In the sixteenth century and seventeenth centuries, the Catholic Church was engaged in an ideological war with (among others) Martin Luther, the young professor and preacher from the North. As his teachings spread across Europe, the Church needed a way to combat his teachings. This was done through internal reforms (which had really been an ongoing process since the fifteenth century for other reasons), refining and standardizing the Catechism (at the Council of Trent in 1563), and, of course, art. In Baroque Rome, commissioning and creating art was an extremely important – if not the most important – undertaking. Faced with a growing Protestant population, the Church needed to reassert Rome as the central, glorious, pious, pure, and mighty power that it was for the Catholic world. Rome achieved this through art, for how else were the laity to understand proper Catholic doctrine if not through seeing?

Eugenio Cajés, The Triumph of the Cross, c. 1613 - 1634

One dangerous difference between the Church’s doctrine and Luther’s was their respective teaching on heaven. To the Church, believers would enter heaven after purgatory, after a second chance at redemption and absolution. Heaven was a celestial place that could not be fathomed. It existed in the hope of life everlasting. And, most importantly, heaven itself and the thought of it were sources of undying joy.

How does this differ from Luther? Luther, ever bold in his criticisms of the Church, wrote in one of his books of sermons:

In this one small paragraph, Luther undermines a large portion of Catholic belief: heaven is not a place that “others” (saints) can help believers earn their way into. Luther expresses sorrow for those abiding by the teachings of the Pope, for although they are Christians, they misunderstand heaven and will die unhappy. Why? Because these Christians don’t understand one of the key tenets of the Gospel, one that Christ discussed frequently on earth: the “the kingdom of heaven.” This kingdom, heaven itself, is a place that can and should be found and experienced here on earth:

Luther once again distinguishes his doctrine from Catholic doctrine. As I briefly mentioned, for the Church, heaven was the hope and wellspring of happiness for the laity. If heaven was to be experienced here on earth, there would be no need for intercession of the saints nor would there be anything majestic to look forward to, to hope for, in the impoverished and difficult lives that the majority of the populous experienced in Renaissance and Baroque Italy.

For the poor and devout populous, churches functioned as escapes from the often dreary existences that many parishioners led outside these sacred walls. Heavenly art became glorious and overwhelming. Laity would enter their churches, look up to the ceiling, and be reminded of the majestic celestial home that awaited them. Artists employed trompe l’oeil – tricks of the eye – to give viewers the sense that their church ceiling, dome, or cupola was literally opening up to reveal the heavens. The heavenly realm became a key proponent of worshippers’ experience as they entered and ambulated churches. Churches functioned as a visual reminders of doctrine, salvation, and heroic stories told in the Scriptures and handed down through generations. Upon leaving these sacred spaces and re-entering the difficulty, noise, and poverty of the outside world, the laity were meant to have hopeful hearts and renewed spirits, marveling at and meditating on what was displayed in the art that they were surrounded by.

Meditating on the heavens was encouraged for the joy that everlasting life brought. Heaven itself was a place of happiness, as was the mere thought of heaven. Life was meant to continue forever for the believer, and they could rest in the hope of heaven – that the sorrows of this world would fall by the wayside, seemingly insignificant to the glory that awaited them. Life would continue in joy:

How could artists portray joy and joy within a place that is beyond comprehension? Further complicating their task is that the body of heaven itself is not just incomprehensible, but so is God:

Andrea Pozzo, Apotheosis of St. Ignatius, late 1600s, Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio, Rome, Italy. Click image for larger view.

Artists tackled the problem of the celestial realm and celestial bodies in wondrous ways. Andrea Pozzo and the rest of the Dynamic Baroque fresco painters such as Pietro da Cortona represented heaven as a light-filled, “airy,” space, surrounded by sky, populated with robed saints. Trompe l’oeil allowed these artists to give the viewer the illusion that heaven was descending on, or could be seen through, the ceiling of their churches. Heaven wasn’t burdened with heavy palettes, shrouded in darkness. It was clearly visible to all, and the majesty of the sight above enlists the most powerful feeling of glee,

El Greco, The Burial of the County of Orgaz, 1586-1588

For El Greco, heaven was an ethereal realm punctured with light and filled with ghostly figures. El Greco relied on light, abstraction and liquid-like movement across the composition to portray even the slightest notion of heaven, enabling the viewer’s imagination to soar with the thought of what heaven might be like. (You can read more about heaven meeting earth in El Greco’s The Burial of the Count of Orgaz here.)

For the Venetian master Tintoretto, heaven was not just painted; conceptualizing it was the highlight of his career, painting Paradise on massive scale canvas, the likes of which have not been matched. In fact, when just a concept of the painting was revealed,

Tintoretto’s masterpiece is overwhelming in scale and subject. Rightfully so, for it represents more than heaven. Being in the Sala Maggiore Consiglio, where the Doge and his tribune would gather, the painting is also a symbol of the divine right and blessedness of the Venetian Republic. ¹ Paradise replaced a Glorification of the Virgin by Guariento that hung in the same spot until it was destroyed by a fire in 1577. Paradise focuses on Christ,  the giver of light. The heavens literally revolve around him: the multitude of angelic figures and saints overwhelm the canvas in a circle around the source of light, Christ, and the glorified Mary. F.P.B. Osmaston wrote of the composition:

Tintoretto achieved something remarkable with this painting, not only in technical skill, but in theological significance. His Paradise, commands the artistic attention of the Sala and the eyes of all who enter. In the gilded and ornate Sala, viewers think not of the watery world that waits for them outside; they think of the glorious heavens that wait for them above. (For a detailed and excellent examination of Tintoretto’s Paradise, please click through to read The Paradise of Tintoretto by F.P.B. Osmaston.)

I hope this brief exploration has explained how heaven was perceived and represented in sixteenth and seventeenth century Catholic Italy, and why the Church made the artistic choices they did in that time. Art was a way to visually represent newly standardized Catholic doctrine, as well as a way to bring a sense of peace, awe, and wonder to all viewers.

¹Thomas Worthen, “Tintoretto’s Paintings for the Banco del Sacramento in S. Margherita,” The Art Bulletin , Vol. 78, No. 4 (Dec., 1996), pp. 707-732.

Tags: Art History, Artistic Intention, Baroque Art, Catholicism, Church, Death, El Greco, heaven, Italy, Martin Luther, Protestants, Renaissance Art, Sacred Art

Hello readers!

For those of you who have been reading this site for at least a week, you’ll notice that the website’s layout is completely different than it was a week ago. My husband and I (but mostly him!) spent much of the weekend getting this new chocolatey, Baroque-y template functional and aesthetic for your reading pleasure. The image at the top of the page is a detail from Caravaggio’s (of course) The Raising of Lazarus from 1609. There is also search bar at the top of the page, and the sidebar contains links to pages on the site, what I’m currently reading, and archives. I think the color scheme adds an undefinable quality of something to images contained within posts, and I also enjoy the frilly little frames on the side bar. One thing we fixed over the weekend that wasn’t previously functioning correctly is that if you click on images contained within a post, they will now open up to full size on the screen. Huzzah! If you notice any bugs or have any suggestions, let me know.

Caravaggio, The Raising of Lazarus, 1609

In addition to layout change, I added the following new or modified pages to the site:

• A new page for those of you just getting started on the site.
• A revised page about the purpose of and story behind the site.
• A revised “About the Author” page
• FAQs
• The Entry Bibliographies page is up to date.

Enjoy!

Tags: Updates, Website

I have a confession: over the weekend, I bought a Kindle … and I love it! I have long held the belief that e-readers and e-books will be the death of literacy or at the very least, the death of the art and beauty of the printed word. To some effect, I still maintain this belief for the wider world. Illiteracy is on the rise in America, and its condition will worsen as both K-12 and higher education budgets are slashed and red flags remain waving. Illiteracy certainly won’t be helped by one of the nation’s most popular bookstores, Borders, shutting its doors last year.

The choice to buy a Kindle was not an easy one for me, but it was an obvious one. My wrestling first began on Christmas morning. My parents are very techie. They have all kinds of gizmos and gadgets, but I was nonetheless perplexed when my mother unwrapped a shiny, new Kindle Fire from my father (who owns what I see as its competitor, the iPad). I was surprised because although my parents are techies, they are also avid book lovers. Sitting in the living room on Christmas, we were surrounded by hundreds of books, with hundreds more still throughout their home’s bedrooms.

I grew up with a love for books, something instilled in me by both my parents. When my father was a young man, he would place beautiful labels in his books that stated that said book belonged to (a blank space where my father carefully signed his name). My mother was a theology graduate student, so you can imagine how many books she had in her personal collection – and books of such rich and complex content. As a child, I had my fair share of books as well (all of which my family has faithfully kept in storage), and my more recent collegiate-age collections are collecting dust in my old bedroom, as my new married home couldn’t spatially support so many volumes. It was a terrible thing to decide which books to part with when I married. I am an academic, and like my mother, I buy books with the intent of using them for life. The natural choices for me were any books pertaining to the 17th century - any part of it, geographically or otherwise. Books that also made the journey to their new home were my art history books about theory, any and all Italian and Spanish art related books, my Harry Potter hardcovers, and, of course, my Caravaggio book collection. These are books that I would never want to own or read in digital format. My copy of Caravaggio’s Secrets by Dutoit & Bersani has both dried teardrops of frustration and epiphany, hurriedly scribbled notes, bent page corners, and floppy pages from the time I threw the book on the floor in a 2 AM fury when nothing the authors were saying made any sense. I later picked the book up and held it lovingly, feeling as if I had kicked a puppy. My books are precious to me.

Kindle Fire

When my mother passed around her Kindle Fire for us to examine, the first thing I noticed was how similar it was to the iPad. It has a graphic-intense touch interface and also has a library where the reader clicks on the cover of a book to read it. It opens up, and swipe or touch is used to turn the page. The Kindle Fire also has app capability, including the ability to play games. I had little interest in my mom’s Kindle at the time, apart from thinking that it was a nifty gadget and she would enjoy it. My iPhone (or, just another backlit screen to make my eyes slowly die) was enough for me, I thought. But, as my husband and I were going to leave, I had a revelation of sorts. I looked around and was met square in the face, anywhere I looked, with full bookshelves. I realized that if my parents or I ever move (and we will), we will share a similar problem: having to decide which books in our large collections to keep, boxing up those chosen books, finding strong men to carry those boxes, moving, and rebuilding and restocking our bookshelves. My bookshelves at home are full to the brim, and I hesitate to ask for books – especially art history books (which I enjoy receiving as gifts) – because my home simply don’t have room for them. I will be in more trouble if we move into a smaller apartment (ours is extremely, unusually, and luckilylarge). All these rapid-fire thoughts about books and space and weight led to a conclusion that I wasn’t too comfortable with initially, but knew that I had to embrace: I needed to invest in an E-Reader, not to keep up with the times, but to simply save space (and, as I’ve happily discovered in the past couple days, on book costs).

The pros of an E-Reader are obvious: they can support an enormous amount of books, they’re light and portable, and they’re relatively inexpensive. The cons were more unnerving: to me, E-Readers are a sign that the physical printed word, which I love so much, is most likely slowly dying. I can’t have nearly the same emotional and intellectual investment – indeed, interaction – with my Kindle books as I can with my physical books. I can’t cry onto my E-Reader and later, look back at that tear stain and fondly remember the moment of revelation or sadness that the text brought me. I can’t throw my Kindle down in frustration when I don’t understand part of my course readings. The other question that nagged at me as I was researching, was what if the E-Reader company went out of business – where would I buy my E-Books? Indeed, after reading this article in today’s Wall Street Journal, I realized that such a concern wasn’t silly at all and that I made the safe choice choosing Amazon. The biggest con was that some of my favorite art history scholars and publishers don’t offer books in digital format. After all, one of the major purposes of having an E-Reader was to save space by having art historical and other academic texts in my new small device.

B&N Nook Simple Touch

My New Years Resolution is to read more, so Monday seemed like an obvious choice to begin exploring this uncharted territory. I researched diligently for most of the day on Monday and found out some surprising information that I hope will be helpful. I initially had my heart set on the B&N Nook. I watched a 45-minute demonstration of the Nook one day in Barnes & Noble about a year ago, and I was impressed by the technology but sickened by the concept, so I ignored it. A year later, the Nook still struck a chord with me as the most elegant, stylish, ergonomically-friendly E-Reader. Sure enough, most reviews agreed with that. I’d physically held and tested the Nook so I knew more or less what to expect after I ordered it, but I had no idea what the Kindle looked like or felt like in person and that was a large part of why I was ambivalent toward buying it. I was further put off by the Kindle because ads drive me nuts (if I can help it, you’ll never see ads on Caravaggista!) and it’s a whopping $40 to “unsubscribe” from the ads, which appear on the Kindle’s screensaver and at the bottom of the home screen. I was more partial to the Nook’s visual arrangement of the library and the fonts it uses. The Nook’s reading font customization options are wonderful and numerous. In contrast, the Kindle Touch, while a step up for Amazon, didn’t seem to put much effort into taking advantage of the touch interface by creating a visual library or playing with fonts on its home screen or reading screen. It would turn out that all these features that I was debating were fraught over for nothing.

Kindle Touch

I played tug-of-war with the Nook and Kindle until I did a quick price comparison for their art history books. Amazon offers more specialized art history books for Kindle. B&N also maintains an impressive collection of art history books. However, when I compared prices between these two sellers, my jaw hit the floor. For the types of books I want, B&N is twice – sometimes three times – more expensive than Amazon. To give an example, James Elkins’ Pictures & Tears is listed at about $40 for the Nook, and $16 for the Kindle! I wondered what James Elkins himself would think of the price difference – he, who happily has his work online for academics and intellectuals to read or sample at no cost. For all its elegant display and fancy cases, the Nook lost my puppy love in an instant when I saw that its prices were so high.

Having been thinking about the Kindle all day, I wanted it in the palm of my hands immediately. I had read that it was available in some stores, but I didn’t know what stores. I planned on sucking it up and waiting two days for it to come in the mail … until my husband and I realized that Kindles are sold at Target. We drove to a Target not far from us, and I was excited because their website said the Kindle Touch was in stock. I’m sure you’ve guessed it – it wasn’t. We drove miles up the street to another Target and by this time, since we had impulsively put our dinner on hold so I could feed my new obsession, we were hungry and tired from chasing this wild goose. We (or rather, I) half-walked, half-ran to the electronics section to get a Kindle of my very own, and they had it, and we bought it, and … it was one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. The books are so cheap and physically non-existant that I don’t feel guilty buying them (I’ve just bought a novel so far, but downloaded a variety of free books).

I’ve decided that although I have concerns about what E-Readers mean for the wider general future of literacy, my Kindle isn’t indicative of a slow literacy death in me. My Kindle is terrible for reading PDFs of academic journals and books with extensive footnotes. It doesn’t offer (and I wouldn’t want) certain must-have books in digital format, such as works by Philip Sohm and David M. Stone. And because of this, challenging my mind through what I read in itself becomes more of a challenge, more of something to look forward to. I can hope that one day, academic publishers will do a good job of publishing their books simultaneously in print and digital format, allowing academics and students to read, highlight, and mark up those books, footnotes, and academic journals with ease. Until then, I am content to have a love of physical books for all their beauty, the way they feel in my hand, and the way I can interact with them, and a separate love for the smallness and ease of my new device.

How do you feel about E-Readers?

Tags: Academia, B&N, Bookstore, Borders, E-Book, E-Reader, ereader, Kindle, Literacy, Nook, Reading