medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Thank you, Jim. If the issue is of wider interest, it may make sense to continue the discussion on-list.


I think to be honest that both Margot Fassler and Richard Legault are not so much alternatives as both approaching the truth from different directions.


If we start from Fassler�s article, there is little there that I would disagree with, apart from the suggestion that the 10 figures represent the 10 commandments. I think that if they did, they would have some emblem to indicate which commandment was which, and they would be in a context which required commandments rather than just representatives of the Old Dispensation. I also think that the wavy shapes above the 4 angels are not a cloud of ignorance but just the standard symbol for the firmamemt between heaven and earth.


However Fassler leaves a lot unexplained, and I think we will only reach certainty when we can explain everything. So here goes.


Thank you for reminding me that Pisces and Gemini are on the right hand portal. I would explain this by associating Pisces with the Feast of the Annunciation and Gemini with the Feast of the Visitation. I haven�t allowed for conversion from Gregorian to Julian etc, and dates assigned to the signs of the zodiac seem to vary a bit. But that at least would establish that the absence of Pisces and Gemini is not trying to tell us something about the left hand tympanum: it is telling us something about the right hand tympanum.


If the V shape within which Christ stands is the bottom half of a diamond, then I can�t parallel it exactly except to say that the River Jordan is in a very roughly diamond shape on an illumination (fig. 106 in M�le Religious Art of 12th century = Lat 9438 Bib Nat), that the firmament on the destroyed portal of St Benigne Dijon is D shaped round the egdes of the tympanum (fig. 154 in M�le Religious Art of 12th century - I half think I can see the same round the edge of the tympanum here at Chartres), that the mandorla is wavy edged on a Lyon window (fig. 11 in M�le Religious Art of 13th century) and that the firmament is a circular wavy shape around the star appearing to the Magi on the N portal of Chartres (fig. 111 in M�le Religious Art of 13th century). So I think the shape represents the edges of the firmament drawn back to enable us to see through it, whether we interpret the waviness as clouds or as the waters above the firmament.


I am puzzled: to the extreme L and extreme R of the four angels do we see the bottom of a curtain, or is it the hem of the angels� tunics? If the latter then the two middle angels display nothing of the sort. If it is a curtain, does it represent a veil (of the temple?) being drawn aside to enable communication between earth and heaven?


On the same subject, there seem to be vertical columns to the extreme L and R of the V shape, between it and the angels. What are these? Are they also curtains? Do they represent the veil of the Temple, say, drawn momentarily aside to reveal the heavenly sanctuary? That would connect with the signs of the the zodiac, since the firmament, which the signs of the zodiac represent, was embroidered on the veil of the Temple. As mentioned, I think September and October need more attention, since they seem to be in the wrong places.


I note that there are plain horizontal bands above and below the register of the 4 angels. Maybe these bands were designed to take painted inscriptions.


So I would understand the top 2 registers to show the firmament drawn aside to reveal Christ and the angels. So who is he appearing to?


I see that on the portal at Angouleme (see https://www.wga.hu/support/viewer_m/z.html ) there are ten faces in roundels. I suspect that we have the same ten, since the ten roundels are accompanied by 4 other roundels containing just a simple pattern, and it would have been easy to increase to 12 or 14 faces if that was what was required. I suspect that these 10 represent the Old Dispensation, but as for identifying them as individuals, I think we need a� better preserved set � maybe somewhere in a text in the liturgical books to which Fassler refers, maybe in a manuscript illumination. A group maybe like the 3 major prophets or the 12 minor prophets, maybe prophets who prophesied Christ. Somewhere there will be a list of these ten figures � I very much doubt whether the sculptor or his clerical advisor invented the list.


I note that in the tympanum at Moissac the 24 elders are looking up at Christ in the same varied set of postures as at Chartres, and they may be part of the ancestry of this tympanum. I suspect that there is a tendency among art historians to interpret any carving in which humans are looking up at a Christ in Glory as an Ascension, when in fact the artistic constraints of a tympanum push any sculptor into a combination of a mandorla and a row of humans below.


I see too that M�le was forced to justify the differences between the Chartres tympanum and the Biblical accounts of the Ascension (4 angels not 2, absence of portrayal of Christ�s feet) by appealing to artistic necessity! At Angouleme he explains the ten heads in roundels by saying that the Ascension is turning into a Last Judgement, ditto for St Paul de Varax (of which I cannot find a picture). Maybe the answer is that these sculptors knew perfectly well what they were doing and were not trying to portray the Ascension at all.


I would be interested to read the thoughts of others.


David Critchley


On 03/10/2018 20:36, James Bugslag wrote:
[log in to unmask]"> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Hello David,

The fact that there are only 10 figures below is what led Margot Fassler several years ago to propose an alternative iconography for this tympanum than the Ascension.� Based on liturgical sources, she proposed that it represented Christ as he was during the time of the Old Testament - existent but not yet incarnated.� The wavy lines indicate "borders" between the created world and the spiritual sphere, with angels breaking through to announce the coming incarnation to the figures of prophets below, who look up at the divine inspiration for their prophesies.� In the archivolts, the missing zodiac scenes can be found in the archivolts of the right tympanum, surrounding the Virgin and incarnated Christ Child.� I'm not at all sure how widely her theory has found acceptance, nor even if she still endorses it, but it is, nevertheless, intriguing.� See Margot Fassler, , 'Liturgy and Sacred History in the Twelfth-Century Tympana at Chartres', Art Bulletin, 75, no. 3 (Sept. 1993), 499-520

Cheers,

Jim

From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of David Critchley <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: October 3, 2018 10:23:17 AM
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Subject: Re: [M-R] Representation of the Firmament, and the Waters above the Firmament, in Mediaeval Art
�
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

My thanks to all for these useful suggestions.

The Chartres portal is certainly an interesting one: it looks more like a theophany than a disappearance. The angels in the middle register seem very keen to tell us something.

I wonder whether the V shaped frame in which Christ appears is in fact the bottom half of what was once a diamond shape: there appears to be part of the top half remaining on the left and perhaps the beginnings of a return on the right.

I suspect that if we knew who the ten figures (including at least one female - or is it a beardless St John? - or the BVM and nine apostles?) were, we would have the key. Several of them hold books and must be authors, and a couple hold scrolls which were presumably painted with words which would at once identify the holder. There appear to be circles on the back wall of the tympanum behind them, so they must be saints or at least the blessed. The same grouping of ten must surely recur elsewhere, if only in a manuscript illumination that might have acted as a source. Ascension scenes on the other hand seem uniformly to have 14 figures, ie 12 apostles and 2 men in white - yet at Angouleme in the Ascension portal there are only 10 - the same 10 as at Chartres?

Is there any significance in the fact that all twelve months appear in the surround, but only 10 of the signs of the zodiac, with Pisces and Gemini omitted at the apex of the arch? Can we learn anything from the arrangement of the months and the signs of the zodiac? Generally the sequence of either months or signs starts at the bottom of an order, then mounts up to the top, alternating with the other of the months or signs, as it may be, then starts again at the bottom of another order and so on, until all four orders have been populated. September and October seem to have changed places, rather strangely, but otherwise we have summer months on L, winter on R. Is there a connection between the ten signs of the zodiac and the ten human figures?

Frustrating, because the symbolic language used by the designer must have been accessible to his audience, or there would be no point in the exercise.

David Critchley

On 25/09/2018 16:15, Genevra Kornbluth wrote:
[log in to unmask]">medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Richard, the "humped" river Jordan is not standard, but also not that unusual.
See the Baptism page of my archive:
www.kornbluthphoto.com/Baptism.html
and the Codex Egberti:
https://cynthiahindes.blogspot.com/search/label/John%203%3A22%20-36
best,
Genevra

On 9/25/2018 10:50 AM, Richard Legault wrote:
[log in to unmask]" type="cite"> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Having no German, I can't get much from the caption of�Karl's�M�stair fresco. Nevertheless, for a work of Carolingian(?) vintage, the perspective of�the flowing Jordan,�receding and narrowing into the background is outstanding.�I love it. There is also the oddly 'humped' wavy lines of water in the other baptism of Jesus done in stucco relief. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_John_Abbey,_M%C3%BCstair#/media/File:Benediktinerkloster_St._Johann_Relief.JPG

Karl also makes a good point about the God figure in the Left tympanum of the Chartres Royal Portal. It could just as easily be Christ in contemplation of Creation as God the Father. In the�case of Christ, the� text of reference would be John 1:1-3 where Christ is identified as the Word (Logos) and, in the beginning, the agent of�Creation: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.� The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." However, there is no instance in the New Testament of Christ appearing in a whirlwind. That is why�I think the imagery of Job is more relevant to the understanding of the oddly angled wavy lines and the body posture of the flanking angels.�In any case, to any community faithful to the theology of�the Trinity, as were�the Chartrians of c.1145 CE, the point is moot.

Thank you�Karl for pointing this out. I'll need to�amend my draft accordingly.

Cheers,
Richard J Legault


On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 2:51 AM Karl Brunner <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture


Consider the sculpture of the Sign of �Pisces in the rightmost archivolt of the Royal Portal at Chartres. There, I think it is clear the wavy lines at the bottom are water - the context is Pisces the Fish. However, look to the leftmost tympanum and consider the�wavy lines under the feet of the God figure, that rise obliquely on either side of Him.�I just cannot see these oblique wavy lines as water. Nor do I think they represent cloud. Because of the�their very bizarre shape, and the context of the posture of the flanking angels, �I think there is a good case to be made that these particular wavy lines represent wind -�a whirlwind, I think,�of the kind described in Job.���

But sometimes these wavy lines are indeed waves - from the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and I am sure, it is Christ here, as supreme judge like often over the western door.�

For the baptism cf. e. g. the funny picture at the frescoes in M�stair�http://www.al-fresko.ch/die-taufe-jesu-im-jordan-epiphanie-der-ostkirche/�

Best
Karl, Vienna

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