started to get too long. But that's fine - the look into churchianity was necessary and ties past and present together in a way that a straight-up historical piece wouldn't.
Master of the Cité des Dames, Christine de Pizan presents a collection of her works to the Queen of France, Isabeau de Bavière," from The Book of the Queen by Christine de Pizan, 1410-1414, Parchment. London: British Library, Harley MS 4431
And we can deal with team parasite next time.
Some of this material picks up on stuff from our earlier posts on architecture, but now we are working from a much better understanding of the relationship between what we can know and how we can know it, and how history and morality interact. The architecture posts also focused on the ontological inversion inherent in post-Enlightenment thought - and its poison modernist fruit. These roots of the West post trace the deeper history back to antiquity. This makes it take longer, but more thorough too.
Abbey of Saint-Étienne, founded 1063, Caen, France
The last roots of the West post moved thorough the Middle Ages to the development of the Romanesque - an early pan-European style with a misleading name. The Romanesque has massive stone walls and barrel and groin-vaulted construction like Roman architecture, but doesn't look much like it stylistically.
What is noteworthy is that the international aspect of the Romanesque was an architectural development. There is more regional variation in the visual arts than in the buildings. Historians tend to classify painting and sculpture as Romanesque on chronological grounds, meaning works that appear in Europe when Romanesque architecture is common.
The Presentation in the Temple, from the St. Albans Psalter, around 1130, Hildesheim cathedral library, Hildesheim, Germany
Notre-Dame-des-Chazes (Virgin and Child), 12th century, painted wood, Saint-Julien-des-Chazes, Gorges de l'Allier-Gévaudan, France
Romanesque art tends to be formal, hieratic, stylized, and unconcerned with realism. It is a symbolic style.
This architectural orientation makes sense in a way because the Romanesque originates in technical developments - essentially how to build strong structures with available materials, and new ways to put vaulted roofs on large buildings. Things that were practical everywhere. But what matters is how it spread. It's growth was mainly driven by religious factors.
Surviving Transept, Cluny Abbey (Cluny III), 12th-century, Saône-et-Loire, France
Surviving barrel vaults and round arches in the transept of Cluny III.
In the last post we looked at the growth of Cluny and it's preference for vaulted churches in the new style. The massive Cluny III was a template for others to follow.
The other factor was changing religious practices among the populace - particularly the rise of pilgrimage as a collective expression of faith. Pilgrimage always had a place in Christianity - Constantine's mother Helena was reknowned for her journey to the Holy Land to recover relics from the time of Jesus. Pilgrims continued to journey to the Rome and the Near East through the Middle Ages, though the practice greatly intensified in the 11th and 12th centuries, even as the Holy Land became less accessible.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Discovery of the True Cross, around 1745, oil on canvas, Gallerie dell'Accademia
The story that St. Helena found the True Cross is a legend, but one that echoed through the history of the Christian West. It became the source of countless claims that random lumps of wood were "fragments of the True Cross" despite there being enough pieces altogether to build houses.
But the idea that you go to the holy sites and interact with the holy relics is the basis of Christian pilgrimage.
In the earlier Middle Ages, the Holy Land was relatively accessible, with the Byzantine Emperor and strong Muslim Caliphs in Damascus then Baghdad providing stability. While pilgrim groups were always in danger of being waylaid, this was a fairly minor problem until the rise of the Seljuk Turks in the early 11th century. Their seizure of power in the eastern Mohammedan territories followed by the conquest of Byzantine Anatolia threw the region into chaos, resulting in large groups of dispossessed Arab brigands. The Seljuks were also much more hostile to Christian pilgrims than the earlier Mohammedan dynasties, who were willing to accommodate them for the economic benefits they provided. The ordeals of the Great German pilgrimage of 1064-65 epitomize the new danger.
Map of Palestine by William Wey (c.1458-1463), Bodleian Library, Oxford
Later pilgrimage map of the Holy Land
This group of 12,000 pilgrims set out across southern Europe and through Constantinople to the Holy Land. On the way they were repeatedly attacked and eventually besieged before being rescued by forces sent by the more prudent Fatimid Caliph in Egypt [click for a period account]. Their unusually heavy losses were likely a result of traveling in luxury, presenting an enticing target on top of the usual anti-Christian animus.
Gustave Doré, The Road to Jerusalem, 1877, lithograph from the Bibliotheque des Croisades series, private collection
But even with the Crusader kingdoms along the Mediterranean coast, the journey to Jerusalem was long and arduous overland, and the sea voyage at constant risk from Muslim pirates. What is interesting is that the explosion of pilgrimage in the late 10th and 11th centuries didn't involve trips to the Near East at all. This was in inter-European phenomenon.
One of the biggest factors behind the the burst of European pilgrimage in the later Middle Ages was the huge growth in prominence of the cult of relics. This was not unrelated to the Crusades because the increased contact with the Holy Land and Byzantium fueled a trade in relics - many bogus - that increased their number and prominence in Europe.
Relics were the remains of saints or things connected to Mary and Jesus - since they ascended bodily and didn't leave remains - like the True Cross. These had been venerated in the Church since the early Christian period. Augustine likened the practice to the Roman ancestor veneration, only extended to the Christian "family":
Nevertheless the bodies of the dead are not on this account to be despised and left unburied; least of all the bodies of the righteous and faithful, which have been used by the Holy Ghost as His organs and instruments for all good works. For if the dress of a father, or his ring, or anything he wore, be precious to his children, in proportion to the love they bore him, with how much more reason ought we to care for the bodies of those we love, which they wore far more closely and intimately than any clothing? St. Augustine, City of God , I, 13:
The power of relics as devotional objects was connected to basic eschatology - if the dead were to be reassembled on the Day of Judgment and the saints were already in heavenly communion, then their corpoeral relics were part of their living sanctified presence [click for a more in-depth discussion of this]. And this was an old practice - the link cites a 5th century inscription on the tomb of St. Martin of Tours (d. 397): "Here lies bishop Martin of holy memory, whose soul is in the hand of God, but who is completely present here, manifesting through the power of miracles his every grace."
Head reliquary of St. Martin of Tours, late 14th century, gilt silver and copper, enamel over silver, from the church of Soudeilles (Corrèze, France), Louvre Museum
As relics became more central to medieval religiosity, luxurious containers were created to hold them called reliquaries. Some of these were ornate boxes, but others took the shape of the saint or the relic that they held. Like this one for the head of the aforementioned St. Martin of Tours.
Rhetorically, head reliquaries made it easier for worshipers to relate to the relics by giving them a human form. But it is easy to see how an ignorant viewer could mistake the reliquary for an actual object of worship or idol.
The key factor in avoiding pagan-style idolatry - worshiping objects - is maintaining the distinction between God and the relic and connected saint. It's God who is the actual object of worship, and the sanctity of the saint/relic a spiritually-charged sign that brings the worshiper closer. Theologically saints and their relics are different from religious art, but the distinction between venerating God through the representation and idolatrously worshiping the representation is similar. And in both cases, individuals could confuse them.
Reliquaries were works of art. The magnificent Sainte-Chapelle captures the connection between relics and the opening of the Holy Land. The stained glass chapel was built by French King Louis IX as a reliquary for the Passion relics he purchased from the fake Byzantine Emperor Baldwin II. These included the purported Crown of Thorns - one of the most valuable.
Sainte-Chapelle, 1239-48, Paris
Pilgrimage was tied up with the cult of relics, because the relics of important figures were what made a pilgrimage site attractive. From the time of Charlemagne consecrated altars were required to contain a relic, but no site gained the importance to match Santiago di Compostella, the Spanish location where the relics of St. James the Greater were believed to be. The discovery of James' tomb in the early 9th century began the process of creating a pilgrimage destination to rival Rome. It took a while to get going, but by the 12th century, so many people were traveling the pilgrim road from Europe into Spain that it shaped the development of late medieval society.
Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, begun 1075.
The cathedral has a spectacular baroque facade that was added in the mid-18th century, so it looks a lot different than it did in medieval times.
The original church was burned in 997 by the army of the Caliph of Cordoba, though the tomb of St. James was left untouched - perhaps due to the large number of Christian vassals in the caliph's army. The new building was started in 1075 and consecrated in 1211.
Master Mateo, Portico of Glory, 1168-88, Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela; cast in the Victoria and Albert Museum and detail with St. James enthroned and some Apostles on the right.
The Romanesque main portal to the cathedral may be the greatest example of Spanish Romanesque sculpture, but is now hidden behind the baroque facade.
The precise reason why relics and pilgrimage became such a major part of European religiosity is hard to pin down, but there is no question that it happened. It's probably part of an increasingly intense spiritual bent that defined the later Middle Ages - the cult of the Eucharist or Corpus Christi, popular devotional manuals that encouraged emotional engagement with the faith, and the proliferation of highly rhetorical religious art - that climaxed with the Reformation. But whatever the reasons, pilgrimage set the faithful in motion across Europe and drove the construction of new churches to display relics for the adoring masses.
Like Saint-Philibert de Tournus, founded in 875 and expanded over several campaigns shown in the plan.
Tournus was on the pilgrim road to Compostela, and Saint-Philibert drew heavy traffic. Note the construction of an aisle running continually around the perimeter - technically an ambulatory - with radial chapels off the apse. This was common in Romanesque pilgrim churches because it allowed visitors to move around and venerate the relics in the chapels without disturbing what was going on in the nave and choir - the central parts.
This is the context of the Romanesque, but not the only factor. Europe was growing in population and urbanizing, while monastic foundations were adapting to greater public presence. Put it all together and you have the conditions for a burst of big new churches able to handle large numbers of people in an orderly way, and the normalization of movement patterns able to spread construction ideas quickly across Europe. The revolutionary new Romanesque buildings tend to be pilgrimage route churches - designed to show relics and accommodate crowds, while meeting their normal functions. Human nature - the desire to have the best and compete with others - drives the rest.
Madonna and Child, between 1150-1175, wood and silver, Notre-Dame d'Orcival, Auvergne, France; Madonna and Child, 12th century, polychrome stine, Capilla de San Juan Evangelista, Catedral de Tudela, Spain; Madonna Enthroned, 1170-1180, walnut wood, formerly painted, Liebieghaus, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; Enthroned Virgin and Child, from France, 1150-1200, walnut with gesso, paint, tin leaf, and traces of linen, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The style that follows the Romanesque is somewhat different. The Gothic also appears first in architecture, but brings the growing integration of Church and aristocracy into clearer view. Of course, the corruption of the Church by worldly wealth and power is nothing new. We've seen Constantine pull it from the catacombs to the height of Imperial power, then centuries later, watch Cluny succumb to the siren song of filthy lucre and aristocratic privilege. What we need to do is see how we get from elites looking to enrich themselves and gain status through the Church - subvert it - to wanting to destroy it.
The lords looking to draw on Church resources, or the prelates living like lords, were inverted in behavior, but maintained the fig leaf of orthodox piety. The modern Church gives us things like harpies in the pulpit, globalist preference for heathen "refugees" over the moral well-being of the flock, do what thou wilt sexual morality, and the Pope's Satanic Throne (TM).
And yes, the post-Vatican II "popes" really do sit on a satanic throne, unbelievable as it sounds. The Band has looked into it in a couple of posts - click for the most recent.
Stupid people struggle with the obvious because it unsettles the fake comfort of their idiot world view. It's why they're stupid. The issue isn't can we explain this away. It's what is to be done. The Church is a central pillar of the West, and this demonic crap is intolerable for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Whether itndividuals see it as such is a litmus test for them.
In the big pattern sense, the nature of the elites changed - from a privileged class more or less indifferent to Christianity that existed within their nations to luciferian globalist abominations who hate Christianity and the existence of any nations. It's how you get Soros-fluffer Russell Moore as a Southern Baptist "leader" and pedo-enabler "Pope" Francis atop the Catholic hierarchy.
But this sort of filth doesn't build up overnight. It needs a long pattern of gradual moral erosion. The Band has tended to treat this as kicking off with the emergence of Humanism in the Renaissance then hitting the secular transcendence afterburners with the Enlightenment. But the pattern of corruption - the contour of the slippery slope - was underway before then. And ironically, it is during the Gothic - the period famed for the most beautiful expressions of religious spirit in Western history - where it comes into view.
Triptych with the Coronation of the Virgin, 1325–50, ivory from Cologne, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The last post mentioned the rise of court culture in the later Middle Ages and its creep into religious art. This was a two-edged sword - the elegance, beauty, and richness of a work like this represented the infinitely greater beauty of holiness. But it was also a high-value luxury item. This was the style called the International Gothic - a marriage of courtly aesthetics and religious subjects where the beauty of holiness and the beauty of avarice bleed together.
This is different from the assault on beauty that we find in the Art! of the modern elites - hideous crap intended to hollow out culture and humiliate or invert those compelled by class to pay homage to it.
The road to inversion begins by eliminating differences between the secular and sacred orders. As we know, Christianity differentiated itself from paganism and other monotheisms with Jesus' charge to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's..." [click for a post]. From the very beginning a clear distinction is drawn. Regardless of your opinion on the Petrine succession, the Bible also establishes the notion of religious leaders - putting it together, it is also clear that these are not the same as the secular ones. The International Gothic is based on the idea that sacred and secular values can be expressed the same way - the beauty of holiness and materialism in one image.
The pattern - bring secular and sacred together until there is little or no discernible difference.
Consider - Romanesque art was driven by the Church, then adopted by secular elites. Gothic art starts that way, though with stronger ties to the secular elites, but the later International Gothic version begins visualizing the sacred in terms of secular aristocracy. This "balance" carries through the Renaissance until the sacred is gradually removed from the cutting edge of art.
Charles Le Brun, Apotheosis of Louis XIV, later 17th century, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts Budapest
The apotheosis - the ascent to heaven - was a Classical symbol that was adopted into Christianity. Here Louis XIV's court painter and founder of the French Academy uses the Christian Baroque version to glorify a secular monarch.
Louis and his academy did as much as anyone to transform the language of Christian art into the glorification of a secular king.
Moving into modernity, religious art becomes disconnected from the artistic mainstream - sometimes grand, sometimes kitschy, but looking to express values that have less and less place in an art world where secularism, then open hostility to tradition, faith and artistry become definitive.
Tiffany Studios, Angel of the Resurrection, 1920, Church of the Advent, Cincinnati
Fernand Léger, The City, 1919, oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art
The inversion is complete when the church embraces the dehumanizing, skill-less ugliness of 20th century modernism. At this point the atavistic message is indistinguishable from the rotting husks of modern secular institutions.
Schulz und Schulz, Propsteikirche St. Trinitatis (Provost Church of the Holy Trinity), opened 2015, Leipzig, Germany
Like this winner of "Religious building of the year" at the World Architecture Festival in 2016. The church is in the foreground, by the way. The building behind it is an old city hall. Where is the beauty of holiness? Or the call to the spirit?
The interior is equally bleak and soulless. And the weird + sign above the altar looks like a deliberate effort to not look like a Catholic cross (this thing is nominally Catholic).
Modern "design" works to make faith as unappealing as learning, civic engagement, and everything else it touches.
Michael Tracy, Triptych: Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Stations of the Cross for Latin America, acrylic on tarpaulin on wood with mixed media, 1981-1988, Museum of Contemporary Religious Art, St. Louis
The visual arts are no better. What does this piece of trash say about religious spirit? And what does putting it in a "museum of religious art" say about the facility? Consider the expenditure of resources.
Art is always an expression of the values and health of the culture that produces it so we can read institutional trends through their visual record. Not just specific issues but large patterns. The long history of religious art shows a decline from the expression of a unique spiritual nature - what is God's - distinct from secular society - what is Caesar's - into something conceptualized in the same terms as society. Again, the two were never fully distinct. Art production is a human activity that costs money, and that will always be reflected in it in some way. But historical religious art at least pretended to define itself as apart from purely secular whims, not fawningly subordinate to them.
The ideological counterpart to modernism in religious art is progressivism - rewriting divine law to coddle the fallen appetities of morally-bankrupt materialists.
Like this blasphemous, soy-fueled, creep. Who literally contradicts the language and meaning of the Bible with his own self-titillating fantasies.
Were he simply indulging in his own derangement, it would be one thing. But posing as a Christian encourages the self-serving protoplasm in the congregation to indulge their own luciferian inversions.
Even worse, it deprives those who do have a moral compass the the direction and community that they desire.
This conflating of secular and sacred is the basis of "churchianity" - replacing God's word with human desire as the object of worship. This is not the Band's term, but perfect enough that we can't come up with better. In the case above, there are two incompatible value sets: what the soy-fueled blasphemer spews in his "church" and the Bible. The basis of the Christian's faith is the Bible. An incompatible alternative is definitionally not Christian. And since this filth comes in many forms, it's easier to use a basket term. Since the basis of their faiths is the made-up "doctrine" of their so-called churches, churchianity works fine.
Rembrandt, The Woman Taken in Adultery, 1644, oil on oak, National Gallery, London
Consider the famous scene from the Gospel of John where Jesus delivers the woman charged with adultery. The actual words.
When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more. John 8:10-11
There is no accuser - the whole event was a set-up by the Pharisees to catch Jesus between Roman and Biblical Law. And she is explicitly told to stop sinning. This isn't do what thou wilt. This is forgiveness followed by responsibility. Salvation is contingent - precisely what the satanic "love" cherry-pickers leave out. Actual divine Love extends the offer to all of us, but free will means it's on us to take it up.
But the same deceivers bleat "how can we be sure of God's word when the Bible itself tells us we see as through a glass darkly?" Interestingly this was worked out way back in the early Christian period, when theologians were trying to resolve this very question. The Bible is a dense and allusive text that often has to be applied to circumstances that it doesn't address directly. St. Paul himself offered typological interpretations of in his epistles [click for a piece on typology and allegory]. Interpretation is clearly needed, but there will always be potential for differences of opinion even among the righteous. Early Christian exegetes worked out a system of allegory that acknowledged different levels of potential meaning within a given passage, but also a logical method for assessing them.
Claude Vignon, St. Ambrose, 1623-1625, oil on canvas, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Ambrose (c. 340-397) was an enthusiastic adopter of earlier Christian allegorical exegesis. As one of the Four Fathers of the Western Church, his support and promotion gave it considerable weight. His direct influence on Augustine - an even more significant Father - further established the practice of symbolic Bible reading.
But there was a logical method to the interpretation - not the anything goes of the early 3rd century Alexandrine School.
Interpretation is hierarchical. This means that while you may have to read a passage symbolically or allegorically to apply it in a certain instance, the symbolic or allegorical meaning cannot contradict the literal. Literal meaning comes first - what the text plainly states. That can only be extrapolated symbolically in ways that are compatible to the literal. This is difficult for the hedonistic and wicked. If something is called an abomination in the sight of God, there is no figurative interpretation that can contradict that bald fact. The plain statement is not a darkling glass. It is a plain statement. Consider this example:
Steve Henderson, The Truth Will Set You Free, 2017, digital art
Proverbs 12:22 tells us: Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.
There is a clear literal meaning about telling lies vs. keeping faith. But it can be interpreted more broadly.
We could easily extrapolate the passage to a misleading text, propagandist video, or dishonest organization like the media - none of them are addressed literally but the extrapolations don't contradict the literal point. Likewise, we can even extend it more figuratively - say to be wary of the snares of a deceptive and illusory world. This is more of a stretch, but still consistent with the literal meaning.
What we can't do is propose a "Christian" tenet where dishonesty is somehow acceptable, no matter how cunning the wording. Because there are passages that literally deny this, and what is clearly literal must trump the figurative when they conflict. The alternative is essentially no scripture at all, which is a problem for a religion defined by adherence to scripture.
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Jesus Returning the Keys to St. Peter, 1820, oil on canvas, Musée Ingres, Montauban, France
Not all differences in interpretation can be resolved this way. Consider the Catholic notion of the Petrine Succession - that the office of pope was divinely sanctioned as Jesus' enduring representative on earth. Neither this, nor the non-Catholic rejection of it explicitly contradict the literal meaning of scripture. You may find one side or the other more convincing, but that isn't the same as promoting lies in the face of the above quotes. This is why it is not resolvable - it boils down to a matter of faith.
Modern churchianity is completely different. It is based on cherry-picking passages and twisted readings that contradict plainly-stated Biblical truths because they are uncomfortable to modern sensibilities. But modern sensibilities are solipsistic, depraved, and fallen - to elevate them above God's law is contradictory to the most fundamental bases of Christian metaphysics, ontology, and morality. It literally isn't Christian, yet wears the cross like a rotting skinsuit. A word is needed for these vile creatures, and churchianity perfectly captures their real object of worship - the flaccid, expectation-free dopamine hits of the fallen herd, or what Matthew calls "the strait gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be who go in thereat (Matthew 7:13).
John Martin, Bridge over Chaos, 1826, mezzotint, Royal Academy Collection, London
Or as Milton put it in Paradise Lost: “a passage broad, Smooth, easie, inoffensive down to Hell. (PL 10, 304-5)
Seriously - once you decide that what you want surpasses what is plainly written, there really is no standard, no limit, no check on what you can make up. How can there be? If scripture can be literally contradicted, what measure is possible? This isn't a rhetorical question.
Define a set Christian ethics in ontological - that is substantively real - terms where the literal meaning of the Bible is not authoritative.
There is a comment option for your answer. We'll wait.
It should be clear from this description that subordinating the sacred to secular fashion is an inversion - a satanic inversion of the most egregious kind, since it deprives the faithful of the means of salvation. But if it isn't clear, a look at our ontological hierarchy should make it so.
The hierarchy is really ontological-epistemological - what we can know and how we can know it.
Material reality is fallen, temporal, and entropic. We know it empirically, though with clear perceptual limits.
Ultimate reality is utterly transcendent - the base precondition of everything. It is only knowable by faith.
Abstract reality is in-between - we can't see it directly, but can grasp it through logic.
This is overly simplified, but captures the basic relationships.
Consider how we know abstracts. There are two basic logical paths - induction and deduction.
Induction is bottom up - we start with observations and draw more universal conclusions. The development of mathematics from basic quantification in the last time post is a great example of this.
Deduction is top down - we take transcendent principles known by faith and use logic to generate practical but universal rules. Something like thou shalt not kill except in cases of self-defense is an example of having to use deductive logic to apply a transcendent moral command to an fallen material context.
Now we adapt the ontological-epistemological structure to the specifics of Christianity. The way that we know ultimate reality by faith is through revelation - the scriptures that the Christian accepts as revealing Truth in a form that we can grasp.
The material world remains our world of experience.
Morality is where the two meet on the abstract plane. It is where we use moral reasoning to apply the contents of revelation to the vicissitudes of experience.
Putting it together, Christian ethics bring the inductive lessons of experiential learning together with deductive application of Biblical truth.
Don't be fooled by the symmetry of the graphic - the literal meaning of scripture cannot be contradicted and so represents the highest authority. But after that, moral reasoning is needed to steer by those truths through a fallen and ever-changing world.
The church is supposed to operate on the top-down, deductive end of things - starting with the objective moral truths in the Bible and applying them to the material world. It is imperfect, because it is a society of men, but guided by scripture and the cumulative wisdom of the faithful, it is supposed to work as a counter to the moral entropy and drift that is intrinsic to the fallen world.
The Good Shepherd, 425, mosaic, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna
That's what shepherding is - setting a course of steady objective moral Truth that recognizes the shifting particulars of material experience and is therefore able to react to the threats and challenges of a given time and place.
Secular society - human social order - is the opposite. It is bottom-up, developing organically from the accumulated actions of fundamentally short-sighted, temporally limited, and fallen individuals. There is no intrinsic morality here besides the practical - that is whatever provides an advantage over rivals and feeds material appetites. People follow fads and trends up on the basis of the most venal and emotional impulses in an endless churn. Without spiritual guidance, superstitions encode the most depraved behavior without any metaphysical coherence.
Thomas Kinkade, Hometown Evening
Ideally the two are symbiotic - the sacred provides the moral guidance that keeps the shifting churn of the secular on some sort of moral rails.
And the secular provides the stability, resources, and practical structures needed for a moral order to function.
If, to paraphrase scripture, the Christian is to be in the world, but not of it, the secular is the world in question. This notion captures the symbiosis of the two orientations - it is necessary to exist and meet obligations in secular society, but "keep oneself unspotted from the world” (James 1:27). This means operating within the material world without allowing it to become an end in itself.
That is, without secular transcendence.
When you think it through, secular transcendence is 'making the material world an end in itself' expressed in ontological terms. Morality comes from alignment with ultimate reality - a higher objective standard known by faith and applied by reason. Secular transcendence is the absurdity that the full range on ontology is somehow jammed into an entropic temporal world and that our finite, subjective human intellects can grasp absolute eternal truth. It pretends our subjectivity occupies the place of God - a logical and empirical idiocy so moronic that it makes one question the future of the species to think that it is widely accepted.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate the logical impossibility of secular transcendence - of finite humans grasping absolutes - is to picture fitting eternity into a shoebox.
The secular morality crowd is the shoebox...
Churchianity is also a shoebox. It is of this world. It abrogates its moral responsibility to apply scriptural truth for subjective human pleasures. It does not know the Bible through faith and apply it through reason. It doesn't know the tradition and magisterium of Catholic Christianity through faith and apply it through reason either. It's faith is in the short-sighted moral laxity of faddish preference - the opposite of actual morality. It is applied secular transcendnence - the faithless solipsism that dopamine levels are the measure of eternal truth. There is no morality - not in an ontologically coherent sense - just a second-rate social club preaching do what thou wilt. It is literally a satanic inversion.
We are all fallen. There is no Kingdom of God on earth. The question is are you honestly trying to hew to the letter of the Bible morality while meeting your obligations in this world, or is "Christianity" just a word used to give fake credibilty for your own made-up code?
Thomas Cole, detail of The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, 1828, oil on canvas, 101 x 138 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The alternative is Postmodern - the fallacy that your hollow words shape reality - and secular transcendence - the fallacy that your inconsequential mind knows Truth.
To give up moral stewardship - to stop working to apply scriptural moral standards to a fallen world - destroys the very reason for a church in the first place. Rather than the symbiotic counterweight to fallen but necessary human society, it becomes just another ontologically worthless human organization within it. A third-rate version of what openly secular entities can do better. The three-step process looks like this:
1. abandoning moral objectivity
2. being of the world
3. superfluous non-entity
Modern religious art just visualizes it. Consider: Religious art has to point beyond itself by nature.
Carl Heinrich Bloch, Christus Consolator, 1884, oi on canvas, Brigham Young University Museum of Art
No one knows what Jesus or the apostles looked like. God the Father is utterly transcendent and impossible to conceive of clearly, let alone depict. And the world of the spirit is filled with things that are only knowable by analogy or example.
Any Christian art has to figure out how to represent things that can't be visualized. This was the whole point of looking at the development of the representation of Jesus in Early Christian Rome - how to visualize abstract dogmas.
Art is human expression so it changes. But every style of Christian art has found a way to do this fundamental task of visualizing Christian truths.
Jesus with Alpha and Omega, 4th century wall painting, Catacomb of Commodilla
Modernism is overtly and consciously non-historical and hostile to traditional representational forms and identities. It is based on the false premises that improved technology transformed humanity ontologically and turned us into abstracted cogs in an infinite Progress! machine. Set aside our and the world's finitude because modernism is an incoherent pack of lies and doesn't care about logical absurdity. It is about power in the present and crushing the possibility of resistance - meaning any tie to historical or spiritual identity is to be suppressed.
From the time of the early Fathers, Christian art was tasked with teaching and inspiring - reaching beyond itself to past tradition and viewer appeal. These are things that modernism condemns - insisting instead that art serve only itself. Essences of form and material, or whatever the fake priests and moneymen of the art world are demanding at the moment. As the ultimate example of the emperor's new clothes, modern art has nothing other than faddish whims of solipsists. No history, no spirit, no beauty, no intimations of transcencence. It is purely of this fallen world.
John Reilly, The Raising of Lazarus, 1962, Ripolin enamel, Methodist Modern Art Collection
If Beauty is what Truth looks like, then modern art is the face of churchianity. And neither modern religious art nor churchianity have any purpose in this world. Because they both render unto Caesar and actual secular society and secular art have that covered.
They aren't just terrible, they're redundant.
So that's the key - churchianity or the moral inversion of Christianity is becoming 'of the world'. That's how the religion becomes a pallid pointless shadow of the secular rather than the primary servant of the transcendent. And it's all the way back in the medieval period where we can see the beginning of a pattern that will reverberate right into the present.
Henry of Blois with bishop’s crosier and ring, the Golden Book of St Alban’s, 1380, Cotton Nero D.VII f.87v, The British Library
The medieval Church was a often place to stick young aristocrats - it kept non-firstborn sons from developing dynastic ambitions and kept the sacred in step with secular rulership.
Like Henry of Blois (1098-1171), Abbot of Glastonbury, Bishop of Winchester, grandson of William the Conqueror and younger brother of Stephen, King of England.
Henry of Blois is almost indistinguishable from an noble on the surface. At times the wealthiest and most powerful man in England, he was an an avid builder and patron of the arts and scholarship. The Winchester Bible, the largest surviving 12th century English Bible was one of his most impressive projects.
The Winchester Bible, 1150–80, tempera and gold on parchment, Winchester Cathedral, left: Initial E from the opening of the Book of Joshua, f. 69; below: Opening for the Book of Genesis: In Principio, f.5r
The Latin Vulgate of handwritten on 468 sheets of calf-skin parchment - some 250 calves total were needed. The illuminations are especially vivid, with real gold and lapis lazuli blues. Genesis opens with an incredible initial that summarizes the whole Bible in a single character. The detail of Moses recieving the Commandments shows the colors.
The difference between someone like Henry of Blois and a modern elite is that the medieval nobles were invested in health of the "system" to some degree, and generally believed in God. Modern secular elites want to tear the system down and be rid of Christianity altogether. To get from one to the other can't happen overnight. A lot of subversion is required.
This post had run long, so we won't get too far into the Gothic. But is was important to map out the more perverse inversions that plague Christianity today. The next roots of the arts of the West post can look further into that history. For now we'll be content to introduce some basic aspects of the Gothic as a new style and point out the problems inherent in its inception.
Edmund Leighton, A Little Prince likely in Time to bless a Royal Throne (or Vox Populi), 1904, oil on canvas, private collection
The Gothic period - like the Middle Ages in general - is a popular era in fiction and imagination. But the history has been distorted by Romanticism, because this is where much of what we associate with the period came from. Modern fictions are generally much worse - surprising no one - but the Romantic vision tended to highlight the positive qualities.
But the birth of a medieval aristocrat was pretty much the opposite of "vox populi".
Domenico Quaglio the Younger, The Cathedral of Reims, early 19th century, oil on canvas, Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig
It is easy to romanticize age of Cathedrals with their community support and anonymous craftsmen working for God. Their distinct visual style of pointed arches and stained glass is stunningly beautiful and as perfect an expression of faith as you'll find.
But describing the Gothic as an age of faith is only part of the story. It is true that religiosity was far more important to public life then in our Molochian times, but the present de-moralized cesspool is as overtly evil as Western popular culture has ever been. Almost anything looks good by comparison. Look past the distortions of our collective do what thou wilt perversity and the reality is that art and culture are always tied to money, privilege, and power in some capacity. Someone has to pay the bills, and the Gothic was no exception to this. What matters is the morality of the patrons and the artists. Same as it ever was.
Let's take a closer look at Reims Cathedral with money and power in mind. Although a cathedral, this building was strongly connected to the French monarchy. Reims was a coronation city, and 25 kings were crowned at this church, starting in 1223 starting Louis VIII. It isn't surprising to see kings elevate kingship to a sort of sacred office - can we see the sacred take on the forms of secular power? Given the close ties with coronation and the splendor of the building, it isn't a bad place to look.
Reims Cathedral is a Gothic masterpiece built between 1211 and 1275. The facade is covered in sculpture, making it an important source of information on 13th-century French sculpture.
Pay particular attention to the main portal - the center and largest of the three arched entrances.
The Coronation of the Virgin Mary, between 1255-74, in the gable above the central portal. This was a popular Gothic era subject, taking off in 13th century art like this, though the Queen of Heaven title is at least a hundred years older.
Note how the spiritual status of Mary and Jesus are depicted in the same terms as earthly kings. The French coronations connect to heaven.
The royal theme continues with the Tree of Jesse in one of the voussoirs underneath. This is the geneology of Jesus from the like of King David based on Isaiah 11:1 that first appears in the 12th century and also becomes common in every medium. A vertical line of kings is typical.
Placed under the Coronation, it reinforces the royal conception of Christian authority. And the earthly dynast has a heavenly counterpart.
Symbolism is always two-way - the Coronation of the Virgin and Tree of Jesse provide a backdrop for the crowning of the earthly dynastic monarch in divine terms. But the semiotic reality is the reverse - the heavenly figures are represented in earthly terms. The result being that spiritual relationships are characterized and defined in the same manner as earthly power relations. It isn't churchianity because it isn't replacing scriptural theology with luciferian whims. But is is depicting Christianity as in the world, at least associatively.
And a couple of 14th century painted examples:
Queen Mary Master, Tree of Jesse from the Queen Mary Psalter, between 1310 and 1320, illumination and gold on parchment, British Library Royal 2 B VII f.67v
Paolo Veneziano, Coronation of the Virgin, 1324, tempera on panel, Washington, National Gallery of Art.
The transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic accompanied broader changes in European society. Monarchies were becoming more established, cities were growing in size and importance, and wealth was growing. Monasticism was becoming less central to religious life - the Gothic cathedrals tended to be urban unlike the monastic Romanesque pilgrim churches, and the mendicant Franciscan and Dominican orders were just around the corner.
And with the changes came the rise of the parasite class - the aristocratic elites in the luxe courts.
Historiated initial C for Cleric, knight and peasant, Gautier de Metz, L'Image du monde, around 1285, illumination on parchment, British Library Sloane 2435 f. 85
The breakdown of medieval society is sometimes described as those who work, those who pray, and those who fight. The farmers and craftsmen are the base, the monks and clergy tend to spiritual matters, and the feudal knights and lords protect the others. This worked in the earlier Middle Ages when the nobility actually was martial, but the growth of big wealthy nations introduced an aristocracy that did nothing other than consume.
Note that the image doesn't include those who teat-ride.This is the beginning of the divergence between two cultures - national and internationalist-aristocratic - in one territory that we saw in earlier posts. Remember - it's about morality.
The Gothic, much more than the Romanesque, reflects this new social reality. It also began with architecture and even had an initial monastic connection. But rather than organic development around pilgrim churches, the origins are much historically clearer. The Gothic style was introduced in something called the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis in the territory of the French king called the Île-de-France.
The French and the Angevins - the Angevin Empire encompassed England and half of France in the 12th century. Losses by the disastrous English King John in the early 13th century cost the Angevin House of Plantagenet most of their mainland territory.
The Île-de-France was the heart of the French monarchy centered on Paris. It more or less corresponds with the dark blue royal domain on this map.
Saint Denis is the patron saint of France, and according to tradition, the first bishop of Paris. After his 3rd century decapitation during the Decian persecution, he is said to walked 6 miles carrying his head and preaching, only laying down when he reached his preferred burial spot. This immediately became a place of veneration, and in the 6th century, King Dagobert I and his son Clovis II endowed the site as a monastery and built a big Carolingian abbey church named for the cephalophore bishop.
Statue of Saint Denis with his head, 13th century, restored in the 19th century, Portail de la Vierge, Notre Dame de Paris
Cephalophores are literally "head-carriers" - saints generally martyred by beheading. Denis was the most famous.
The church of Saint-Denis became a royal abbey in 867 when the Carolingian Emperor Charles the Bald - Charlemagne's grandson - became lay abbot. The first king had been buried there even sooner - in the 6th century - and before the end of the 10th century it was established as the royal necropolis. All but three of the French kings after Hugh Capet (r. 987-996) were buried there. For more information, check out The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis in the Time of Abbot Suger (1122–1151), a 1981 publication available for free on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website.
The royal necropolis. Most of the kings and many other royals were buried at Saint-Denis: 42 kings, 32 queens, 63 princes and princesses and 10 great men of the realm.
During the Revolution, the sub-humans removed the bodies and dissolved them with lime in two large pits. This is a powerful reminder of the barbarism and savegry with which secularist animals will attack culture and heritage in the name of their fake Progress! Fortunately most of the tombs survive so non-filth can enjoy the unique blend of art, heritage, and history.
So while the sacred origins of the site are tied up in popular response to Denis' legend, the
institutional structure is based on the complete entanglement of secular and sacred. The very name Royal Abbey is a marriage of the two, and the presence of tomb after tomb in the necropolis turned the church into the ultimate monument to dynastic power.
The invention of the Gothic came in the context of the 12th century renovations to the old Carolingian basilica, These started in the 1140s under the supervision of Suger, who had been affiliated with Saint-Denis since entering the monastery as an oblate at age 10 and rising to Abbot in 1122. A skilled administrator and advisor to the king, the well-traveled Suger had the abilities and experience to bring off high quality building projects in a timely and cost-effective manner. The legendary status of the old building prevented a tear-down and rebuild, so the abbot redid one section at a time.
The front came first. In 1135-40 Suger rebuilt the west end with a twin-towered westwork - a type of large formal entrance porch dating back to the Carolingian period.
Here's the restored, cleaned facade. Only one of the towers was built, but they were intended to be symmetrical.
This was traditionally associated with royal power - a "base" on the west of the church to balance the sacred foci of altar and choir on the east end. The crenelations on the roof suggest a castle or fortress and make this secular connection clearer
The architectural details of the facade are Romanesque. Compare the relatively plain stonework and round Roman-style arches to the ornament, plasticity, and pointed arches of the mature Gothic at Reims up above. At the same time, there are some innovations that predict the Gothic to come. The massive vertical buttresses divide the facade into clear sections - the kind of lucid approach to structure that the Gothic masters. The triple arched entryway is also clear and hierarchical - things that will be common on the Gothic facades. And the small rose window above the entrance is the prototype for the spectacular windows to come.
The sculpture around the doors is innovative and tightens the royal connection further. The problem for us is that the main portal doesn't look the same as it did in Suger's time.
The central portal on the west facade as it appears now. The Last Judgment over the door is original, but the jambs - the sides of the door are not.
The columns flanking the doors originally were statues depicting kings, queens, patriarchs, and prophets. - features that will be common on later Gothic portals but were new here. Knowledge of these statues is limited - they were removed from the facade in 1771 probably for aesthetic reasons, then deliberately vandalized during the revolution. The abbey suffered terribly after the atavistic garbage in charge of that monstrosity called for the destruction of "monuments of feudalism and royalty" in 1793. Afterwards, ham-handed "restorations" did further damage until all that is left today are a few battered and disfigured heads. Here's a diagram of the damage to the sculpture:
Head of an Old Testament King from Saint-Denis, around 1140, limestone, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
And one of the surviving heads. The damage is obvious.
What we know about the statues comes from an illustration published in Bernard de Montfaucon's survey of French royal monuments published between 1729 and 1733. Later examples of these jamb figures still exist at Chartres and Reims as well.
Bernard de Montfaucon, Statues from the Central Portal of the Abbey of Saint-Denis, from Les monumens de la monarchie françoise. L'origine des Français et la suite des rois jusqu'à Philippe I inclusivement... Paris, between 1729 and 1733, Bibliothèque nationale de France
This is the drawing that shows what the Old Testament jamb figures originally looked like. Click for an awkward to use online version of this text.
It appears that one had already lost a head
Scholars have noted that the Old Testament jamb statues depict ancestors of Jesus but do not appear to have been arranged strictly chronologically like a Tree of Jesse. They are generally interpreted as representing the spiritual ancestry of the French kings - Old Testament prototypes and precedents for an integrated concept of Merovingian-Capetian royal line. Including the prophets adds a priestly dimension as well - regnum et sacerdotium - king and Church, the two powers of medieval society shown in concert. The similarity and context of the jamb figures create the impression that the secular and sacred are essentially the same order - that there is no meaningful difference between Caesar's and God's.
The jamb statues are intact at Chartres cathedral, and these ones were directly influenced by Saint-Denis. The Royal Portal at Chartres was started only a few years after Suger's west end was finished.
Jamb statues of the central entry of the Royal Portal, Chartres Cathedral, c. 1145-1155.
Here's a closer look. Integrating the figures into the architecture gives them a symbolic function in the portal as a whole. Up above are the more overtly Christian images, like the Last Judgment above the door. But these truths rest on a foundation of holy kingship, just as the upper part of the structure rests on the jamb piers and columns.
Divinely anointed kings support the church, structurally and symbolically. Reims has them too.
When you approach Chartres, the imposing presence of the facade pays homage to God's glory. But when you go up the stairs to enter, you have to pass by kings. They are the intermediaries that let you to pass into the sacred space. There's no door to heaven without them.
And Chartres is heavenly...
Suger's treatment of the west end of Saint-Denis invented a new visual language of sacred kingship - one that would prove influential to the Gothic idiom. The notion of separate spheres - Caesar's and God's - is collapsed into a unified vision where royal power - the secular elites - masquerade as divine agents, and the sacred is an extension of their inspired rule. This isn't the same as modern secular transcendence, but it is definitely priming the pump. Once your religious and political authorities are essentially the same, you are on the way to one of them becoming superfluous and then irrelevant. In a theocracy, it's the secular power that disappears. Follow the secularist path of the West and it's the religious authority - the morality and stewardship of a metaphysical Truth known scripturally by faith that goes.
It was in the sacred space where Suger was at his most innovative. The second wave of his rebuilding was a new east end - an apse and choir to replace the Carolingian originals. This is the project that earned him the title of founder of the Gothic, because this is where the fundamental principles of that style are first introduced.
Choir of Saint-Denis, rebuilt 1140-44
Instead of the heavy barrel and groin vaults of the Romanesque, Suger employed ribbed vaults in a novel way. These are a web of slender arches or ribs that bear the weight of the building. Their reduced mass is possible because they require way less building material, lightening the load. They also can be concentrated into smaller supports, allowing for space to be opened up all around them.
The characteristic pointed arches are another structural innovation. This shape is stronger than a round Roman arch in that it can bear more downward pressure.
The pointed arches increased the compressive strength of the ribbed vaults and let Suger be flexible in the shapes of his spaces...
... and replace the massive Romanesque walls with windows. Barrel vaults have to be supported along two sides. Groin vaults can open four ways but are really heavy. Ribbed vaults are light and flexible creating wide openings and curtain walls. It was the light vaulted roof and curtain wall combination that made the extensive use of stained glass possible. Saint-Denis is the first example of what will be a signature feature of the Gothic.
Stained glass windows in Suger's choir at Saint-Denis.
The windows here are modest compared to what was to come, but they represent a completely new set of architectural possibilities. And compared to the massive walls and gloomy interiors of the Romanesque, they must have seemed miraculous.
The choir of Saint-Denis has no real precedents and his mix of pointed arches, ribbed vaults, and stained glass appears to invent the Gothic out of whole cloth. This is what makes Saint-Denis such an important building in the history of architecture.
But Suger's historical value goes beyond his architectural innovations. He also wrote about his building projects and on the use of beauty and expensive materials in religious art. The Book of Suger Abbot of St. Denis on What Was Done During his Administration was probably written between 1144 and 1148 in order to: "preserve for future memory the additions which the munificence of almighty God bestowed upon this church during the time of our leadership in the acquisition of new things, the recovery of lost ones, the multiplication of refurbished possessions, the construction of buildings, and the accumulation of gold, silver, precious gems and quality textiles." Click for a translation of the portions discussing Saint-Denis.
Abbot Suger from the Tree of Jesse window, 1140, Saint-Denis
It was unusual for medieval patrons to write on their projects - the reasons Suger gives are for the future - to "earn the prayers of succeeding brothers for the salvation of our soul" and to set an example for the "zealous commitment to the proper maintenance of God's church".
What comes through his writing is an odd combination of reverence for lucre and allegorical spirituality, with the cost and splendor of the treasures standing for religious reverence and the glories of the faith.
Consider his account of the gilded doors on the west facade. These "represented the passion and resurrection or ascension of Christ, with great expense and heavy outlay for their gilding as befits such a noble portico". But the verses he added tell you to:
Marvel not at the gold and expense but at the
craftsmanship of the work.
The noble work is bright, but, being nobly bright, the work
Should brighten the minds, allowing them to travel through
the lights
To the true light, where Christ is the true door.
This is an allegorical interpretation - one where the shining materials trigger thoughts of supernatural light. The idea that worldly luxury and beauty are metaphors for heavenly beauty is an old idea. It goes back before Christianity and is basically Platonic in structure. As Suger puts it: "The dull mind rises to the truth through material things".
At the same time, he describes the cost of his additions in such loving detail that it seems icongruous - like this golden altar frontal in the upper choir: "we estimate that we have put around forty-two marks of gold, a rich abundance of precious gems - hyacinths, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and topazes - and a variety of pearls, more than we ever hoped to find" and goes on to explain how nobles and gem dealers alike flocked to Saint-Denis. He does remind us that "that which is signified pleases more than that which signifies" but he puts most of his emphasis on material costs. Or the lucky arrival of gems for the golden cross and the low price he paid for them. Or the eighty marks of refined gold...
Nicolas Guérard, the Treasures of Saint-Denis, engraving from Michel Félibien, Histoire de l’abbaye royale de Saint-Denis en France (Paris, 1706)
Suger's "religious" treasures were melted down during the Revolution. Once again reminding us that "progressive" secularists are disgusting sub-humans - repelled at the very thought of beauty or tradition.
This engraving shows one of the storage cabinets.
Apparently "the workmanship surpassed the material", but Suger really doesn't write anything about the workmanship other than to say that the artists were good. His writing waxes on about his fat stacks, but offers nothing significant on style or instructions to the artists.
Now he does provide some defense of this extravagance. His belief that "the most expensive things should be used above all for the administration of the holy eucharist" comes from the idea that the most precious materials should be used for this even more precious rite. He counters those "who criticize us" by arguing "that holy mind, pure heart and faithful intention should suffice for this task" by agreeing that these matter most, but that "all internal purity" is complemented by "all external nobility".
Chalice of the Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis, a 2nd/1st century BC in a 1137-1140 mounting, sardonyx cup with gilded silver mounting, set with stones, pearls, glass insets, and opaque white glass, National Gallery of Art, Washington
Suger's chalice does survive because it was "secular" and could be "nationalized" by the revolutionary filth. The stones and disks in the mounting are largely replacements - the originals having been been stolen. The chalice was the most expensive thing used at the Mass where the chapels in the new choir were first consecrated.
It gives a nice impression of Suger's luxe taste, and the incorporation of the ancient cup shows his desire to rival Byzantium in splendor.
His defense relies on allegorical exegesis - comparing the fat stacks to literal lists of gems in the Old Testament, and to spiritual metaphors in the New. This is because their beauty can transport him in a similar:
"away from external cares, and worthy meditation, transporting me from material to immaterial things, has persuaded me to examine the diversity of holy virtues, then I seem to see myself existing on some level, as it were, beyond our earthly one, neither completely in the slime of earth nor completely in the purity of heaven. By the gift of God I can be transported in an anagogical manner from this inferior level to that superior one."The term anagogical is the tell - it is a specific category of typological allegory that has to do with signifying celestial things. The Old Testament pointing to the celestial Jerusalem and salvation of the Christian soul. And while the notion of contemplating gems as a path to ecstasy may seem dubious,
but does give some insight into his pioneering use of stained glass.
Tree of Jesse window, 1140s, Saint-Denis
Suger's descriptions of his windows focus on their typological symbolism - how they connect Old and New Testaments in typical allegorical ways. The Tree of Jesse isn't surprising to see, given that is links the two directly and had a kingship theme that fits the royal connections of the building.
Thologically, Suger was influenced by earlier mystical writers on light. The so-called Pseudo-Dionysius or Dionysus the Pseudo-Areopagite was a murky late antique mystic confused with both a convert of Paul's in the Bible and St. Denis of France. The reality is that all three were different, but Pseudo-Dionysus was the backbone of apophatic or mystical theology in the West. Light was closest to the divine of all material things, since it could be seen, but had no other sensory qualities. And the notion that God is light is so common that it needs no further comment. It is clear in Suger's other writings that he subscribed to the notion that light was a sign of divinity, though the extent of his own mystical leanings are unclear.
Fra Angelico, The Conversion of St. Paul, 1430, tempera and gold on parchment, Museo di San Marco, Missal 558, f.21, Florence
A fine illumination depicting a scriptural example of God manifesting in the form of light. This was too common a metaphor to try ans sum up.
If we combine Suger's writings on the beauty of the colored gems, his claims that things signified are more important that the signifiers, and his thoughts on light, we can make out the ideology behind his stained glass. The colored light coming through the glass is gem-like, passing through the stories and striking all the gold and other precious materials he writes about. The effect is somewhat mystical - a shining luminosity that combines light and the beauty of expensive things into something as close to the vision of heaven as can be imagined.
Stained glass light in the choir of Saint-Denis.
This is obviously a highly sensory vision. It's based on representing that which you can't see with the most splendid possible things that you can. It's also perfectly compatible with the monarchical associations of a royal abbey.
But before following up on that, it is worth considering Suger's comment about those who criticize us.
He's almost certainly including St. Bernard of Clairvaux, an early convert to a new monastic order called the Cistercians founded in 1098. They were reacting to the luxury of Cluniac life discussed in the last post, but only really took off when Bernard, a former nobleman joined them in 1112. By 1168 they had 288 houses and were on their way to supplanting Cluny as the preeminent monastic order in Europe. Bernard became the main advocate of the Cistercian position, and wrote his Apology in 1125 [click for a link and an introduction]. In general he preached austerity, simplicity, and distance from worldly things in favor of a focus on the spiritual.
Cistercian Church, 1130-1150, Pontigny
This big Gothic Cistercian abbey is rib vaulted, but has an austere lack of ornament that appealed to Bernard's sensibility. Despite the use of the same building style, the contrast with Suger is striking.
Bernard's Apology distinguishes between monastic and regular spirituality and attacks the former for their greed:
Saint Bernard Vanquishing the Devil, 15th century, hand-colored German woodcut, Metropolitan Museum of Art
"We know that the bishops, debtors to both the wise and unwise, use material beauty to arouse the devotion of a carnal people because they cannot do so by spiritual means. But we who have now come out of that people, we who have left the precious and lovely things of the world for Christ, we who, in order to win Christ, have reckoned all beautiful, sweet-smelling, fine-sounding, smooth-feeling, good-tasting things-- in short, all bodily delights--as so much dung, what do we expect to get out of them? Admiration from the foolish? Offerings from the ignorant? Or, scattered as we are among the gentiles, are we learning their tricks and serving their idols?"
Although he was writing before Suger, it's hard to read Suger's accounts of all the donations pouring into his gilded temple after this:
Aren't we seeking contributions rather than spiritual profit? ... Faced with expensive but marvelous vanities, people are inspired to contribute rather than to pray.... Thus churches are decorated, not simply with jeweled crowns, but with jeweled wheels illuminated as much by their precious stones as by their lamps. We see candelabra like big bronze trees, marvelously wrought, their gems glowing no less than their flames. What do you think is the purpose of such things? To gain the contrition of penitents or the admiration of spectators?There's no meditation on expensive gems or glittering gold. But there is also no royal connection at the Cistercian abbeys. Their vision is a throwback to the older notion of monasticism as an isolated community of committed Christians who have withdrawn from the world and its enticements. Blurring the lines between secular and sacred is precisely the opposite of their spiritual goals. The whole point of the monastery is to widen the distinction as much as possible. To be in the world, but to avoid being of it.
Let's give him a closing argument:
Bernard of Clairvaux, around 1290, illumination on parchment from the Beaupre Antiphonary, Vol. 2, Walters 760, f. 113v, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
"In short, so many and so marvelous are the various shapes surrounding us that it is more pleasant to read the marble than the books, and to spend the whole day marveling over these things rather than meditating on the law of God. Good Lord! If we aren't embarrassed by the silliness of it all, shouldn't we at least be disgusted by the expense?"
Suger and Bernard represent two approaches to Christian life at the beginning of the Gothic period. Theologically, Suger argues that wealth and beauty raises the mind to God, while Bernard calls them a distraction. Glittering light vs. austere halls. We are not interested in assessing the sincerity of these positions - an argument can be made for either. The point of this post is that it is morality that matters. And since we can't read the hearts of men dead almost 1000 years, we have to look at what they advocated. Their fruits.
Bernard calls for a rigid separation between spiritual and secular. The monastic life should epitomize the former and tack as far away from the latter as possible.
Jörg Breu the Elder, Cistercians at Work from his Scenes from the Life of St. Bernard, 1500, oil on wood, Collegiate Church, Zwettl, Austria
Obviously the Cistercian houses have to be able to meet their needs - be in the world - but limit their worldly engagement to what is necessary. We even was him distinguish the compromises that a bishop has to make from the ability of a monastery to pursue a purer religious devotion. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, render unto God what is God's, and keep them as distinct as possible in a fallen world.
Suger conflates the sacred and secular as much as possible - defining the latter in terms of the former and falling back on strained allegories to justify the confusion. His abbey is symbolized the notion that worldly power - kingship - was somehow divine, and the image of holiness is indistinguishable from a royal treasury.
Eleanor of Aquitaine Vase from the Treasury at Saint-Denis, 7th–8th century Iranian rock crystal vase with 12th-14th mountings in silver, enamel, gold filigree, pearl, and precious stones; The Eagle of Suger from the Treasury at Saint-Denis, antique red porphyry in a 12th century gilt silver mount, Musée du Louvre, Paris
And the treasury collected objects like these.
The Band is partial to beauty, and promotes religious art here and elsewhere. But as we keep mentioning, morality is critical. What messages are the arts communicating? What tags along with the beauty?
Germain Pilon, recumbent tombs of Henri II (1547-59) and Catherine de Medici (d. 1589) in Saint-Denis
The main renovations of his abbey - the westwork and the choir - create a royal and spiritual focus at opposite ends of a building that combined monastic ritual with the burial of kings. The choir is filled with beautiful light, but it illuminates worldly authority as well as spiritual things.
Or more accurately, denies that there is really much difference between Caesar's and God's at all.
Saint-Denis is the birthplace of the Gothic, and the next post will look more closely at that movement and it's aristocratic nature. For now we'll leave with a question. If the satanic inversion of modern churchianity is the complete subordination of the spiritual to the secular, which vision - Suger or Bernard - sets us on that path?
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