Birgittine Devotion and the Campinesque Virgin in the Apse

Birgittine Devotion and the Campinesque Virgin in the Apse Ca1/terine Morris \Vesrcou The Ringling Museum's Virgin and Child in the Af}se persons.• The life and Book of an illiterate English housewife (Figure I) is one of over thirty nearly-identical panel-paint named Margery Kempe (1373-1438) is perhaps the best way ings, each measuring approximately 14" x 18 .. and depicting to understand how the devout took St. Birgiua to heart: Maria /actans nanked by musical angels in a windowless Margery Kempe made pilgrimages to the places St. Birgitta apse.' The "original" (and as yet undiscovcred)Virgin and visited and experienced visions clearly pauemed after those in Chi/ti in the A!)se is 1hough1 10 have been painted around 1425 St. Birgitta's Re11ela1iones.' Contemporary accounts tell us that in the Toumai workshop of Roben Campin (1390-1444). The St. Birgiua's 1ex1s were read and discussed at mealtimes. Even good c<mdition and Campinesque stylistic qualities of the Martin Luther was astounded at the mulli1ude of pilgrims Ringling panel (Figure I) led the Museum in 1983 to subn1it it chanting St. Birgiua's devotional prayers while moving from to Dr. Peter Klein of Universi1a1 Hamburg for dendrochrono one shrine to lhe nex1.8 logical analysis. However. rather than placing the panel within In St. Birgitta's milieu, images in worship had the Campin's lifetime. the Ringling Virgin and Child in rhe Apse meritorious ability 10 engender religious affection and elevate was dated 10 1539-almosi a century after Campin's death.' the mind in wo,-ship. In image-based worship, the devotee The Ringling panel is in semi-pennanem storage in the Museum's looked to an artwork io prayer. the image s1.imularcd the inner vauh. eye and helped forge a link bet ween the aspirant and his Copies are valuable art-historical documents, al- spiritual quest:' one image could serve mulli-<levotional pur- 1hough they offer mere glimpses of an artist's technique, or poses.•• Indeed. popular visionary accounts made no clear phases in the evolution of his work.' The phenomenon of distinction between visions and works of art. For example. multiple copies of late-Medieval and Renaissance images stories describing artworks that had come 10 life to fulfil prcscming, for example, lhc Mtm ofSorrows, Salvaror mundi spiri1Ual needs were welJ•known, and spiritual luminarieS-likc (Figure 2). O J" a Madonna and Child (Figure I). renect the St. John of the Cross and Julian of Norwich called their visions pervasive tradit ion of image-based devotion, 1ha1, as demon- ··pictures."" 8irgiuine testimonials recount several sculptured s1rated by Six1cn Ringbom. often carried indulgences.• These cnicifLxes (Figure 3). as those in San Paolo fuori le mum in sons of panels 1ha1 sought to evoke in the beholder an Rome, and San Lorenw in Panispen,a 1ha1miraculously came experiential, pieial response. cons1i1u1c a genre of production 10 life and spoke 10 St Birgina.12 Fu11hen11ore. countless as important in the Noriheni Renaissance art as the "individual illustrations from St. Birgjtta·s texts like the 1481 woodcut masterpiece." When placed within this specific context of from Burde der \Veit (Figure 4), demons1ra1~ the experiential Renaissance devo1io n, problemsof mulliplici1 y and diachronic communication between the devout, their visions and a living consistency posed b)• the copies of the Campinesque Virgin artwork: is St. Birgina's view of the Father holding his cruci• and Child in rhe Apse may be resolved. My research indicates fied Son and the Virgin holding the Christ-Child a vision, an that these panels effectively parallel the writings of St. Birgina artwork or both? The s1a1emcnt posed by Erwin Panofsky and of Sweden ( 1330- 1373). which vied with scripture for popular supported by Ringbom that St. Birgitta modelled her visions appeal until Luther's Reformation. Regarded in th.is light. the after artworks she had seen, is subs1antia1ed by Birginine Campinesque panels of the Virgin and Child in 1he A!)se arc 1radi1ion, both literary and visual." St. Birgiua's devotionals richly deserving of historical auention and should be rescued are some of the earliest fonnulated and most popular of her from the closet of oblivion reserved for anonymous works. writings. Her collection of prayers 10 the Virgin fou nd in her During her I ifc-1ime and for several centuries after her Revelariones entilled Senno ange/ic11s ( 1352-1354). consists death. St. Birgiua of Sweden was popularly perceived as an of 1lwee prayers a day. 10 be recited seven days a week, each aristocratic lay-person who had achieved union with the followed by a responsorial. Senno angelic11s was intended for Divine.s Her visions were internationally disseminated as texts her monastic Order of S1. Saviour, but 1he text was fonnulated and became the talk of late medieval Europe. For example, S1. and disseminated almost twenty years before St. Birgitta's Birgitta's Revelationes ( 1373) and her dark prophecies emitted order was officially recognized by the church on August 5, On11s 1111111di ( 1424) were among the favorite readings of the 1370;" its proliferation in the vernacular suggests lay piety as aristocracy; they were preached from the pulpit, studied in well." Dedicated 10 the members of the Virgin and Christ, St. universities and translated into the vernacular for devout lay• Birgitta's Fo11r Prayers ( 1345) were 10 be recited every day," 32 and these devo1ions were 10 be direc1ed 1oward an image. 17 The without, warding off all perils from thee, but Campinesque Virgin and Child in the Apse (Figure I) gener even abode within 1hcc... ates images for these well-known Birgiuinc devo1ions, as well The first pan of the "Responsory" for this Lesson reads: "Mary as renec1s 01her de1ails from S1. Birgiua's Revelariones." abode of the sovereign Trinity that containeth both thee and all n,e depiction of the Virgin in white rn1her than in her creation ... " The painting rc~ponds 10 S1. Birgiua's identifica 1radi1ional blue and red is 1he first indica1ion of a Birgiuine tion of Mary as the Church, by fusing her with the archi1cc1ural connection. IJ1 Revelariones Book Vil: Chap1er 21, SL Birgiua setting. The apse's vertical bundled-shafts renec1 the tubular describes 1he Virgin dressed in white, kneeling before the folds of the Virgin's drapery, and the modelling of her head newly-born Chris1-Child who is placed on the ground in a complements the recession of the apse. Funhennore, the cave." Then. in Re1•elatio11es Book Vll: Chapters 22 and 23, panel's blue-granite archi1 cc1urnl sening suggests the mother the Virgin speaks 10 S1. Birgiua about Chrisl's birth in a s1able, church of St. Birgina's Order of S1. Savior at Vadstena. called worshipped by Joseph. angels, shepherds and Magi.'" 111e the "Blue Church" because of the color of its granite. seeming con1radic1ions of place in St Birgiua's narra1ives 111e Virgin and Child in the Apse (Figure I) also mauered not a whi1 10 con1emporary viewers, and before the provocatively alludes 10 sculpture. h is well known that end of 1hc 14th-cen1ury," Birgiuine Na1ivi1ies were being sculplUrcd panels were 1hc mos1 common medium for Late depicted in Italy. as in Niccolo di Tonunaso'sNarivity (Figure Medieval/ Early Renaissance devotional a11, and were consid 5). In Nonhem Europe, painters oflen depic1cd St. Birgitta's ered 10 be a higher an-fonn than panel paintings. For this Nativity shed lining in10 the stony mountainous landscape as reason. perhaps. 1he spatial incongruities of the Virgin and a hollowed cave (Figure 6): Roben Campin's Dijon Nativity Child in the Apse resemble the up-1umed tilt of a bas-relief (Figure 7) follows this 1radi1ion." I believe that in 1he where every object is seen from above.29 Fur1hem1ore, 1he Campinesquc Virgin and Child in the Apse (Figure I), the unusual depiction of the Virgin as the Queen of Heaven with windowless stony apse is a reminder of the impenetrable her hair worn loose reflects funerary s1clae (Figure 8) from defenses of the cave described in St. Birgiua's Revelario11es, Rober1 Carnpin's hometown ofToumai." The pai111ing's sculp which signifies 1he Mother of God's miraculous virginity and tural allusions work the other way as well. for the Virgin's Christ's binh- and burial-places. delicate pink and ivory flesh-tones are vivified against the The Cave as a sepulchre is suggcs1ed a liule la1er in cold, blue-stoned apse. tll!l•elario11es Book VIT:21 , where SI. Birgina describes 1he SI. Birgiua's Four Prayers also explains the presence Virgin wrapping the newly-bom Christ-Child in linen cloths:" of heavenly musicians in the Virgin and Child in rhe Avse:31 I know for ccnain 1hat thy glorious body is ... and afterwards she wrapped and tied on the unceasingly praised with joyful hymns b) boy's head 1hose two small linen clo1hs 1ha1 the whole coun of heaven ... she had prepared for this purpose ... And in Tuesday's First Lesson of Sermo angelicus:" The linen cloth or si1ulo11e described by St. Birgiua, prefigures Wherefore even as the Angels rejoiced in the sheet used for Christ's Descent and for the funerary linens heaven because they knew, even before 1he in which the Virgin wrapped Christ's body. Moreover, 1he creation of the world, that thou shouldst be si11do11e represems the symbolic sacrifice of the Eucharistic born, 0 Mother of God. so did the fore Transubstantiation miracle, where the cloth covers the chalice knowledge of thy binh procure much joy when it is lif1ed from the altar, and the consecrated wafer rests and gladness unto Adam.

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