A Study in the Iconography of the Incarnation

Author(s): Helen Rosenau

Source: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 85, No. 496 (Jul., 1944), pp. 172+176-177
+179
Published by: Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd.
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Notes on the Arundeland ImstenraedtCollections-II.
Brechtl appear twice in the Inventory. StephenBrechiel
apparently refersto a medal,'4 whereas RitrattodeStephano
brechelpietraprobably indicates a stone model. This has
not yet been found, as far as I know. As models for
medals are as a rule unique, another stone model, listed
as SebastianUnderholtz.pietra is to be identified with the
model in the Helferich Collection at Eisenach, formerly
in the Spitzer Collection at Paris.76 Portraits of princes
like the Emperors Frederick III, Maximilian I, CharlesV
and King Sigismund I of Poland, or of celebrities like
Erasmus of Rotterdam, are too numerous to allow
identification. For Gregorius Thurlke,76Lorent Schaw,
Paullus Kremer,77hermanbockmann,Annafuchsin, Benedict
Mulner,no medals are recorded by Habich.
Lack of space forbids longer discussion of these and
other objects of the collection, but a MonumentoA.D.
and ritrattod'AlbertoDurero. Conchamust not remain un-
noticed. These portraits of Dfiirer,so far unrecovered,78
form a most characteristic complement to Lord Arundel's
famous assemblage of paintings and drawings by that
great German master.* (Concluded)
73 Philip Count Palatine, Bishop of Freisingen (b. in 1480, d. in
1541). Medals: HABICH, I/I, Nos. 91, 446-448. The stone
SHORTER NOTICES
A STUDY IN THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE
INCARNATION. By Helen Rosenau.
"In imagine notitia oritur mediantevoluntatea mente."
Such is St. Bonaventura's attitude towards the visual
arts, an attitude which expresses- their significance
and dignity, correlating the two qualities paramount to
the medieval mind, volition and cognition.1
During the Middle Ages 'the image of the Virgin
Mary gains an ever-increasing popularity, and it is
therefore not only historically instructive but also
artistically revealing to note some of the changes which
have taken place with regard to this subject. In a
previous article we have tried to trace the development
from the creative and cosmic ideal of a maternal power
symbolised in Isis to the more human approach of the
later periods revealed in the Virgin Mary.2 She
represents the passive principle in the words of St. Bona-
ventura " Materestprincipium passivum,"3and the problem
arose for the medieval mind to reconcile the passive
and the active principles in the fact of the incarnation.
This preoccupation is reflected in some late medieval
scenes of The Annunciation,The Visitation,and Joseph
reprimanding the Virgin; here the unborn children are
seen so to speak inside their mothers' wombs, and the
tendency to a naturalistic interpretation of the miracle
is clearly visible.
The derivation of this type appears to be a two-fold
one. Its form is derived from the " platytera," showing
the child as an abstract symbol affixed to but not inside
the body of the mother; a similar theme appears,
especially on seals, giving the whole figure of the
child in a mandorla [PLATE II, B]. This type also
appears in Baouit, the Madonna holding up the man-
dorla enclosing the child with both hands [PLATE II, C].
The " platytera " proper appears in Byzantine art as
early as the fifth or sixth century [PLATE II, A], and in
1 DOCTORIS SERAPHICI BONAVENTURAE: Opera Omnia, Liber
PrimusSententiarum,
I, p. I27. Ad ClarasAquas,1882,ff.
2 THE BURLINGTON Vol. LXXXIII[I943], p. 228.
2 BONAVENTURA:MAGAZINE,
op.Cit.,I, p. 122.
176
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relief reproduced in HABICH: I/I, Abb. 27, the wood relief, ibid.,
Abb. 89, discussed in II/I, p. cx.
74 Stephan Brechtl (b. in 1523, d. in 1574), calligrapher at Nurem-
berg. HABICH:I/2, Nos. 1746, 1747 ; Il/I, Nos. 2434, 2527.
75Sebastian Unterholzer (b. probably at Salzburg, lived at
Munich and Nuremberg, d. in 1577). Several medals recorded by
HABICH, the stone model mentioned in 1/2, No. 1440, as the work
of an anonymous Munich or Nuremberg master. cf. also Catalogue
CollectionSpitzer,III, Paris [1891], p. 283, No. 162.
76 Probably misspelling for Gregorius Tiirck, goldsmith at Nurem-
berg (d. in 1569).
77 Paul Kremer, a Nuremberg wood-carver, cf. THIEME-BECKER:
XXr [1927], p. 494.
78 If monumentum refers to a portrait medal with a commemorative
inscription, Hans Petzolt's magnificent adaptation of Hans Schwarz's
Diirer medal (HABICH, II/I, p. XCV, fig. 123) and Matthes Gebel's
Diirer medals of 1527 and 1528 (HABICH, 1/2, Nos. 959 and 968,
the stone models preserved in the collection of the late Sir Julius
Wernher, London) have equal claims to identification ; but there
have also to be taken into consideration drafts of an inscription for
a portrait medal of Duirer himself in the British Museum (C.
DODGSONin DiirerSociety,XII [1911], XX, XXI ; HABICH ; I/I,
No. 22 ; F. WINKLER: Die ZeichnungenAlbrechtDiirers, II g1938],
No. 720), although no medal corresponding to Diirer's design has
been found so far.
* I should like to
acknowledge my thanks to Mr. Denys Sutton,
who is preparing a detailed study on the Arundel Collection, and
to Mr. Ivan Tudor for kindly reading the proofs of this article.
many adapted forms spreads over Europe during the
Middle Ages.4
The great changes which take place in the structure
of society in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and
the emergence of new visual types are reflected in the
writings during this period.5 St. Bonaventura is almost
obsessed by the problem of the corporeal aspect of the
incarnation. It is not suggested that he alone influences
the new prototypes of the Madonna, but that writings of
this kind exerted a powerful influence on the artists'
imagination, and were in turn influenced by the visual
arts. This mutual give and take played its part in the
creation of visionary and visual types. This may be
well seen in the works of Hildegard, of Bingen, Mechtild,
of Magdeburg, Bridget, of Sweden, to quote only a few
well-known examples.
St. Bonaventura lays great stress on the passage in
Jeremiah (I, 5) which foreshadows to a certain degree
the idea of the incarnation: " Priusquamte formaren
in utero novi te." Among his authorities Bonaventura
quotes St. Bernard: " Veneramini ergo . .. in carne
corruptibilicarnis integritatem." He alludes frequently
to the passages in St. Luke bearing on the subject,
especially to the child leaping in the womb of
Elizabeth and to the angelic salutation (Luke I, 4I and
35). But the interest of St. Bonaventura in the subject
of the incarnation is perhaps most clearly expressed in
the following passage :
4N. P. LIKHACHEV : The Historical Importance of Italo-Greek
of theBlessedVirgin,St. Petersburg, 1911
SacredPictures; Representations
(In Russian). The type of the Virgin holding the child in a
mandorla may be explained as a combination of the " platytera "
with the image of the Mother holding the child. Cp. the survey in
P. CLEMEN: Die Monumentalmalerei in den Rheinlanden,Dusseldorf
[I916], p. 466 ff. Also S. H. STEINBERG in Zeitschriftfuer
Kirchengeschichte,LI [1932], p. 512 ff. The earliest representa-
tions of the " platytera " are dated by Likhachev in the fifth or
sixth, not the ninth century as Steinberg assumes. Cp. also
O. M. DALTON: Byzantine Art and Archaeology[Oxford, I9I1],
p. 682 f., p. 674.
5 On some related problems cp. D. M. ROBB, in Art Bulletin,
XVIII [1936], p. 480 ff., esp. p. 523 ff.
 A-MADONNA AND CHILD WITH TWO ANGELS.
BYZANTINE, END OF FIFTH OR BEGINNING OF SIXTH
CENTURY. WALLPAINTING. (MONASTERY OF BAOUIT)

B, C-LEAD SEALS. BYZANTINE, FIFTH OR SIXTH CENTURY. DIAMETER, ABOUT D-MAATER MISERICORDIAE. ATTRIBUTED TO B
2.6 CM. (LIKHACHEV COLLECTION). RELIEF IN STONE. HEIGHT 190 CM. (VICTORIA A

PLATE II. A STUDY IN THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE INCARNATION

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" nam secundumintellectumlitteralemconvenitVirgini
Mariae, in cuius tabernaculo requievit Dominus
corporaliter. ."
This last citation is particularly significant for art
history, since " tabernaculum" designates the receptacle
for the Eucharist.6 A related conception appears in
the veneration of particles of the bodies of saints, and
it is therefore not surprising that an early fourteenth
century sculpture representing the Visitation in the
Metropolitan Museum shows the unborn children
inside their mothers' bodies and seems influenced by
reliquaries [PLATE I, A].'
A type derived from the "platytera" was thus
combined with the preoccupation with the incarnation
and influences from the cult of relics, in order to create
a visual representation of the unborn children in a
realistic manner.
In Italy the development differs from the one hinted
at above. There, realism belonged to the sphere not of
detail but of the artistic creation as a whole. The
" platytera " and the Madonna holding the child in a
mandorla were therefore transformed in an opposite
sense. The child, which in the " platytera " was not
clearly described in its physical relation to the Virgin,
but was seen somehow hovering before her, is now
incorporated in a clasp which still retains the mandorla
shape, a clasp which fastens her cloak. To this type
belongs the MaterMisericordiae attributed to Bartolomeo
Buon in the Victoria and Albert Museum [PLATE II, D]8.
But further north the mystical strain, following
St. Bonaventura's conception, was more fruitful. If the
influence of the " platytera," the Madonna holding
the child in a mandorla, and the reliquaries as suggested
here, is correct, the earliest examples of the type
should either appear similar to reliquaries or show the
mandorla. The New York Visitation fulfils both
requirements, since the children are inserted in a
receptacle of oval shape. In Bohemia frequent examples
of the same subject represent the child having moved
downwards, so to speak, from the breast into the womb
of the mother. But it still retains its mandorla [PLATE
I, B]9. The same is true of the scene taken from the
Apocrypha (Book of James XIII-XV) in which Joseph
reproves the pregnant Virgin [PLATE I, C].
In the Visitationof the School of Konrad Witz this
remnant of sacred symbolism is curtailed. The children
are again seen, as it were, inside their mothers' wombs,
but the mandorla has disappeared and the halo only
surrounds the children's heads [PLATE I, D]. The
Feast of the Visitation, which had first been adopted by
SBONAVENTURA: op., cit. IX, pp. 664 and 671. Sermones de
B. Virgine Maria. Cp. also DUCANGE : Glossarium,under " taber-
naculum."
7A. HEIMANN in R. SALOMON: Opicinusde Canistris, London
[1936], p. 320, note 2, quoting J. BRECK and M. R. ROGERS:
MetropolitanMuseumof Art, The PierpontMorgan Wing, 2nd ed., New
York [1929], p. Io2, fig. 56. An unpublished miniature in Karlsruhe
belonging to the same type and date as the Pierpont Morgan
example is mentioned by Miss Heimann. Incidentally Miss
Heimann considers the two works as German, whilst Breck and
Rogers assume the New York example to be French. Cp. on
reliquiaries ST. BEISSEL: Geschichteder VerehrungMarias, Freiburg
[I9o9], P. 299, fig. 99.
8 Cp. V. SUESSMANN, in
MarburgerJahrbuch,V, 1929, p. 285 ff.
L. PLANISZIG: VeneZianische Bildhauerder Renaissance,Wien [1921],
p. 26 ff. Cp. also M. MEISs : Art Bulletin, op. cit., p. 477 f. and
fig.9 I6.
A. MATEJCEK: Ceska Malba Goticka, Prague [1938], passim.
W. KLoos : Die ErfurterTafelmalerei,Berlin
[1935], p. 33.
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ShorterNotices
the Franciscans following the advice of St. Bonaventura
in 1263, increased in popularity, and was confirmed
by the Church at the Council of BMlein i441. It is
significant that in this region and its neighbourhood
the theme of this study remained frequent.l0 Kuenstle
quotes a few examples in the South of Germany which
are closely akin to the Bohemian and Austrian types."1
Indeed it may be said that the countries, in which the
Wyclifian " heresy " became the stimulus for a popular
movement, developed a special interest in the relation-
ship of the material and the spiritual as manifested in
the incarnation and in transubstantiation. The utra-
quists are perhaps the best-known exponents of this
movement. A trend of thought directed towards the
change from bread into flesh and from wine into blood
gave the background for the vision of the unborn child
in the mother's womb. Once conceived the type
survived, and frequent examples may be seen in the
peasant art of Austria and Bohemia,12 an art which
reveals the lingering of an artistic form in lower strata
of society at a time when the impulses, which led to its
inception, had lost their actuality for the social groups
which originated it.
10 Cp. the excellent survey by F. G. HOLWECK in The Catholic
Encyclopedia, under " Visitation." W. UEBERWASSER: Konrad
Witz, Basel, n.d., p. XXI f.
11 K. KUENSTLE: Ikonographieder ChristlichenKunst, Freiburg
[1928], I, p. 341 ff., p. 620 ff.
12 Oesterreichische Kunsttopographie,Die Kunstdenkmaelerder Stadt
Salzburg,XVI, Wien [1919], fig. 102, p. 71. Whilst this article was
in print there appeared a reference to the " platytera " in CH. DE
TOLNAY:The Youthof Michelangelo,Princeton [1943], No. Ioo, p. 158;
I wish to take this opportunity of expressing to Miss J. Barrie,
Dr. W. L. Hildburgh, Dr. 0. Kurz and Dr. L. Muenz my apprecia-
tion for valuable suggestions.
TEXTILES FROM PALMYRA. By J. F. Flanagan.
The silks from Palmyra and also those from Halebie
Zenobia are of much consequence since they supply
the first material evidence in confirmation of the
statements made by the Roman writers in reference
to the importation of such fabrics from the Far East.1
With the exception of a few minute fragments frori a
Greek tomb in the Crimea, no earlier Chinese silks have
been found in the West.2 It is extremely important
that these valuable stuffs should be correctly classified
with due regard to their origin and content, other-
wise vital facts which concern the development of the
earliest figured weaves will be overlooked. In the
hands of M. Pfister the materials from Palmyra have
received more careful examination than has been given
to the majority of ancient weavings. His diagrams,
which explain the structure of the fabrics, supply clear
and reliable information, but some of them offer evidence
contradictory to his conclusions or those of his colleagues.
For the weaving of L43 and S38 it is claimed that eight
shafts and treadles " 8 lams et 8 marches " were
required, although it is obvious from the diagrams that
only four were needed.3 S6 and S38 are of the same weave
as that of some early Chinese four heald damasks found
at Astana in Chinese Turkestan, and it is extremely
unlikely that such fabrics were woven in the West.'
1 R. PFISTER: Nouveaux Textiles de Palmyre [1937]. Textiles de
Palmyre, III [I94o]. N.P. TOLL: "Halebie Zenobie." Annales
de l'InstitutKondakov,IX.
2
CompteRenduImp. Arch. Comm.[1878-9], Pl. V, 3-
3 Nouveaux Textiles, Fig. 8, L43; Fig. I6, S38; Fig. I7, S6.
Eight shafts or healds were not used prior to a few centuries ago.
4 SIR MARC AUREL STEIN : InnermostAsia [1928].
'79
 B-THE VISITA TION. C--JOSEPH REPRO V
THE VIRGIN. c. 1
BOHEMIA, EARLY FROM ERFURT. BERL
15th CENTURY. (HOHEN-
FURTH, CZECHOSLO-
VAKIA)
A-THE VISITATION.
FRANCE, c. 1300. WOOD,
(METROPOLITAN
MUSEUM, NEW YORK)
F-COAT OF ARMS OF THE FUER-
LEGER FAMIL . DATED 1531.
STONE RELIEF. DIAMETER, 7.3 cM.
(DEUTSCHES MUSEUM, BERLIN)

E-GIRL FROM THE FUERLEGER FAMILY. ETCH- G-THE DEAD CHRIST. BY HANS SCHWARZ. H-GIRL FR
ING BY HOLLAR. c. 1646. AFTER DUERER'S SIGNED HS. ABOUT 1520. WOOD ROUNDEL. DIA- ETCHING B
PICTURE (1497) IN THE ARUNDEL COLLEC- METER, 10.9 CM. (DEUTSCHES MUSEUM, BERLIN; PICTURE (1
TION FORMERLY IN THE ARUNDEL COLLECTION) TION

PLATE I. A STUDY IN THE ICONOGRAPHY OF THE INCARNATION

NOTES ON THE ARUNDEL AND IMSTENRAEDT COLLECTIONS-II

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