CROWN THEM with MANY CROWNS: HALOS in the SUMMULA PICTORIA

The halo may be the most readily recognized symbol in Christian art, and it is seemingly the simplest: a golden circle about the head, indicating sanctity. Yet this symbol has many variations over the centuries of Christian art. Some are stylistic, and I will say little about those except to note that I abhor the practice of depicting a halo in perspective, as a hovering ellipse. No one who has read my opinions on perspective in sacred art would be surprised by this. But some variations on the halo are significant, indeed ingenious. When drawing the Summula Pictoria, I intend to draw upon many of these significant variations, using them consistently in order to communicate much more than simple sanctity.  

Allegory of Prudence, Giotto di Bondone 

Not all halos are circular. Hexagonal (or less commonly octagonal and square) halos adorn the heads of allegorical figures representing the Virtues in many paintings of the late Middle Ages, such as the frescos that Giotto painted on the ceiling of the basilica at Assisi. I rarely draw purely allegorical figures in my religious art, and do not plan to do so in the Summula Pictoria except as background statuary; were I to draw them, I would use hexagonal halos. Several late medieval Italian paintings from the worksop of Bernardo Daddi give a hexagonal halo to St. Longinus; I have no idea why. 

Mosaic of Pope John VII

Square halos appear in early mosaics, indicating sanctity on persons still living when the work of art was made. Usually this is a churchman, or whatever king or queen or emperor funded the building of the church that the mosaic adorns. In traditional Christian number symbolism, four represents the natural world and humanity, just as three represents the spiritual world and divinity. Their sum seven and product twelve represent the interaction of nature and spirit, and of man and God. The four sides of the square correspond to the natural quaternities: directions, seasons, elements, bodily humors. 

Despite the fact that the square halo represents a lower order of holiness than the circular halo, it nonetheless bothers me. To place any artistic indication of holiness on a living man or woman, who has yet to be judged by God, seems presumptuous and sycophantic. Worldly honor may be due to a person for a great act of charity, such as funding the building a church. But the word of God is clear: Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Given how many persons presumed to be living saints proved, upon evidence revealed later, to be scoundrels, I would be happy to see this artistic practice abandoned altogether - or very nearly so. 

I say very nearly so because I can think of two (and only two) persons on whom it would be appropriate. Two persons are alive today whom we may believe with confidence, based on the sacred scriptures and traditions, will be counted among the elect after their natural deaths: I speak here of the patriarch Enoch and the prophet Elijah. The former was taken by God, and the latter ascended to Heaven in the fiery chariot. Tradition identifies these two men with the witnesses in the 11th chapter of the Revelation to St. John, who will return from Heaven to prophesy in the reign of the Antichrist, suffer martyrdom, then rise from the dead and ascend into Heaven after three days. Thus, in the Summula Pictoria, I will depict Enoch and Elijah with square halos - and nobody else.

* * *

A curious sort of halo is characteristic of late medieval Spanish painting. It is a cusped octagon, seen for example adorning the head of St. Joseph in the Adoration of the Magi panel by Blasco de Grañén. In other panel paintings of this time, it appears on the heads of Ss. Joachim and Anna; of Simeon; of Abraham and Moses.

Adoration of the Magi, Blasco de Grañén 

As fas as I can tell, this sort of halo was used only for saints of the Old Testament; that is to say, for holy persons who died before the Resurrection, whose souls descended to the Limbo of the Patriarchs and were present when Jesus Christ broke the doors of Hell and released its captives.

To the medieval mind, the distinction between saints of the Old Testament and saints of the New was important. In the occidental medieval Church, the former were rarely commemorated liturgically; this explains the absence, so  to contemporary Roman Catholics, of specific devotion to St. Joseph before the late fifteenth century. According to the Golden Legend, a medieval encyclopedia of hagiographies,

It is worthy of note that the Eastern Church celebrates the feasts of saints of both the Old and New Testaments. The Western Church, on the other hand, does not celebrate feasts of saints of the Old Testament, on the ground that they descended into Hell - exceptions being made for the Holy Innocents, in each of whom Christ was put to death, and for the [seven] Maccabees.... The number seven is the number of universality. In these seven saints are represented all the Old Testament fathers who deserve to be celebrated. 

I do not know why the octagonal halo for saints of the Old Testament was invented in 15th century Spain. I suspect it may be because many of the faithful at that time and place were converts from Judaism; these included Juan de Levi, the painter who trained Blasco de Grañén, and Esperandeu de Santa Fe, one of his major patrons. They perhaps gave more thought and care to the special manner in which persons such as Abraham were saved.

* * *

I do not plan to use the octagonal halo in the Summula Pictoria, but I do plan to use a distinctive halo for saints of the Old Testament. Here, I draw upon patristic writings in which the New Testament is associated with the clear light of the Sun. St. Ambrose calls Jesus Christ the Sun of Justice. To the saints of the New Testament, I give golden (solar) halos, each with an inner circle and an outer ring, with dark blue between them. 

 

The Old Testament is associated with the uncertain and reflected light of the Moon. To the saints of the Old Testament, I gave silver (lunar) haloes; for these, crescents replace the outer ring, except on those who encountered the Sun of Justice face to face. Joseph, Simeon and Anna, Zachary and Elizabeth have fully circular outer rings on their halos. So do Adam and Eve before the Fall, and Moses who was present at the Transfiguration.  

As I explained in my lecture Heavenly Outlook, the traditional perspective of Christian art is that of looking out of Heaven to things happening on the Earth; thus light sources and vanishing points are behind the viewer rather than within the picture. For this reason, I now draw the crescent moon halos on the patriarchs and prophets to the left - not to indicate a waning crescent, but to indicate a waxing crescent seen from the other side. As a waxing crescent, it indicates that the patriarchs and prophets are getting closer and closer to the revelation of the New Testament. 

That one side of the Moon that is perpetually hidden from the Earth is an apt symbol for God’s relationship with the Gentiles during the Old Testament; His light shone on them as well, but nothing of it was specifically revealed to us on the Earth. For that reason, in those instances when a pagan, such as Nebuchadnezzar or the Tiburtine Sibyl, has a prophetic role in the Summula Pictoria, I draw the halo with a crescent moon facing the opposite way. 

The assigning of halos to the saints of the Old Testament presumes some confidence that they are eternally saved; in most cases, the sacred scriptures and the liturgical and iconographic and patristic traditions support this confidence. In the cases of Samson and Solomon, the matter is not so simple; both men committed serious evils during their lives, and there is no biblical record of their repentance. In the 14th century, St. Mechtilde received a revelation that God had forgiven Samson and Solomon - and Origen as well - but chose to hide that forgiveness from men, lest others presume on their strength, wisdom, or learning to save them. Following that, I choose to give lunar halos to Samson and Solomon, but without the outer ring or crescent; in its place is the dark blue of the night sky, like a new moon that cannot be seen. 

* * *

I have not yet mentioned the undoubtedly greatest saint of the Old Testament, John the Baptist, who of course is liturgically celebrated, and crowned with a halo in traditional Christian art, despite having descended to the Limbo of the Patriarchs.

St. John has a special place between the two Testaments; although he died before the Resurrection, he was cleansed from sinfulness at the time that he leaped in his mother’s womb. And in descending to the dead, he acted as a prophet and forerunner of the coming Savior, just as he did among the living. 

The Virgin Mary also has a special place between the two Testaments; for this reason, she and John have their own special halos in the Summula Pictoria. Mary’s has a golden outer circle and a silver inner circle, with the light blue sky of day between them. John’s has a silver outer circle and a golden inner circle, with the dark sky of night between them. 

* * *

The so-called cruciform halo is perhaps the most commonly used and best known variant of the halo, used to indicate a Divine Person - the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Ghost. It is a golden circle with a cross (often red) inscribed within it. 

It was pointed out by some art historian - I forget which - that the notion that this halo is indeed cruciform is not altogether clear. On the person of Jesus Christ, the bottom part of the cross is obscured by His neck and body, and may perhaps not be there at all. Is the halo intended to indicate a cross, and thus refer to the Sacrifice on Calvary, or is intended to indicate the Holy Trinity, with three branches, not four? 

I rather prefer the second interpretation, as it seems to make more sense when the Divine Person depicted is the Father or the Holy Ghost, neither of whom died on Calvary. In the Summula Pictoria, I draw the Father in the symbolic form of a hand, and the Holy Ghost in the symbolic form of a dove. In either, I draw three branches rather than four in the halo, not necessarily at right angles. 

 

Mosaic of Jesus Christ at Ravenna. Made during the Arian rule of Theodoric the Ostrogoth. The cruciform halo was added later, when the church passed into orthodox hands.

* * *

For angels, and for anyone who is divinely inspired - such as the Apostles at Pentecost, or the Evangelists writing their Gospels - I draw the outer ring blazing, with tongues of flame reaching upward. This kind of halo is common in Persian miniature painting. For the opposite - demonically possessed persons, such as Judas in his act of betrayal - the halo is black, the outer ring smoking rather than blazing. The black halo for Judas is not uncommon in Christian art - Fra Angelico uses it, for example, in his painting of the Sermon on the Mount. I am reserving it only for those events in which the sacred scriptures clearly indicate a demonic presence.

 Sermon on the Mount, Fra Angelico

To indicate a person who is glorified, such as Jesus Christ at His Transfiguration, or after His Resurrection, I draw the halo radiant, with beams of light projecting from its outer ring. 

SUMMULA PICTORIA #232: MARTYRDOM of THOMAS the APOSTLE

http://www.danielmitsui.com/00_pages/sp232_martyrdom_thomas.html

SUMMULA PICTORIA #190: ESPOUSALS of MARY and JOSEPH

http://www.danielmitsui.com/00_pages/sp190_espousals.html

An IMAGINARY EGYPT, GREECE, and BABYLON

In most of my religious artwork, and especially in the Summula Pictoria, I depict a common material culture, that of the European Middle Ages. The clothing, architecture, arms and armor, horse tack, tools, scientific and musical instruments resemble those depicted in illuminated manuscripts, panel paintings, and tapestries from the1 4th and 15th centuries. Thisis regardless of whether the events depicted are from the Book of Genesis or the Acts of the Apostles. In an earlier essay (A Defense of Prophets and Apostles in Medieval Clothing), I explained why I choose to do this rather than take an approach that would represent with archaeological accuracy the various material cultures of the ancient world. 

My intention is to draw meaningful connections between chronologically distant events; that is, to do visually what the Church Fathers did in their exegetical writings that associated the happenings of the Gospel with their prefigurements in the Old Testament. This is made much easier by being able to depict important objects - such as swords, crowns, or chalices - identically in drawings of events separated by thousands of years. I choose late medieval material culture because the artwork of this era is my favorite, and the strongest influence upon my own artwork. 

However, this approach presents another problem. Sometimes, the difference between cultures is itself important - between, for example, that of the Hebrews and the Egyptians, or between the Hebrews and the Babylonians. Considering the entire range of events depicted in the Summula Pictoria, the peoples that need to be distinguished include: 

Egyptians
The conquered peoples of Canaan: Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites &c Philistines
The Queen of Sheba and her retinue
Assyrians
Babylonians
Medians (Darius and his court)
Persians
Samaritans
Greeks
Romans
Indians 

Now the obvious choice for a visual artist who wants to distinguish between these peoples is to depict their own particular decorative art and material culture, especially when these are well-known, as they are for ancient Egypt. But since I am eschewing an archaeological approach for the Summula Pictoria, it makes little sense for me to employ it selectively; how jarring it would look to depict Moses and Aaron dressed in medieval garb, standing in a Pharaonic court recreated from ancient artifacts! 

My own choice, while perhaps more difficult, is more consistent with my overall approach to religious art. I am creating a distinct decorative art for each of the cultures depicted in my drawings. But this is based not on modern archaeological knowledge; it is based on the way that these cultures were understood in the European Middle Ages. I am asking myself what an artist of the generation of Martin Schongauer might have thought about ancient Egypt and how he might have imagined it and depicted it. The answer to that question is where I am starting, and what I am elaborating. 

This approach requires me to set aside the more specific knowledge of ancient Egypt available to a scholar living long after the decipherment of the Rosetta Stone and the excavation of Tutankhamen’s tomb. It requires me even to set aside my own memories of admiring ancient Egyptian art in Chicago’s Field Museum and Oriental Institute. By setting aside that, I am able to concern myself more specifically with the significance of ancient Egypt to western Christianity, and to Gothic art. What is its iconic meaning? 

Albrecht Dürer, drawing made to illustrate Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica 

As far as ancient Egypt is concerned, an artist of the 15th century might have known that the ancient Egyptians used hieroglyphic writing, and believed that these pictures contained hidden meanings. But he probably would have known this through Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica, which was circulating among the intellectuals of the time, rather than direct observation of artifacts. Indeed, the drawings that Albrecht Dürer made to illustrate this text show very clearly how the hieroglyphics were imagined; stylistically, at least, in the same manner as European heraldic art. 

An artist of the 15th century might have known the oracle to Pharaoh Thoulis recorded by John Malalas. He might have had some interest in the Asclepius and the Corpus Hermeticum. Those curious wisdom texts attributed to the ancient Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus had been considered by Lactantius and a few of the other Church Fathers to include prophecies of Jesus Christ. By the end of the Middle Ages, alchemy based on the hermetic tradition was widely practiced in Europe. 

While I have little interest in alchemy itself, I appreciate the broad-minded consideration of the ancient wisdom traditions as expressions of longing for the yet-to-be revealed truth, rather than as mere pagan folly. I am looking forward to depicting statues of Thoth and Imhotep - whom the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt associated with Hermes and Asclepius - in the background when drawing Moses and Aaron confronting the Egyptian magicians. The symbolic associations of the various rods and snakes will be very interesting to illustrate! 

Now I am fully aware that most scholars consider the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus to be newer than the New Testament; their author was unlikely to have been, as previously thought, a contemporary of Moses. Likewise, the oracle to Thoulis is commonly considered an invention of the Christian era. And Horapollo’s interpretation of hieroglyphic writing, while still very interesting for what it reveals about Horapollo, is now known to be almost completely incorrect. 

My intention in using this imagery is not to perpetuate falsehood. It is, rather, to present a broader truth that might have been lost in a more literal, archaeological presentation: that the culture of the Egyptians was mysterious and magical, indeed dangerously so, but still of great interest to Christians and, in its own way, prophetic.

I will mention also that there are many fascinating symbols in the traditions of Christian sacred art that are unworthy of literal belief - the legends of the bestiary, for example, that attribute behaviors to lions or pelicans that no zoologist has recently observed. When I present these images in the Summula Pictoria, it is always on damask, or on architectural ornament, or as statuary; that is to say, on things made by people. This is the same way I include legends associated with the Egyptians and other peoples. 

*** 

Ancient Greece and Rome were of course much more familiar to the artists of the European Middle Ages than ancient Egypt; their languages, and much of their literature, philosophy, mathematics, and architecture were still known and studied and admired. Classical ideas such as the seven planets, the four elements and the four humors were granted their place in Christian symbolism. Plato’s Timæus was considered, by the 12th century scholars of Chartes, nearly as authoritative as the Book of Genesis. 

Saturn, from the Ovide Moralisé published by Colard Mansion 

A curious text of the 14th century, the Ovide Moralisé, applied the same exegetical method to the Metamorphoses that the Church Fathers applied to the Old Testament, seeing symbols of Jesus and Mary in the Roman myths. I intend to depict scenes from the Ovide Moralisé in stained glass windows throughout the Summula Pictoria, when the events depicted happen in a building built by Romans. 

*** 

I have somewhat less to work with when considering the pagan nations of Asia that are so prominent in the Old Testament as conquerors and captors of the Hebrews: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Medes and the Persians. There was little direct knowledge of these nations, their art, and their literature in the era of Gothic art. Examples of cuneiform writing, for example, were not know in Europe until the 17th century. 

A fascinating chapter in Emile Mâle’s study Religious Art in France: The Twelfth Century explains one way in which ancient Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian traditions found their way into Christian art: through the influence of imported fabrics. During the Sassanid Empire, very ancient literary and artistic traditions were revived, and the Sassanid weavers copied the figures of Gilgamesh and the Lammasu onto their damasks. These same traditions were continued in textile workshops after the Arab conquest, and spread throughout Islamdom. The fabrics were traded to Europe, hung in churches, wrapped about relics, and copied by Christian artists. This explains why Gilgamesh and the Lammasu appear in the capitals of 12th century churches in France; their actual identity was probably unknown to the sculptors, except as a curious decoration seen on damask. 

Some medieval intellectuals knew the name of Zoroaster, but this was the Hellenistic Zoroaster, known not so much as the prophet of the Persian religion but as the inventor of magic and astrology. His inclusion as a statue (alongside Ostanes and Hystaspes) in the Summula Pictoria serves the same purpose as the statue of Hermes Trismegistus, and that of Timæus of Locri; I do not mean to endorse either false history or occult practice, but simply to portray the wisdom traditions of the ancient pagans with some sympathy, as expressions of a noble want ultimately fulfilled in the Adoration of the Magi on Epiphany. 

However, an artist of the European Middle Ages, when asked to imagine the culture of Assyria or Babylon or Persia, would probably think less of these obscure figures than of the culture of the peoples now living in those foreign lands. I believe that his imagination of their architecture and decoration would have been strongly impressed by Islamic art. 

Islamic art was known in medieval Europe, from the memories of crusaders and pilgrims, from the artistic legacy left by the Moorish conquerors of Sicily and Iberia, and from the trade of portable goods such as damask and carpets and metalwork. 

Gentile da Fabriano, detail from Adoration of the Magi 

By the 14th and 15th centuries, it was common for these goods to show up in Christian paintings. In Gentile da Fabriano’s famed Adoration of the Magi, the halo behind the Virgin Mary’s head is modeled on a Mamluk platter, complete with Arabic calligraphy spelling gibberish. 

This sort of imitation reveals the magnanimity of Christian artists in deeming all beautiful forms worthy of being offered to God in sacred art, It was never more appropriate than in a painting where the Kings of the Orient offer their treasures to the Christ Child. I take this as a sufficient precedent for imagining those treasures of the Orient in the guise of Islamic art. And personally, I am an enthusiastic admirer of this art, and eager to make it an influence on my own. I am fascinated by girih tiles, muqarnas, thuluth script, and square kufic. 

Now obviously it would be anachronistic and misleading to introduce the doctrines of Mohammed into illustrations of the Bible, and that is not my intention. I avoid depicting any specifically Islamic imagery or writing. I have designed geometric patterns inspired by girih tiles, but I do not use the same set of five basic shapes that were used to lay out the ornament in medieval mosques. Instead, I designed my own tiles, based on shapes with 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 24 sides. 

I decorate buildings with calligraphic ornament, inspired by thuluth script. But the script is not actually Arabic; it is pseudo-Arabic, like the letters on the halo in Gentile da Fabriano’s painting. The only difference is that, rather than being complete gibberish, it is a cryptogram that I use to encode messages in Latin. 

SUMMULA PICTORIA #143: NATHAN and the REPENTANCE of DAVID

http://www.danielmitsui.com/00_pages/sp143_nathan_parable.html

BUILDING ARCHITECTURAL MODELS

It is important to me that everything depicted in the Summula Pictoria be designed by my own hand. This includes architecture. I have no training in this field, and the sort of architecture that I want to draw - a hybrid of Gothic, Russian, and Persian - does not really exist anywhere in the world, at least as far as I know.

For complicated architectural features, I have found it much easier to create small models for guides than to invent buildings entirely on paper.

SUMMULA PICTORIA #67: MARRIAGE of ADAM and EVE

http://www.danielmitsui.com/00_pages/sp067_marriage_adam_eve.html

I drew two different versions of this, slightly different. In the first, I depicted the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as apricots; in the second, I decided to use figs, as these seemed more symbolically resonant. The biggest change is in the ground cover plants; in the first drawing, my idea was to depict poisonous or noxious plants, in order to say that these would have, in the antelapsarian garden, been perfectly pleasant and harmless. Thus Adam and Eve are walking barefoot among poison ivy, stinging nettle, tread-softly, and hemlock. Thinking that this might be too subtle, in the second version, I drew obviously benevolent plants, including rose of sharon and lily of the valley, a reference to the Song of Songs.

SUMMULA PICTORIA #163: REPENTANCE of NINEVEH

http://www.danielmitsui.com/00_pages/sp163_repentance_nineveh.html