On Mysticism &Art

Author(s): Bernard McGinn

Source: Daedalus, Vol. 132, No. 2, On Time (Spring, 2003), pp. 131-134
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences
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 Still, recent study has shown how
often the teaching of Christian mystics
- as
found pictorial expression images
created either by the mystics themselves
or their
disciples. Since mysticism is a
Bernard McGinn contextual phenomenon embedded in a

religious worldview, scholars have also

on observed that art not only can be away
mysticism
for mystics to communicate what they
&art
are to but that
trying teach, images have
also helped shape the minds and imagi
nations of mystics. If the mystic text is
an experiment insaying the unsayable,
-
then the mystical image something far
more once -
widespread than thought
emerges as a fascinating attempt to see
the unseeable.
Over fifty years ago, Millard Meiss, in
Painting inFlorence and Siena After the Black
Itmay seem strange that in the Christian
Death: The Arts, Religion and Society in the
West, mysticism and art have gone hand
- Mid-Fourteenth Century (1951), acutely ob
in-hand strange, because the conjunc
served how images influenced mystical
tion is paradoxical. Precisely because it
accounts, especially in a chapter devoted
involves a hidden and secret perception
- - to Catherine of Siena, the fourteenth
of God the root meaning of mystikos
century Italian mystic. Itmay now strike
the mystical element of religion ought,
us as no surprise that mystics'
to defy pictorial descrip
by definition, represen
tions of encountering God were influ
tation. Mystics have wrestled with lan
enced by the pictorial aspects of their
guage as the necessary, if insufficient,
culture. What is surprising is that until
tool of their imperative to invite others
an otherwise the past decade or so there has been so
to experience ineffable
little scholarship on the nature of this
God. But why would they need pictures ?
influence.
What is inexpressible in words may
however, a number of art
seem even further removed from any Recently,
historians have begun to explore the rich
kind of visualization.
interchanges between art and mysti
cism. Among these are the late Michael
Bernard McGinn is theNaomi Shenstone Donnel
Camille of the University of Chicago, the
leyProfessor of Historical Theology and theHis Italian Chiara Frugoni, and Thomas
tory of Christianity at theDivinity School of the Lentes of the University of M?nster,
University of Chicago. A Fellow of theAmerican who helped found the only doctoral pro
since 2002, he is at work on the
Academy currently
gram that gives a joint degree in theolo
fourth volume of his history ofWestern Christian
gy and art history.
mysticism, entitled "ThePresence of God" No one has done more to
- explore how
(1991 ).He is the editor in chief of the "Classics are a resource for the
images study of
ofWestern Spirituality" series, which to date has than of
mysticism Jeffrey Hamburger
published 104 volumes of themajor spiritual texts Harvard. From his Yale dissertation pub
of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. lished as The Rothschild Canticles: Art and

D dalus Spring 2003 131

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Note by - some
Mysticism inFlanders and the Rhineland cir images of the mystical love affair

Mc nn ca 13?? (199?)> down to his recent St. based on the descriptions found in the
John theDivine: TheDeified Evangelist in Song, and others that create original
Medieval Art and Theology (2002), Ham iconographie forms, such as the heart as
contributions have shown how a house or for the Bridegroom.
burger's dwelling
mystical images
are more than just illus Despite some specialized studies of mer
trations for texts, but are
integral aspects it, there are no adequate general works
of the presentation of mystical on this important tradition inmystical
teaching.
It is amessage that theologians and stu iconography.
dents of religion have unfortunately Perhaps the most surprising chapter in
been slow to recognize. the story of mystical art in Christianity
-
Among the most fruitful avenues of re concerns the role of the Trinity belief
search into the relation between art and in the action of the Father, Son, and Ho
has been to
that of devotion ly Spirit in the inner transformative pro
mysticism
Christ's Passion, forms of lit cess. According to Christian belief, the
especially
eral imitation of the Passion widespread Son took on human nature and therefore
in the late Middle Ages. While not all became visible and capable of being por
Passion images
are related to mystical trayed. The defenders of icons success
imitatio passionis, there was a strong link this case in the great contro
fully argued
between Passion art and Passion piety versy over the legitimacy of images in
between 1200 and 1500 that has opened the eighth and ninth centuries. Further

up new dimensions for the study of how more, the New Testament teaches that
devout Christians sought to identify the Holy Spirit also became visible, at
with Christ on the cross. Pioneering least in symbolic form, as dove (Mt.
-
work in this vein was done by James H. 3 :i6) and fire (Acts 213 4). But, as John
Marrow (Passion Iconography inNorthern 1 :i8 put it, "No one has ever seen God

European Art of the Late Middle Ages and [i.e., the invisible Father]." A fortiori, the
Renaissance, 1979). In the past de Trinity qua Trinity is invisible, and be
Early
cade a number of new studies have cast yond all imagining and thinking.
further on how representations of Although Christian theologians and
light
the crucified Christ help us understand as as Augustine and Grego
mystics early
aspects of late medieval mysticism. ry of Nyssa at the end of the fourth cen
Another rich field of investigation cen tury had already begun to analyze how
ters on the erotic relation between the the Trinity acts in the depths of the soul
soul of the mystic as bride, and Christ as to bring humans to deeper participation
the divine Bridegroom. Since the time of in the divine life, they were suspicious of

Origen (d. 254 CE.), the Christian mys visual representations of the triune God.
tics read the Song of Songs as the premier strong sense of divine inef
Augustine's
the transcendent led him to condemn all attempts
guide for analyzing fability
erotics of the love affair between Christ to portray the Trinity, even with abstract
and the soul. In their commentaries, symbols (see Letter, 120).
Ambrose of Milan and Gregory of Nyssa But not all Christians agreed with him.
the Fathers, and Bernard of a
There is rich tradition of attempts to
among early
Clairvaux and William of Saint Thierry create images of the Trinity, both in
in the Middle Ages mined the tropics of Eastern and Western art, as well as a
desire found in the Song of Songs. From at debate over what kinds of
continuing
least the twelfth century, we also find images are acceptable. At least some of

132 D dalus Spring 2003

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these images can be connected, sor, contributed to this tradition, and
directly
or to speculation on the role quite possibly to mystical
interpreta
indirectly,
of the Trinity inmystical transforma tions of the image. In the twenty-eighth
tion. of his Questions to Thalassius, Maximus
to portray the invisible as "the true
Attempting speaks of Abraham gnostic
Trinity present in the soul can be de [i.e., mystical knower] whose mind had
as a
scribed limit situation of Christian already transcended matter and material
art: something that is impossi types so that God taught him that the
mystical
ble, perhaps even forbidden (as Augus immaterial principle of the Trinity in
tine wished), and yet also imperative for heresin the principle of the Monad. It
some. was for this reason that God appeared to
Around the year 1420, the Russian him as three but conversed with him as
monk Andrei Rublev 'wrote' (as icon one." Someone steeped in this thought
painters phrase it) the image of the Trin could make use of the Trinity icon to be
come like Abraham, that is, to gaze with
ity. He depicted the three angels that ap
peared to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre gnostic vision, rather than crude materi
(Gen. 18). This icon, which today hangs alistic sight, through the image in order to
in the Tretyakov Gallery inMoscow, is gain deeper union with the invisible
the most a form that
famousexample of Trinity.
goes back to the fourth century. Early In the medieval West there are some
Christian exegesis of the mysterious fascinating examples of programs of
Genesis account had either interpreted Trinitarian representation that can be
Abraham's vision as Christological, that more tied to mystical texts and
explicitly
as an of Christ accompa as the
is, appearance practices, such Trinity images in
nied by two angels, or as a
symbol of the the Rothschild Canticles (c. 1300) and
Trinity. According to Origen, "that ap some of the illustrations for the Office of
pearance of the angels signified amys theHoly Trinity found in theHours of
tery more than angelic, because the mys Catherine of Cleves (c. 1440). What is par
tery of the Trinity was set forth there" about Western Trini
ticularly intriguing
(Commentarium in Canticum Canticorum, tarian art, though, are the cases where
2). Exactly how the three angelic figures, we find authors who became
mystical
to tradition, Abraham their own iconographers -
whom, according mystics who
'adored as one,' portrayed the Trinity created their own images as a necessary
was to debate, but this unusual way for presenting their message.
subject
iconic form came to be canonized in the For example, Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202)
Christian East. constructed an elaborate Trinitarian the
While the 'Hospitality of Abraham' (as ology of history that included for
hope
itwas called) originated prior to mysti an imminent final age of communal con
on the
cal speculation Trinity and can templation on earth. The Calabrian ab
not be directly tied to a particular mysti bot recognized that his often obscure
cal system, the icon was used for cen thought could be best communicated by
turies within a a
religious world where the intricate diagrams he
calledfigurae,
consideration of the role of Abraham as number of which present the relation
a biblical model for contemplation was between the Trinity and humanity's
richly developed. Significant mystical growing mastery of contemplation.
authors, like Gregory of Nyssa and the A century and a half later, Henry Suso
sixth-century monk Maximus Confes (d. 1366) was equally fascinated with a

D dalus 2003
Spring

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need for using "images to cast out im
ages" in the path to union with God. He
commissioned a dozen pictures for the

Exemplar, the definitive edition of four

mystical treatises
he produced not long
before his death. To illustrate the final Yi-Fu Tuan
chapter of his Life of the Servant, Suso
created a picture manifesting how the on human
soul comes forth from the hidden divine
geography
abyss through the action of the Trinity
and finally flows back again through the
three persons into the darkness of God.
This image not only attempts to visual
ize invisible mysteries, but also provides
a synoptic view of the Dominican's

teachings.
The revival of mysticism in recent de
cades may appear puzzling to those who
see as an uncomfortable survi
religion As it is practiced
vor in a scientific world. Whatever today, the academic
one's
field of geography spans the entire spec
attitude toward the mystical dimension
trum of disciplines, from the physical
of religion, the study of mysticism has
and biological, through the social and
revealed a rich tradition of artworks that
economic, to the humanistic. It isweak
continue to intrigue us by their paradox
est today, however, at the humanistic
ical effort to make the invisible some
end, and I have often thought that my
how accessible to our gaze.
field might have avoided this fate ifwe
modern geographers had drawn more
inspiration from the Humboldt broth
ers - Wilhelm the humanist (1767 -1835)
and Alexander the explorer and natural
scientist (1769 -1859). Alexander von

A Fellow of theAmerican Academy since 2002,

Yi-Fu Tuan has received honorsfrom theAssocia
tion of American Geographers, theNational
Council for Geographic Education, and theAmer
ican Geographical Society, and was elected a Lau
r?at d'Honneur of the International Geographical
Congress. He isperhaps best knownfor his land
mark study of "Space and Place :The Perspective
of Experience" (1977), a work that not only estab
lished the discipline of human geography, but also
has proved influential in such diversefields as the
atre, literature, anthropology, psychology, and
theology.

134 D dalus Spring 2003

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