I apologize for not posting more frequently. First, someone is reading my posts as I write them. He or she may have the best intentions. Still, I have always worked alone. Although I have read and continue to read books and articles on Molière and insert quotations from learned articles, I usually present a significantly personal analysis of Molière.
It seems, however, that I may henceforth publish shorter posts. Last Wednesday, I tried to do some online banking. However, the company has created a new and safer version of its online tools. I followed the instructions, and a message appeared confirming that all was well. However, I could not log in.
So I phoned the company and waited for a few minutes until someone was available, but I started to cry when a young man answered. Technologies are a genuine obstacle, and technical problems may trigger a vulnerability. At any rate, within a few minutes, two large policemen were inside my apartment. I put on my mask, and we spoke.
I mentioned that my cat had died on 29 November 2019 and that it would soon be a year since he died. Moreover, I had been inside my apartment since March, avoiding the coronavirus. As well, in the space of three years, I had failed to settle in my apartment. Finally, Sherbrooke is now a red zone. One cannot call a carpenter until a degree of safety has been reached. Who would help during a pandemic?
One of the policemen suggested I adopt a cat, and one offered to remove a heavy box from the hallway. They were good people. I thanked them because I felt much better. It had been an accident.
One returns to life as usual, a narrower life because of Covid-19, but life.
However, I reflected that in the days of the coronavirus, if a citizen of Sherbrooke, Quebec, feels distraught, his or her best help could be the police. They are available twenty-four hours a day, and they make house calls.
I would invite you to reread the article I posted yesterday.
I have not changed my mind. I believe that we have to test people and let the healthy return to the workplace. Self-isolation alone will not keep us safe. Not if we can no longer work and earn a living. There is no overnight miracle, but testing may allow the economy to recover more quickly.
Testing is much easier than discovering a vaccine. As I mentioned yesterday, there is an American group who is working with doctors and scientists and would send the healthy back to a safe workplace. Testing would be needed.
A vaccine will be produced, but it may not be produced in the foreseeable future, luck being a factor. Who will come up with the brilliant idea that will allow a cure and also allow the world to be as it should be. We can now see the magnificent Himalayan range of mountains.
Leaders, doctors and scientists must work together, but expertise must inform decisions made by elected officials. Mr Trump is ready to send people back to work to save the economy. But we cannot allow people who test positive to return to work. They must still self-isolate, or the pandemic will continue.
A Triage: Testing
What I am suggesting is a triage that would separate the healthy from the sick and allow those who test negative to return to work. The sick would be treated, but the healthy would keep the economy alive. We have new tools: Skype, etc. Although humanity has been scourged for millennia, it has survived.
I have a healthy nephew whose employees are healthy, but they are not allowed to work. So why do we not test them? Testing was carried out in Germany quite successfully.
We cannot close the future down. We cannot let massive unemployment follow the pandemic. That is a grim scenario. Scientists would continue to search for a vaccine, but the economy would not crumble. Testing may be difficult to organize, but it has to be organized. There is no other way.
Expertise is what world leaders need. I do not wish to trivialize world leaders, but they need guidance from doctors, scientists and economists, which is leadership in the days of the novel coronavirus.
Streets would still be disinfected as well as the workplace, but we would ensure economic stability and lift the world’s morale. Can we truly justify the self-isolation of my nephew and his healthy employees?
I am not a medical doctor, a scientist, or an economist. I am quite simply civic-minded. If we test and test, we will find those who test negative. I’m scared, because this virus may be airborne. Hence cleaning the workplace. But why isolate people who would test negative and create a new nightmare.
As indicated in a previous post, Molière‘s L’Avare, The Miser, was first performed on 9 September 1668 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal. It is a five-act play, in prose, inspired by Roman dramatist Plautus‘ (254 – 148 BCE) Aulularia, the Pot of Gold. As we have seen, it is also rooted in the commedia dell’arte as well as Italian comedies and tales, and in France’s own medieval farces and the largely scatologicalfabliaux.
However, Molière also drew his material from La Belle Plaideuse (1655), by François le Métel de Boisrobert, which features a father-as-usurer, and Jean Donneau de Visé‘s La Mère coquette (1665), where a father and son are in love with the same woman.[1]
L’Avare is one of Molière’s better-known comedies and it was translated into English by Thomas Shadwell (1772) and Henry Fielding, the author of Tom Jones. However, it was not a huge success in Molière’s own days. It has been speculated that Molière’s audience expected a play written in verse, the nobler alexandrine verse (12 feet or syllables), first used in the twelfth-century Roman d’Alexandre.
Harpagon, father toCléante, in love withMariane. Cléante, Harpagon’sson, lover toMarianne. Valère, son toAnselme, lover toÉlise, and “intendant” to Harpagon Anselme / Dom Thomas d’Alburcy, father toValèreandMariane, and Master Simon, broker. Master Jacques, cook and coachman toHarpagon. La Flèche, valet toCléante. Brindavoine, andLa Merluche, lackeys toHarpagon. A Magistrateand hisClerk. Élise, daughter toHarpagon. Mariane, daughter toAnselme. Frosine, an intriguing woman. Mistress Claude, servant toHarpagon.
The scene is at Paris, in Harpagon’s house.
Act One
We will be focusing on the manner in which the young couples featured in the Miser, L’Avare, manage to overcome the obstacle to their marriage. Short of a miracle, they are condemned to do as their father’s greed dictates. All the elements of L’Avare’s plot are introduced in the first act of the play, which reflects the Græco-Roman origins of comedy and tragedy. As a five-act play, Molière’s L’Avare is a ‘grande comédie,’ not a farce (Molière wrote both), and its plot is the archetypal struggle, also called the agôn, between, on the one hand, the alazṓn of Greek comedy, or the blocking character, and, on the other hand, the eirôn, the young couple and their supporters: valets, maids, zanni. In other words, it is a traditional blondin-berne-barbon plot. The young couples will succeed in marrying.
A Comedy of Manners and A Comedy of Intrigue
doublings: two young couples and two fathers
Harpagon is the father of Élise and Cléante
Anselme is Valère and Mariane’s father, which we do not know until the fifth act (V. v) of the comedy
L’Avare is both a comedy of manners, a form we inherited mostly from Greek dramatist Menander, and a comédie d’intrigue, a comedy where the plot prevails. As the portrayal of a miser, L’Avare is a comedy of manners (see the full text in Wikisource and eBook #6923). Harpagon’s greed constitutes the obstacle to the marriage of Cléante (Harpagon) and Mariane as well as the marriage of Valère and Élise (Harpagon).
Cléante gambles and wins, which allows him to buy elegant clothes and court Mariane, but he does not have sufficient money to marry and must therefore go to a moneylender. Ironically, the moneylender happens to be Harpagon himself who demands no less than the now metaphorical “pound of flesh” (Shylock) as repayment. The moneylender episode—act two, scene two (II. i) [II. 2]—shows to what extent Harpagon’s greed is an obstacle to the marriage of our young couples. The plot advances in that Cléante cannot obtain a loan that might enable his marriage. Another “trick” must be devised. However, plot and manners (greed) are inextricably woven.
Obstacles to Two Marriages
“genre” art
a family tyrant
The action takes place in Harpagon’s house in Paris and can be described as genre art, a depiction of ordinary people engaged in ordinary activities. Will G Moore has remarked that Molière’s characters
“[a]re concerned with everyday life; the stuff of which it was made was by tradition the doings of ordinary people in ordinary surroundings.”[2]
L’Avare is a five-act comedy, but it is written in prose, not verse, and Harpagon, our blocking character, is an enriched bourgeois. Although he does not feed his horse properly, he owns a carriage and he has servants. As depicted by François Boucher, the interior of his house is rather elegant. However, he is extremely greedy and he behaves as though he owned his children. He is a domestic tyrant. In act one, Harpagon states that he has arranged for his children to marry, but has not consulted them. Cléante will marry a “certain widow,” our tyrant has just heard of, and Élise will be “given” to Mr. Anselme, a gentleman who will not request the customary dowry, or “sans dot”
Quant à ton frère, je lui destine une certaine veuve dont ce matin on m’est venu parler; et, pour toi, je te donne au seigneur Anselme. (Harpagon to Élise, [I. iv])
[As to your brother, I have thought for him of a certain widow, of whom I heard this morning; and you I shall give to Mr. Anselme. [1. 6] [eBook #6923]
Élise does not know Mr Anselme and refuses to marry him, threatening to commit suicide. As for Harpagon, he plans to marry Mariane, who loves his son (Cléante). For Harpagon, Mr Anselme is a perfect choice because Élise will marry at no cost to the miser: “sans dot.” (I. iv FR) (I. 6 EN)
Harpagon’s Rigidity
Valère will attempt to save Élise from a marriage to a person other than himself. Valère, Harpagon’s “intendant,” begs Harpagon to free Élise. However, the objections he presents are followed by Harpagon’s “sans dot” (without a dowry). Molière’s blocking characters are inflexible or rigid. This rigidity is the feature Henri Bergson (18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) attached to the comical or comedic in his Laughter. Valère’s objections having been rebuked by a litany of “sans dot,” he is literally speechless. He simply repeats what the Harpagon, the miser, has told him:
Lorsqu’on s’offre de prendre une fille sans dot, on ne doit point regarder plus avant. Tout est renfermé là-dedans, et sans dot tient lieu de beauté, de jeunesse, de naissance, d’honneur, de sagesse, et de probité. (Valère à Harpagon, I. v)
[When a man offers to marry a girl without a dowry, we ought to look no farther. Everything is comprised in that, and “without dowry” compensates for want of beauty, youth, birth, honour, wisdom, and probity.] (I. 10) [eBook #6923]
But there is some hope. As the story goes, Valère’s father, Dom Thomas d’Alburcy, is believed to have drowned when he and his family (his wife, Valère and Mariane) were fleeing Naples. It appears, however, that Dom Thomas has survived and that he is a man of means. Valère was looking for him when he met Élise. At her request, he decided to stay near her and made himself Harpagon’s “intendant,” but someone else is looking for Valère’s father.
Mais enfin, si je puis, comme je l’espère, retrouver mes parents, nous n’aurons pas beaucoup de peine à nous le rendre favorable. J’en attends des nouvelles avec impatience, et j’en irai chercher moi-même, si elles tardent à venir. (I. i)
[However, if I can find my parents, as I fully hope I shall, they will soon be favourable to us. I am expecting news of them with great impatience; but if none comes I will go in search of them myself.] [I.1]
The curtain will then fall on an anagnorisis (V. v) [V. 5], a recognition scene. However, when Anselme enters Harpagon’s house and hears that there is opposition to the contract he has come to sign, he tells Harpagon that he will not coerce a woman into a mariage, which frees Élise. He also remarks that he will not “lay claim to a heart which has already bestowed itself,” thereby allowing Mariane, his daughter, to marry Cléante, Harpagon’s son, rather than Harpagon.
Ce n’est pas mon dessein de me faire épouser par force, et de rien prétendre à un cœur qui se serait donné ; mais pour vos intérêts, je suis prêt à les embrasser ainsi que les miens propres. (Anselme to Harpagon [V. v])
[It is not my intention to force anybody to marry me, and to lay claim to a heart which has already bestowed itself; but as far as your interests are concerned, I am ready to espouse them as if they were my own.] (V. 5) [eBook #6923]
Anselme seems a fine gentleman whom the anagnorisis(V. v) [V. 5], the dénouement (see Dramatic Structure, Wikipedia), will identify as Valère and Mariane’s father. A greedy Harpagon has chosen Anselme as the perfect groom because Anselme would marry Élise without requesting the customary dowry, or at no cost to the miser: “sans dot.” (I. v) [I. 5]
Qu’il faut manger pour vivre, et non pas vivre pour manger. (III. i)
Harpagon’s greed is enormous, so students are taught that Molière concentrates on manners rather than the plot. He does, but in L’Avare, although the plot is mainly episodic, manners and plot (intrigue) are inextricably linked. For instance, when Harpagon is having a meal prepared to celebrate the marriage(s) that are to take place that very day, Harpagon hears Valère say that il faut manger pour vivre and not vivre pour manger, that one should eat to live and not live to eat, Harpagon so loves Valère’s witty chiasmus, that he wants these words engraved in gold and placed above his fireplace. (III. i) [III. 1] It is unlikely that Harpagon would use gold to celebrate greed, but it is true to character and comical. A meal often ends comedies and may solemnize a wedding.
Moreover, it is a quiproquo, a comical misunderstanding which, in L’Avare, leads to the anagnorisis. When Harpagon realizes his cassette has disappeared and may have been stolen, he loses his composure and accuses Valère, at the instigation of Maître Jacques. Maître Jacques resents the trust Harpagon has placed in Valère. If he could, Harpagon would have Valère drawn and quartered. Valère has not stolen Harpagon’s cassette, but he and Élise have signed a promise to marry another. Valère has ‘robbed’ Harpagon, but it is Élise he has taken, not a cassette. (V. iii & iv) [V. 3 & 4] [eBook #6923]
Anselme first steps foot on the stage as the battle rages. Given Élise’s promise, he cannot and would not marry her. However, Valère stands accused of a theft and wants to tell his story. The anagnorisis has now begun. To give himself credibility, Valère says that he is the son of Dom Thomas d’Alburcy, which Anselme hesitates to believe because he is a friend of Dom Those and, to his knowledge, all members of Dom Thomas’ family drowned as they were trying to flee Naples, which is not the case.Valère says that he was rescued by Pedro, a servant, and later adopted by the captain of the ship he and Pedro were allowed to board. He can prove his identity. As he speaks, Mariane realizes that Valère is her brother.
For their part, Mariane and her mother were also saved, but their helpers were corsaires, pirates, who enslaved them. Following ten years of enslavement, they were released and they returned to Naples where they could not find Dom Thomas d’Alburcy. They therefore picked up a small inheritance in Genoa and moved to Paris. Mariane’s mother is Valère’s mother and Dom Thomas d’Alburcy’s wife. As he watches this scene, Dom Thomas learns that no member of his family died leaving Naples. He has just found his children and his wife. He would not stand in the way of Valère and Mariane’s marriage who wish to marry Harpagon’s children. Le sieur Anselme knows le sieur Harpagon.
Le Ciel, mes enfants, ne me redonne point à vous, pour être contraire à vos vœux. Seigneur Harpagon, vous jugez bien que le choix d’une jeune personne tombera sur le fils plutôt que sur le père. Allons, ne vous faites point dire ce qu’il n’est point nécessaire d’entendre, et consentez ainsi que moi à ce double hyménée. (V. v)
[Heaven, my dear children, has not restored you to me that I might oppose your wishes. Mr. Harpagon, you must be aware that the choice of a young girl is more likely to fall upon the son than upon the father. Come, now, do not force people to say to you what is unnecessary, and consent, as I do, to this double marriage.] [V. 5] [eBook #6923]
Doublings
Molière’s L’Avare has an intrigue which resembles the intrigue of most comedies. A young couple wishes to marry, but a blocking character, or alazṓn, prevents their marriage. However, Molière has doubled the young couple who are a brother and sister wishing to marry a brother and a sister, so Molière has therefore doubled the father figure which happens during the anagnorisis. As Dom Thomas d’Alburcy, Anselme is the eirôn who allows the young couples to marry.
The anagnorisis, the recognition scene, does not take place unannounced. As mentioned earlier, as he despairs,Valère tells Élise that he hopes to find his father who may still be alive. Act one (I. i) [I. 1] has prepared the reader or spectator:
Mais enfin, si je puis comme je l’espère, retrouver mes parents, nous n’aurons pas beaucoup de peine à nous le rendre favorable. (Valère à Élise, I. i)
[However, if I can find my parents, as I fully hope I shall, they will soon be favourable to us.] [I. 1] [eBook #6923]
Der Geizigue, Harpagon & La Flèche by August Wilhelm Iffland, 1810 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Comments
In L’Avare, Molière does not use a deus ex machina. He simply introduces a second father figure who will allow the young couples to marry and will pay all costs. L’Avare‘s young couple are in fact very resourceful, but one cannot marry without money. Mariane (Dom Thomas) recoils at wishing Harpagon’s death, feelings that are reciprocated by Cléante (Harpagon).
Mon Dieu, Frosine, c’est une étrange affaire, lorsque pour être heureuse, il faut souhaiter ou attendre le trépas de quelqu’un, et la mort ne suit pas tous les projets que nous faisons. (Mariane à Frosine, III. iv)
[Oh, Frosine! What a strange state of things that, in order to be happy, we must look forward to the death of another. Yet death will not fall in with all the projects we make.] [III. 8] [eBook #6923]
Que veux-tu que j’y fasse ? Voilà où les jeunes gens sont réduits par la maudite avarice des pères ; et on s’étonne après cela que les fils souhaitent qu’ils meurent. (II. i)
[What would you have me do? It is to this that young men are reduced by the accursed avarice of their fathers; and people are astonished after that, that sons long for their death.] [II. 1] [eBook #6923]
When his father falls, accidentally, Cléante is worried:
Qu’est-ce, mon père, vous êtes-vous fait mal ? (III. ix)
[What’s the matter, father? Have you hurt yourself?] [III. 14] [eBook #6923]
Critic Northrop Frye states that “[t]he tendency of comedy is to include as many people as possible in its final society: the blocking characters are more often reconciled or converted than simply repudiated.”[3]
As for Harpagon, although he may he has been tyrannical, when Dom Thomas and the young couples leave to bring good news to Dom Thomas’ wife, Harpagon is off to see his dear cassette. His cassette, a casket, his vital to Harpagon.
Et moi, voir ma chère cassette. (I. vi)
[And I to see my dear casket.][1. 6] [eBook #6923]
Conclusion
I have already suggested that Molière uses doubling and fusion of functions.[4] Harpagon is a miser and will remain a miser ready to sacrifice his children. It is a sad reflection on humanity but perhaps less sad than the intervention of a deus ex machina. Dom Thomas d’Alburcy is a major member of the play’s society, the intervention of a second father figure allows the happy ending the play demands. An anagnorisis may not be as dazzling a dénouement as the intervention of a deus ex machina, the prince in Tartuffe and a godlike figure inDom Juan, but all’s well that ends well.
____________________ [1]L’Avare in Maurice Rat, Œuvres complètes de Molière (Paris : Éditions Gallimard, coll. La Pléiade, 1956), p. 968. [2]Will G. Moore, Molière, a New Criticism (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1968 [1949], pp. 69-70. [3] Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973 [1957]), p. 165. [4]Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, « Le Misanthrope,oula comédie éclatée, » in David Trott & Nicole Boursier, eds. L’Âge du théâtre en France (Edmonton, Alberta: Academic Printing and Publishing, 1988 ), 53 – 63. (papers from a conference held in Toronto, May 14 – 16, 1987) ISBN 0-920980-30-9 — PQ527.A33 1988
The third canonical mode of colour identified by Marcia B. Hall is cangiante, from the verb to change, cangiare (to change). It is associated with the artist Michelangelo (1475–1564), who decorated the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel during the High Renaissance, c. 1490-1519. The first modes of colour mode associated with the High Renaissance are Caravaggio‘s chiaroscuro, defined by stark contrasts, and Leonardo’s sfumato, featuring a discreet juxtaposition of mostly related colours.
Cangiante juxtaposes two colours. The primary colours are blue, yellow, and red. If a shade of blue, a primary colour, is mixed with yellow, a primary colour, the result would be a shade of green, but no blue has been used except in Daniel’s upper garment. When a specific colour was in short supply, a different colour, the use of a cangiante was justified.
Wikiwand shows us a painting by Giotto (c. 1267–1337), a precursor of Renaissance humanism. Colours are paler where light touches the figures. Therefore, Giotto’s approach to cangiante is somewhat more conservative than Michelangelo‘s. Although Giotto’s painting is a less convincing example of cangiante, it foreshadows the dimensionality achieved by High Renaissance Italian painters, particularly Michelangelo. Michelangelo was a sculptor, the creator of the Vatican’s Pietà (1498-1499), in St Peter’s Basilica, and Florence’s David (1501-1504). He was also an architect (the Vatican’s Dome, up to his death in 1564) and a poet.
Giotto‘s Lamentation, detail (Photo credit: Wikiwand) Click on Lamentation to see the entire painting and, above, the names of individuals it features (Photo credit: Michelangelo, Wikiwand)
Michelangelo as Sculptor
Michelangelo’s Pietà, 1498-1499, St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, (Photo credit: Wikiwand)
Michelangelo used “illusionism” in his portrait of The Prophet Daniel. There was no room to paint Daniel’s forearm, so Michelangelo thickened the arm to make it appear longer. Renaissance artists used illusionism to achieve an accurate rendering of reality. In this case, the illusion is called trompe-l’œil (to deceive or fool the eye). Illusionistic techniques aimed at rendering an accurate depiction will be discussed elsewhere.
Conclusion
I have written about Michelangelo’s colour mode, which seems but isn’t a mere detail. Michelangelo was a legend in his own time. Art historian Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) wrote Michelangelo’s biography before the artist’s death. It attested to Michelangelo’s exceptional art. When Michelangelo was asked to paint the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, he convinced the Pope to give him a sufficient berth. Not that the Pope was easily persuaded, but that he agreed. Michelangelo illustrated Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667-1674), Christianity’s central drama, a century before John Milton (1608–1674) wrote his epic poem.
Michelangelo persuaded Pope Julius II to give him a free hand and proposed a different and more complex scheme, representing the Creation, the Fall of Man, the Promise of Salvation through the prophets, and the genealogy of Christ. The work is part of a larger decoration scheme within the chapel that represents much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
We have seen prophets, and we will see an oracle: the Delphic Sibyl.
—ooo—
I am recovering, except for my sight. It will soon be restored. What an accident.
Mona Lisa / La Joconde (Lisa Gherardini), Leonardo da Vinci, c.1503 – c.1519; 77 x 53 cm, Florence, Italy; Louvre, Paris (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)
American art historian, Marcia B. Hall, has identified four painting modes, colouring, of the Italian High Renaissance. We know about chiaroscuro (Caravaggio), but there are three other modes of painting: cangiante (Michaelangelo) and unione. Unione was used by Raphael, “who exemplified it in the Stanza della Segnatura.” However, the only mode of painting we are discussing in this post is sfumato (fumée, smoke). Sfumato was Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “mode.” We will look at four portraits by Leonardo (1452-1519). His Ladies seem veiled:
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (oil, panel, wood, poplar 77 x 53 cm) one of the world’s most famous and valuable paintings is a chief example of sfumato. It is the portrait of Francesco del Giocondo’s wife, Lisa del Giocondo (Lisa Gherardini). It is housed in the Louvre, in Paris. Lisa Mona’s smile is enigmatic, a significant factor in the importance of the painting.
Sfumato: Leonardo’s Painting Mode
Colour rather than lines separate the elements of the Mona Lisa, and they do so softly. For instance, shadow deepens Mona Lisa’s eyes. In other words, Leonardo did not use sharp contrast in his portrait of Lisa. The painting’s draping is also gentle. Draping can be used as a trompe-l’oeil. It deceives the eye by creating an illusion. The closer the drapes, the greater the distance or depth. Ironically, during the High Renaissance and elsewhere, realism was the product of illusions, or, quite simply, art.
The Lady with an Ermine (Wikiwand) is a much earlier small oil painting by Leonardo. Its figures are painted on a single walnut wood panel 54 × 39 cm (21 × 15 in), not on canvas. Given that small paintings can be carried, today’s artists still paint on a wood panel, instead of canvas. The Lady with an Ermine features a very young “Cecilia Gallerani, a mistress of Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro) Duke of Milan[.]” Cecilia was between 16 and 18 years of age when this portrait was executed. (See Lady with an Ermine, Wikiwand.) Leonardo da Vinci was in Milan when this portrait was produced, which supports the painting’s attribution to Leonardo da Vinci. Most importantly, the painting mode of this portrait is Leonardo’s sfumato, enfumé or blurred. Also present are the subtle remains of spolvero, powder (in the outline of the face and head), underdrawing (in the right arm, right hand, left hand, top of nose and edge of the hair), and fingerprints (the face and animal’s head) Leonardo’s Ladies seem veiled. (See Marcia B. Hall, Canonical painting modes of the Renaissance.)
Ludovico and Cecilia had a child, but Ludovico’s family, the Sforza (see The House of Sforza, Wikiwand), opposed a marriage between Cecilia, born to a lower rank, and Ludovico. Consequently, Ludovico arranged for Cecilia to marry the son of a duke who had pledged service to the Sforza family. Cecilia had been married at a tender age and had succeeded in escaping her marriage. (See Lady with an Ermine, Wikiwand.)
According to Wikiwand, the positioning of the Lady used by the artist supports the painting’s attribution to Leonardo. Also supporting its attribution to Leonardo is the contrapposto, the Lady’s positioning. Cecilia was between 16 and 18 years of age, when the painting was executed by Da Vinci. Finally, Leonardo was a painter to the Sforza court in Milan when he painted his Lady with an Ermine. (See Lady with an Ermine, Wikiwand.)
As for the Ermine, art historian Luke Syson notes that “Naturalism is not the point here; Leonardo has created a mythical beast, the composite of several animals he drew at this time” (See Lady with an Ermine, Wikiwand.) Composite (blended) beasts are called zoomorphic.
Ginevra de’ Benci was a well-known Florentine aristocrat whose brother was a friend of Leonardo da Vinci. Her portrait has been viewed as a commemoration of her marriage to Luigi di Bernardo Niccolini at the age of 16. Since she stands alone, it would be a commemoration of her engagement, rather than her marriage.
Reverse of Ginevra’s portrait (Wikiwand)
The juniper bush that surrounds Ginevra’s head and fills much of the background, serves more than mere decorative purposes. In Renaissance Italy, the juniper was regarded a symbol of female virtue, while the Italian word for juniper, ginepro, also makes a play on Ginevra’s name. The reverse reads Virtvtem Forma Decorat (“Beauty adorns virtue”).
Ginevra was beautiful and virtuous. She was a friend of Bernardo Bembo, the Venitian ambassador to Florence, a platonic relationship. (See Platonic love, Wikiwand) Poets belonging to the Medici circle have celebrated Ginevra’s beauty, including Lorenzo de’ Medici.
The portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci is the only painting by Leonardo on public display in the Americas. It cost $5,000,000, in 1967. (Leonardo da Vinci, WikiArt.org.)
Portrait of an Unknown Woman(La BelleFerronière) c.1490; 63 x 45 cm, Milan, Italy; Louvre, Paris (Photo credit: WikiArt.org)
La Belle Ferronière; Portrait of an Unknown Woman
In all likelihood, Leonardo’s Belle Ferronière was the wife or daughter of a ‘ferronier,” an ironmonger. It is believed that she was a mistress to Francis I of France. Her husband infected himself with syphilis in an act of revenge. Leonardo (1452-1519) spent his final years in France at the court of Francis I.
Other modes of painting, identified by art historian Marcia B. Hall and mentioned above, will be discussed elsewhere.
I spent most of December in a hospital. I had an infection I did not notice, and my fever turned to delirium. I don’t remember anything. I am told that I fainted twice and that I was in bed. However, my cleaning lady needed information. So, I walked down a corridor and tried to steady myself by hanging on to a vase and a picture frame. Everything fell to the ground, and I landed face-down on broken glass and débris. My face was no longer the same, and I injured a leg and the bones of my rib cage.
The hospital released me a little early. A doctor wanted me to exercise in her department: gerontology. I refused to move to her floor because I ached: one leg and my rib cage. I felt I should wait until my wounds had healed. At home, I exercise every day. So, a break was necessary. However, the same doctor told me that I had the mind of a younger person.
When I returned home, I admired everything, including a bit of clutter. Social services will help me get rid of the clutter, for a fee. My current apartment is smaller than my former home, but the building has elevators and a swimming pool. Elevators are useful.
My great victory is opposing successfully a relative’s decision to send me to a residence for ageing people. In the meantime, he would manage my money. I will be eighty in July. Life goes on. Moreover, my apartment has every commodity. But, I wonder why that cleaning lady called me and did nothing to prevent my fall. I had fainted twice and I was in bed. My blood pressure falls if I stand up quickly. Fortunately, a friend had a “mandat d’incapacité,” (power of attorney). She gave me freedom. The day after being released from the hospital, I took a cab, reduced fare for long distances and fragile human beings, and went to beautiful Saint-Lambert. I am not alone.
I can’t remember anything. However, I know that a group of professionals rearranged my medication. During my hospital stay, I developed a migraine that lasted a week. No one helped. There is medication to prevent migraines and medication to chase them away.
I wish all of you a very fine New Year. May dreams come true.
Love to everyone🎄
Laurent Bonetto plays J. S. BachYard at Winter, by M. Vrubel
The word “Renaissance” brings to mind Leonardo da Vinci‘s emblematic portrait of the Mona Lisa. The Sistine Chapel Ceiling was painted by Michelangelo (1475-1564) between 1508 and 1512. At the same time, Raphaël (1483-1520) and his studio frescoed the Raphaël Rooms (beginning in c. 1508 or 1509). Donato Bramante (1444-1514), an architect, is also considered one the most prominent artists of the High Renaissance (c. 1490-1520). Leonardo was born in Vinci, Italy, but he died in Amboise, France, where he was a permanent guest of King Francis I and lived in the Château du Clos Lucé(click). Leonardo was a polymath, which limited his productivity as an artist. He imagined machines that were not built until the 20th century. At the Château du Clos Lucé, Amboise, Leonardo was free to carry out all his activities.
However, our current hero is artist and historian Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) who is the author of Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori or The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. In fact, Vasari used the termrinascita(rebirth) to describe Giotto‘s manner. In French, rinascita is renaissance, rebirth. In his Histoire de France (1835), author Jules Michelet suggested adopting Vasari’s concept. The term Renaissance (rebirth, in French) would henceforth distinguish “the cultural change.”
Giotto
Giotto is Giotto de Bondone (c. 1267-1337). According to Giorgio Vasari, he [Giotto] “introduced the technique of drawing accurately from life[.]” Renaissance, scholars attempted to bridge Europe’s Greco-Roman roots and a rapidly changing world. The Renaissance began in the Republic of Florence, an Italian city-state. Europe was entering its Age of Discovery, and Renaissance humanism had given human beings a nobility they had not enjoyed earlier. In this respect, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) is a stellar figure. He was moderate in his views and negotiated the wars of religion rather graciously.
According to Giorgio Vasari, Jan van Eyck invented oil painting. He painted on wood. Many artists still paint on wood, but they often use Masonite. However, it would soon become necessary to paint on a canvas. A canvas is supple and can be rolled up and sent to another country or distant galleries and clients. Earlier, artists had used tempera. Touches of gouache can whiten an otherwise coloured painting. It is used by watercolourists. Other media were a pen, ink, and chalk. Sanguine (dark red chalk resembling dried blood [sang]) remains popular. It was used to execute a portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, shown below. This discussion focuses on Italy because Greek scholars fled to Italy after the Fall of Constantinople, the Capital of the Byzantine Empire, to the Ottoman Empire. Constantinople fell on 29 May 1453.
This portrait attributed to Francesco Melzi, c. 1515–1518, is the only certain contemporary depiction of Leonardo. (Wikiwand)
Giotto “introduced the technique of drawing accurately from life [.]” (Giorgio Vasari)
And humanism demanded that figures be depicted “naturally” and beautifully. They could not be painted flat, so artists had to give them dimensionality and beauty, the beauty of Michelangelo’s David(1501-1504) and the Virgin of the Pietà (1498–1499).
Giorgio Vasari described Giotto as making a decisive break from the prevalent Byzantine style and as initiating “the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years”.
Often called “the first art historian“, Vasari invented the genre of the encyclopedia of artistic biographies with his Le Vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori(Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects). This work was first published in 1550 and dedicated to Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici.
I apologize for not publishing an article for a month or more. Life kept me very busy and somewhat depressed. My friend John moved to Saint-Lambert, a rather posh city located on the south shore of the St Lawrence River. However, I have several drafts: Caravaggio, Chiaroscuro, Still Lifes vs Vanitas and Memento Mori, Pronkstilleven, Illusionism, etc. In other words, we carry on. From this post, we remember that High Renaissance artists attempted to paint naturally and realistically.
My kindest regards to all of you and, once again, my apologies. 💕
After completing his apprenticeship [1]in Antwerp, Peter Paul Rubens spent nearly eight uninterrupted years in Italy. Rubens may have seen Caravaggio‘s Basket of Fruit, a painting that seems borrowed from the Dutch Golden Age painting; Netherlandish artists produced several paintings depicting decaying flowers and food, as well as skulls, hourglasses, candles, empty or nearly empty glasses and any object reminding one that life is conditioned by death. [2] These paintings are vanitas and Memento mori(remember that you die).
Unlike Ronsard’s Horatiancarpe diem, a memento moridoes not invite a celebration of life’s very few days. It represents the inevitability of death.
I wrote a short post on vanitas, but you will find a painting by Willem Kalf (1619-1693) below. Kalf’s painting shows a white and blue Ming dynasty vase and features a mostly red oriental carpet. The painting is a fine example of the Dutch Golden Age paintingvanitas. The Renaissance was the Age of Discovery, and it intensified slavery. However, European traders had long travelled the Silk Road and brought back oriental objects. The ginger jar is recent. Marco Polo (1254-1324) published his Book of the Marvels of the World or The Travels of Marco Polo (Il Milione) in c. 1300. The book was written by Rustichello da Pisa in Franco-Venetian. It belongs to prison literature because both Rustichello and Marco Polo were incarcerated when Marco Polo told his story. Known as Il Milione, the book was entitled Le Livre des Merveilles du Monde.
Willem Kalf – Still-Life with a Late Ming Ginger Jar – WGA12080 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Caravaggio and Caravaggisti
Given its dark background, Willem Kalf’s still-life can be labelled a chiaroscuro(clair-obscur). Caravaggisti could set an object or person, the subject matter, against a dark background, seeking cinematography’s spotlight effect. Artists “cut” into a dark background, creating dimensionality. Renaissance Humanism demanded a life-like resemblance, which was achieved by High Renaissance artists: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael.
Baroque artist Caravaggio influenced Peter Paul Rubens and other artists is the power of contrast and dimensionality. However, Rubens is not a Dutch Caravaggisti. Many Netherlandish Caravaggisti traveled to Italy.
However, the Basket of Fruit featured above is well-known to art lovers, and I have used it without any reference to death. Nor have I linked it to chiaroscuro, tenebrism or the cinematic spotlight effect. Georges de La Tour was a Caravaggisti. It does not feature sharp contrasts. It is a vanitas and a still life.
[2] Vanitas, (from Latin vanitas, “vanity”), in art, a genre of still-life painting that flourished in the Netherlands in the early 17th century. A vanitaspainting contains collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; it exhorts the viewer to consider mortality and to repent. The vanitas evolved from simple pictures of skulls and other symbols of death and transience frequently painted on the reverse sides of portraits during the late Renaissance. It had acquired an independent status by c. 1550 and by 1620 had become a popular genre. Its development until its decline about 1650 was centered in Leiden, in the United Provinces of the Netherlands, an important seat of Calvinism, which emphasized humanity’s total depravity and advanced a rigid moral code.
I reported on the debt-ceiling crisis in 2021, noting, essentially, that it is a “dangerous and idiotic ritual.” (See Opinion by Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post.) However, I would now suggest that this crisis may give “leaders” the feeling that they have a choice in this matter, which is comforting, but an illusion.
As matters stand, there is no choice except to pass the debt ceiling bill before June 5. If not, a government shutdown could follow, as well as an international financial crisis. The United States could do away with the “ritual” it keeps facing. It could borrow more money without politicizing a matter politicians may not understand and may believe is the result of votes, and, therefore, democratic.
However, raising the debt ceiling cannot be debated. If politicians debate the issue, which they do, democracy is poorly served, if served at all. They are engaging in a futile debate holding a nation captive. This bill must be passed. (See What is the debt ceiling by Amber Phillips, The Washington Post.)
So, please, think again and think much further.
In other words, once again, my neighbors to the south are experiencing the “dangerous, idiotic debt ceiling ritual.” (See The Washington Post, April 26, 2023, at 1:05 p.m. EDT.) As noted above, I wrote about this potentially disastrous perennial and futile “ritual.” In the end, having debated and fought for weeks, the United States will raise the debt ceiling because failure to do so would lead a financial catastrophe.
If the United States does not raise the debt ceiling, it loses its credit. In other words, all Americans would lose, which tends to invalidate the process. So, this process is a game, a nasty game, between the Republicans and the Democrats, the United States’s two leading political parties. The two parties must pass the debt ceiling bill, yet they are turning the forum (Congress) into an arena: “leaders scramble for support.” Amber Phillips writes:
The debt ceiling is one of the few must-pass bills, and it comes up almost every year. But when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans have seen the vote as an opportunity to make a political stand and exact concessions. (Congress rather easily approved the debt ceiling when Republicans controlled Congress and Donald Trump was president.)
(See "What is the debt ceiling" by Amber Phillips (The Washington Post
Published April 26, 2023, at 1:05 p.m. EDT.)
Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen has warned about the consequences of failing to raise the debt limit. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)House to vote on debt deal as leaders scramble for support (Photo credit: Jabin Botsford, The Washington Post)
Debt ceiling deal: 5 takeaways on the economic impact, by Abha Bhattarai, The Washington Post
House to vote on debt deal as leaders scramble for support, by Rachel Siegel and Marrianna Sotomayor (The Washington Post) Published May 30, 2023, EDT.
We look at Ukraine and fear democracy will be crushed. The invasion of Ukraine was and remains an affront to democracy. However, democracy is threatened otherwise as well as elsewhere. It is threatened in my very own backyard.
Next
I have not been publishing for a few weeks, so this post seems a surprise and out of place. But I have been writing on the Dutch Golden Age of painting, without publishing my material. I have discovered earlier posts on my subject. They were written ten years ago. Migraines have kept me away from my desk as well as syncopes. I had to go to the emergency ward and remained there longer than I expected. The problem is low blood pressure (hypotension).
We are now in Italy following Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) who discovers the art of Caravaggio (1571-1610).
The music takes us back to Jacques Brel (1929-1978).
Jacques Brel singsLaat me niet alleen(Don’t leave me alone/Leave me not alone)
Suzanne Fourment Lunden, portrayed above, was Baroque Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens‘s sister-in-law. In 1630, four years after Rubens’s first wife, Isabella Bran(d)t, died of the plague, fifty-three-year-old Rubens married sixteen-year-old Hélène Fourment. His first marriage to Isabella Brant had been a very happy marriage, except for the loss of Clara Serena, the couple’s first child, a daughter. Clara Serena has been featured briefly in an earlier post and will be featured again. Rubens’s marriage to Hélène Fourment was also a happy but short union. It lasted ten years. Peter Paul Rubens died in 1640 and Hélène remarried. Rubens was a family man, which, somehow, I could not “sense” from his many portraits. He loved his profession, and he loved his family.
Susanna Fourment Lunden has very large eyes. It may have been a characteristic of portraits executed during the Dutch Golden Age of painting, but Rubens depiction of Marie de’ Medici, Louis XIII’s mother and Anne of Austria, Louis XIII’s wife are formal portraits. However, Netherlandish artists would produce tronies, or portraits showing a facial expression.
Peter Paul Rubens’s self-portrait, 1623 (WikiArt.org)
I’m about to post articles on the Dutch Golden Age of painting, and Rubens will be our main figure. Baroque Flemish artist and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). He is associated with the Dutch Golden Age of painting, and he will be our main figure. After spending several years in Italy, Peter Paul Rubens settled in Antwerp (Anvers), a Flemish city, in the Duchy of Brabant during the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609-1621). In 1609, Antwerp was located in what would become the partitioned Duchy of Brabant. However, he died in 1640, before the end of the Eighty Years’ War and the Peace of Münster. Rubens belongs quite literally to the Dutch Golden Age of painting. Yet, the word Dutch may be confusing. The Netherlands was partitioned, but according to Wikipedia,
"The origins of the word Dutch go back to Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of all Germanic languages..." (See Dutch People, Wikipedia.)
The Eighty Years’ War
The Netherlands fought the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648), which was both a war of independence from the Spanish Habsburgs and a war of religion. The inhabitants of the Southern Netherlands, the future Belgium, were mostly Catholics, but their neighbors to the North, the Dutch, were Protestants. The Eighty Years’ War is often called the Dutch Revolt. The Dutch Republic, today’s Netherlands, was proclaimed at the Peace of Münster, in 1648. The people of Antwerp (Anvers) remained under Spanish rule and Brabant was partitioned. North Brabant forms part of the Dutch Republic.
Allegory of Peace and Plenty painted by Abraham Janssens to laud the return of prosperity during the Twelve Years’ Truce. (Caption and photo credit: Wikipedia)
"All agreed upon ratifying the new Kingdom of the Netherlands, which had been created just months before from formerly Austrian territory." (See Congress of Vienna, Wikipedia.)
Belgium
As noted above, Peter Paul Rubens settled in Antwerp (Anvers), a Flemish city (Flanders) located in the Duchy of Brabant. Antwerp flourished during the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609-1621). It is now located in Belgium, a country whose independence was not recognized until the 1830 London Conference. This decision was opposed until the Treaty of London (1839).
The inhabitants of Antwerp are Flemings and speak Flemish, but the Low Countries had been the Burgundian Netherlands beginning with Philip the Bold(le Hardi), under French Valois monarchs. The people of Belgium also speak French and some speak Walloon, a threatened Romance language
I would like to write more on the origins of European countries, but it is a very complex process. I will let you discover. Maps are useful. However, I will note that the Romans conquered future European countries. They conquered Belgica. Later, sons and daughters inherited large territory and a marriage was used to acquire lands. (See Philip I of Castile and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Philip I (Habsburg) was born in Bruges (Flanders), but he married Joanna of Castille. They are the parents of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Joanna is referred to as Joanna the Mad. She was kept in confinement by her son, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. No one can tell whether she was “mad.” Her sister Catherine of Aragon married Henry VIII of England. Members of European Royal families are related.
Peter Paul Rubens‘s Antwerp (Anvers) forms part of today’s Belgium and Antwerp is Flemish. However, both the Netherlands (Nederland) and Belgium are Pays-Bas and referred to as Pays-Bas or Low Countries. Belgium is Jacques Brel‘s platpays (flat land, flakke land). Brel is of Flemish origin, but he found fame singing in the French language.
Illuminated Manuscripts
For our purposes, it may suffice to remember the Limbourg Brothers (Herman, Paul, and Johan), miniaturists. They originated from Nijmegen and are associated with the Burgundian State. The Limbourg Brothers’ finest legacy is Jean de France, duc de Berry’s Très Riches Heures, an illuminated Book of Hours. The Limbourg Brothers and Jean de France are believed to have died of the plague in 1416, before completing the Très Riches Heures. Jean de France’s Très Riches Heures was further embellished by Barthélemy d’Eyck. The Limbourg brothers’s uncle was Jean Malouel, Maelwael. Malouel was a miniaturist who worked in Paris for Philip the Bold (le hardi). The Limbourg brothers learned the craft of goldsmithing in Paris. Before Jean de France asked the Limbourg Brothers to illuminate his Très Riches Heures, Philip the Bold commissioned a Bible Moralisée from the Limbourg Brothers, Paul and Johan. It was a four-year contract. Philip did not see his Bible Moralisée.
From surviving documents, it is known that in February 1402 Paul and Johan were contracted by Philip [the Bold] to work for four years exclusively on illuminating a bible. This may or may not have been the Bible Moralisée (Ms. fr. 166) in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris), which is indisputably an early work by the Limbourg brothers. Philip II died in 1404 before the brothers had completed their work. (See Limbourg Brothers, Wikipedia)
It seems the people of the Netherlands, Belgium and the Netherlands have long been very good artists. They were also fine jewelers and cut diamonds.
Finally, their subject matters are varied and they were artfulness went beyond the canvas or boards : genre art, tiles (Blue Delft), tronies, tapestries, etc.
In my last post, Winter Scenes, we saw examples of Hendrick Avercamp‘s “genre art.” Avercamp’s winter scenes feature people going about their everyday tasks and recreation during winter. Johannes Vermeer also depicted people going about their everyday tasks, but they are inside houses and exerted considerable influence on interior decoration.
Vermeer was born in Delft. Delft tiles are a baseboard in the painting below. I had noticed this detail, but so did Wikipedia. The Music Lesson, below, shows a mise en abyme created by the mirror above the virginal. The word abyme suggests infinity. The mirror above the virginal does not reproduce the entire scene, but we see the face of the music student.
Peter Paul Rubens settled in Flemish Antwerp (Anvers) during a Twelve Years’ Truce (1609-1621) in the Eighty Year’s War, “an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands,” and a war of religion. The Netherlands was ruled by Spanish Hapsburgs. It is my understanding that Holland was not a country until the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Belgium gained its independence in 1830, a few years after the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815), which began before the Battle of Waterloo and resumed after Napoleon fell at the Battle of Waterloo. The interruption is known as les Cent-Jours, the Hundred Days.
During the Dutch Golden Age of painting, the 17th century mainly, genre painting gained considerable popularity. But artists also depicted their history, including ships, and portraits, from royals to commoners. Rubens and Rembrandt made tronies. The art of such artists as Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Johannes Vermeer, Anthony van Dyck (who apprenticed with Rubens), and others, is classified as Dutch Golden Age painting. Peter Paul Rubens was also a Flemish Baroque artist. Baroque art is considered less severe than Mannerism (the Reformation). Rubens also drew tapestries.
I apologize for a long silence. My friend John is moving to Saint-Lambert, on the south shore of the St Lawrence River, near Montreal. Since childhood, I have designed hundreds of houses and interiors. I wish one had come true. I do not expect to see John again.
Hendrick Averkamp, A Scene on the Ice (Wikimedia.commons)Hendrick Avercamp, A Scene on Ice (WikiArt.org)
—ooo—
I haven’t posted an article since Epiphany, Ukraine’s Christmas. I was very busy during the last month. John has been evicted, but there is nothing I can do to help him. He requires more than I can offer. A home for seniors could be his best option. John suffers from Ménière’s disease. He is nearly deaf and he hugs the walls.
But today February is foremost in my mind. It has been extremely cold. We missed groundhog day but we did not Candlemas, la chandeleur. La Chandeleur invites longer days. In the Northern hemisphere, each new day is slightly longer than the previous day. Candlemas, is also the day Simeon recognized the child Jesus as the Savior and the day His mother was purified.
Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634) is a painter of the Dutch Golden Age of painting. He was born in Amsterdam, where he was trained by Danish-born portrait painter Pieter Isaacsz. He moved to Kampen in 1608. Avercamp’s favorite subject matter was winter inhabited by people and their pets going about their everyday activity: working, fishing, or skating and otherwise amusing themselves on the ice. In other words, he was genre artist when genre painting was a new frontier. Moreover, Avercamp lived during a period known as the “little ice age.”
Interestingly, Avercamp painted as though he stood slightly above his subject matter. He used an aerial perspective. He made sketches of his winter scenes which he transformed into paintings in warmer seasons. Hendrick Avercamp was mute and probably deaf, and he is therefore known as “de Stomme van Kampen.”
Hendrik Avercamp, A Winter Scene with Skaters (WikiArt.org)
Conclusion
February was a busy month, but we have almost caught up. The Pagan precursor of St Valentine’s Day was Lupercalia.
Hendrick Avercamp, The music is from the second movement of the fourth concerto of Vivaldi‘s Four Seasons.
I have written several Epiphany articles and discovered that illustrator Félix Lorioux depicted more subject matters than the Fables of Jean de La Fontaine and Charles Perrault‘s Contes de ma mère l’Oye.
When I introduced Félix Lorioux, finding his illustrations was complex. We learned, however, that he had worked for Walt Disney. Matters have changed. The Internet now features several pictures by Lorioux. This will help us read the fables of Jean de La Fontaine, a continuation of an earlier endeavour. Images often lead to reading narratives one would otherwise overlook. Moreover, they facilitate an understanding of “stories.”
Epiphany in Quebec
When I was a child, Epiphany was the twelfth day of Christmas. The next day we returned to school. On 6 January, my mother baked a gâteau des anges (angel cake). Hiding in the cake was a bean. The person who ate the piece of cake containing the bean was crowned King or Queen. The Christmas holidays ended festively. I do not know whether all Quebec families celebrated Epiphany, but my mother did. She was an excellent cook and honoured traditions.
The Winter Solstice
Christmas occurs on or near the Winter Solstice. It is a celebration of the longest night and the winter solstice always leads to a reversal. It had been a feast since antiquity. The world was new. Then came the Carnival season leading to the Spring Equinox (equal day and night).
The Three Kings of the Orient represent all human beings. No race is excluded and Kings honour a child, a little baby. So Epiphany can be incorporated into the upside-down view of the world the Winter Solstice inspires. Félix Lorioux has given Jesus teeth, which is artistic license.
In the Eastern Church, today is Christmas. (See Christmas in Ukraine, Wikipedia.2.) The season ends on 19 January. The word Epiphany also describes a sudden revelation. Moreover, the name Tiffany derives from Epiphany.
My kindest wishes to everyone. May the forthcoming year be your best and may Peace return and remain.
I posted many articles on Christmas, New Year, Epiphany, etc. All can be found by clicking Feasts and Liturgy. It’s a page. The Greek kōmos (comedy) and the Roman Saturnalia were Paganism’s celebration of the longest night.
Saturnalia (1783) by Antoine-François Callet, showing his interpretation of what the Saturnalia might have looked like
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