This is a wonderful guide on deep looking. I’m going to print it out and read it often before I look at new paintings…
You make a good point re visual literacy. So much of the image saturation comes from simplistic logos or advertisements made to get us to buy things. People recognize corporate logos rather than Christian symbols because thats what they've been surrounded by.
One quibble…I would argue that the paintings you feature are more Northern Renaissance than Gothic. When I studied this period, I learned that the Northern Rennaisance style blends some Gothic elements and symbolism with a naturalism that is not “realistic.” The dates seem to be post Gothic too.
In my opinion, the best Renaissance art idealizes in this way and points to the divine without supplanting it. The Northern Renaissance does this better than the Italian Rennaissance, which is often more self referential.
Ahh. I see these pieces now. This must have been before I subscribed and started really reading. I have never hear these kinds of paintings called “Gothic” before but I’m intrigued by your assessment...Are there any books on this period you would recommend?
Technically, this painter falls into the category of the Early Netherlandish painters that include giants like Van Eyck, Robert Campin, and Rogier Van der Weyden. These are often called a "transitional" period or school between Late Gothic or Northern Gothic, and Renaissance. But I'm becoming very impatient and unhappy with the academic habit of placing "The Renaissance" at the centre of the universe and drawing all lines toward it. Keeping in mind that all these categories are inventions applied after - often very long after - the historical reality. Oriented all our examinations of art in terms of its relationship with "The Renaissance" (angel choir) has distorted our entire conception of western art, especially Christian sacred art.
Yeah, I totally agree. I got frustrated by this while studying Giotto. Art historians spend so much time trying to connect him to Renaissance painters but Renaissance artists seem much less influenced by Giotto than Greco-Roman artists from antiquity.
It's a weird sort of bigotry, and comes straight out of the 19th c. Victorian English, French and German art historians who hated the Catholic Faith and were determined to make sure no one ever connected any of these paintings with the Christian mystical tradition.
And it's been going on since Vasari was shilling for the Medici.
It's not just in art, but in general history. "The Renaissance" is nearly always treated as a hard point in history, a dividing chasm between the "old" and new. This tendency is starting to crack under pressure from historians more keen to maintain continuities of thought and culture and politics, but we have nearly half a millennium of bias here, reinforced not just by English anti-Catholic bigotry, but French "enlightenment" snobbery, and German "progressive scientific rationalism". These old idols are strong.
This is, frankly, an outstanding lesson in art history! It has moved me to become a paid subscriber. Well, this super post, and another in which you indicate a desire for some music. You might look at a few streaming apps: I use idagio, which you can find at idagio.com, and is classical only, with lossless quality sound, and of course Spotify, found at spotify.com, and which contains both popular and classical music. I think you're going to find that when you compare Byzantine liturgical music with the slightly later western renaissance liturgical music, the musical development kind of tracks the differences you've drawn between Byzantine and early Medieval art, and later Renaissance art.
I don't think I mentioned music at all in this post, so not sure where you're getting all this. But I stream everything on Spotify.
I love music, and listen almost constantly, esp. while writing, but know next to nothing about it. Liturgical music isn't my department; I leave that up to Peter K.
All my playlists are public. There might be more Beatles than might normally be considered sane.
Well, you certainly did not mention music in the above post, but my recollection is that in a standalone Note you did. Of course, when I went to look for it, I was. . . Substacked, I guess you could say, because I was absolutely unable to find the Note I had intended to reply to. So now I'm thinking that I may have been reading a Note posted by somebody else! And I'm not sure why I thought that it was you. In any event, I do apologize for the confusion I created! Still LOVE this article, though!
Though not exactly bastions of tradition in other ways, university literature departments have nonetheless remained faithful to "close reading," which is our equivalent of deep looking. It was in English classes that I gained much of my ability to analyze and thoroughly comprehend visual art.
Thanks, Hilary - very helpful. I liked especially the very babyish detail in this beautiful painting of the Christ Child rumpling the pages of the book, with Our Lady steadying it. I've not seen this detail in any other depiction of Mother and Child.
Yes, this detail is present in every version by this painter/painters, and it’s worth thinking about it. I haven’t found anything talking about this, but it’s a mistake to assume that the painter intended it to be seen as something “cute”, a “cute” depiction of Christ doing what all babies do in the natural sense. For us moderns it gives us a sense of emotional relief - He’s just an ordinary baby, and does what all babies do - but I think this is a result of our Humanistic cultural trend that wants desperately to downplay Christ’s divinity. We like to be reassured that He was a human baby because it eases our fears that we are ignoring what is important about Him; His divinity, and all it implies.
Also, the idea that babies are “cute” in the modern sense, and that attribute was something to be inserted into sacred art is something entirely new, and really only got going in the later Renaissance, with its full adherence to Naturalism and its implied rejection of sacrality in art. The point of depicting the Christ Child isn’t to show a melting image of a cute baby - an emotional - that is, natural or material - reaction that would moreover mostly appeal only to women. Sacred art at this period was still mostly not about our feelings, and would certainly not have been interested in that kind of reaction. So we can ask what it actually means, and there are a few options.
The book in such images, going back to the early Byzantine, is always either the book of the Gospels or the Book of Life, from the book of Revelation. I had an interesting discussion about this with a friend, and he suggested several possible interpretations. The fact that it is repeated exactly the same way in each version, and that the Child crushing or damaging the pages is a motif repeated many times by other painters starting about this time implies that there is some sort of canonicity about it, some accepted symbolic meaning.
It could be something like a symbolic gesture showing the superiority of divine knowledge or the presence of innate knowledge, relative to the human as found in the books. But this would tend to imply that there was some kind of opposition or competition between the Scriptures and the Word of God Himself, which is not an idea that would have been accepted theologically for sacred art. I think it’s significant that the Child damaging or destroying the book or being in any way careless with it was something not seen at all in earlier depictions of this kind.
But of course, we are talking about the very Late Gothic, or Flemish Renaissance, and a lot of Naturalism (capitalised because I’m referring to philosophical Naturalism properly so called) and therefore emotivist sentimentalism, had already found its way into much Christian art, even though a good deal of the original symbolism was still employed.
So, anyway, it’s an interesting point, and worth asking about. I looked around online for someone talking about it and found nothing.
You know, I was going to ask you about the symbology, but I thought maybe I was assuming too much. So you answered me without my asking. Yes, I also wondered if some of those pages were purposely being rumpled. An interesting point to ponder, but I guess we aren't going to find out soon. Thanks so much for the deep dive here.
This is a wonderful guide on deep looking. I’m going to print it out and read it often before I look at new paintings…
You make a good point re visual literacy. So much of the image saturation comes from simplistic logos or advertisements made to get us to buy things. People recognize corporate logos rather than Christian symbols because thats what they've been surrounded by.
One quibble…I would argue that the paintings you feature are more Northern Renaissance than Gothic. When I studied this period, I learned that the Northern Rennaisance style blends some Gothic elements and symbolism with a naturalism that is not “realistic.” The dates seem to be post Gothic too.
In my opinion, the best Renaissance art idealizes in this way and points to the divine without supplanting it. The Northern Renaissance does this better than the Italian Rennaissance, which is often more self referential.
I object very strongly indeed to calling this period the Northern Renaissance. I’ve written about (against) this idea fairly vociferously.
Ahh. I see these pieces now. This must have been before I subscribed and started really reading. I have never hear these kinds of paintings called “Gothic” before but I’m intrigued by your assessment...Are there any books on this period you would recommend?
Technically, this painter falls into the category of the Early Netherlandish painters that include giants like Van Eyck, Robert Campin, and Rogier Van der Weyden. These are often called a "transitional" period or school between Late Gothic or Northern Gothic, and Renaissance. But I'm becoming very impatient and unhappy with the academic habit of placing "The Renaissance" at the centre of the universe and drawing all lines toward it. Keeping in mind that all these categories are inventions applied after - often very long after - the historical reality. Oriented all our examinations of art in terms of its relationship with "The Renaissance" (angel choir) has distorted our entire conception of western art, especially Christian sacred art.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Netherlandish_painting
Yeah, I totally agree. I got frustrated by this while studying Giotto. Art historians spend so much time trying to connect him to Renaissance painters but Renaissance artists seem much less influenced by Giotto than Greco-Roman artists from antiquity.
It's a weird sort of bigotry, and comes straight out of the 19th c. Victorian English, French and German art historians who hated the Catholic Faith and were determined to make sure no one ever connected any of these paintings with the Christian mystical tradition.
And it's been going on since Vasari was shilling for the Medici.
The anti-Catholicism runs strong in any history written by the English.
It's not just in art, but in general history. "The Renaissance" is nearly always treated as a hard point in history, a dividing chasm between the "old" and new. This tendency is starting to crack under pressure from historians more keen to maintain continuities of thought and culture and politics, but we have nearly half a millennium of bias here, reinforced not just by English anti-Catholic bigotry, but French "enlightenment" snobbery, and German "progressive scientific rationalism". These old idols are strong.
"No, The Renaissance, not everything's about you. Sit down."
https://open.substack.com/pub/hilarywhite/p/no-the-renaissance-man-is-not-the?r=9bqqp&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Ha!
Thanhs so much for this highly educational post. I love your insights and also your own paintings.
This is, frankly, an outstanding lesson in art history! It has moved me to become a paid subscriber. Well, this super post, and another in which you indicate a desire for some music. You might look at a few streaming apps: I use idagio, which you can find at idagio.com, and is classical only, with lossless quality sound, and of course Spotify, found at spotify.com, and which contains both popular and classical music. I think you're going to find that when you compare Byzantine liturgical music with the slightly later western renaissance liturgical music, the musical development kind of tracks the differences you've drawn between Byzantine and early Medieval art, and later Renaissance art.
I don't think I mentioned music at all in this post, so not sure where you're getting all this. But I stream everything on Spotify.
I love music, and listen almost constantly, esp. while writing, but know next to nothing about it. Liturgical music isn't my department; I leave that up to Peter K.
All my playlists are public. There might be more Beatles than might normally be considered sane.
https://open.spotify.com/user/zw57goqq3oqoaze6ijtr5ad5m?si=951db6dcc1484610
Well, you certainly did not mention music in the above post, but my recollection is that in a standalone Note you did. Of course, when I went to look for it, I was. . . Substacked, I guess you could say, because I was absolutely unable to find the Note I had intended to reply to. So now I'm thinking that I may have been reading a Note posted by somebody else! And I'm not sure why I thought that it was you. In any event, I do apologize for the confusion I created! Still LOVE this article, though!
Thank you, Hilary, this is superlative work.
Though not exactly bastions of tradition in other ways, university literature departments have nonetheless remained faithful to "close reading," which is our equivalent of deep looking. It was in English classes that I gained much of my ability to analyze and thoroughly comprehend visual art.
Thanks, Hilary - very helpful. I liked especially the very babyish detail in this beautiful painting of the Christ Child rumpling the pages of the book, with Our Lady steadying it. I've not seen this detail in any other depiction of Mother and Child.
Yes, this detail is present in every version by this painter/painters, and it’s worth thinking about it. I haven’t found anything talking about this, but it’s a mistake to assume that the painter intended it to be seen as something “cute”, a “cute” depiction of Christ doing what all babies do in the natural sense. For us moderns it gives us a sense of emotional relief - He’s just an ordinary baby, and does what all babies do - but I think this is a result of our Humanistic cultural trend that wants desperately to downplay Christ’s divinity. We like to be reassured that He was a human baby because it eases our fears that we are ignoring what is important about Him; His divinity, and all it implies.
Also, the idea that babies are “cute” in the modern sense, and that attribute was something to be inserted into sacred art is something entirely new, and really only got going in the later Renaissance, with its full adherence to Naturalism and its implied rejection of sacrality in art. The point of depicting the Christ Child isn’t to show a melting image of a cute baby - an emotional - that is, natural or material - reaction that would moreover mostly appeal only to women. Sacred art at this period was still mostly not about our feelings, and would certainly not have been interested in that kind of reaction. So we can ask what it actually means, and there are a few options.
The book in such images, going back to the early Byzantine, is always either the book of the Gospels or the Book of Life, from the book of Revelation. I had an interesting discussion about this with a friend, and he suggested several possible interpretations. The fact that it is repeated exactly the same way in each version, and that the Child crushing or damaging the pages is a motif repeated many times by other painters starting about this time implies that there is some sort of canonicity about it, some accepted symbolic meaning.
It could be something like a symbolic gesture showing the superiority of divine knowledge or the presence of innate knowledge, relative to the human as found in the books. But this would tend to imply that there was some kind of opposition or competition between the Scriptures and the Word of God Himself, which is not an idea that would have been accepted theologically for sacred art. I think it’s significant that the Child damaging or destroying the book or being in any way careless with it was something not seen at all in earlier depictions of this kind.
But of course, we are talking about the very Late Gothic, or Flemish Renaissance, and a lot of Naturalism (capitalised because I’m referring to philosophical Naturalism properly so called) and therefore emotivist sentimentalism, had already found its way into much Christian art, even though a good deal of the original symbolism was still employed.
So, anyway, it’s an interesting point, and worth asking about. I looked around online for someone talking about it and found nothing.
You know, I was going to ask you about the symbology, but I thought maybe I was assuming too much. So you answered me without my asking. Yes, I also wondered if some of those pages were purposely being rumpled. An interesting point to ponder, but I guess we aren't going to find out soon. Thanks so much for the deep dive here.