Hagiography

Hello Friends!

One of my lesser-known interests, I don't call it a hobby, is hagiography.  

Hagiography is the history of the lives of the Saints, a sort of biography of holy people.  I developed an interest in hagiography when I was studying art history for one of my degrees.  It is a fundamental tool for any studies involving the art of the Rennaissance, where images are full of symbolism which would have been as well known to the contemporaries of the era on all levels of society in a way that we, for the most part, do not relate to.  

During the Rennaissance very few people could read, so pictures and paintings depicted stories to educate the masses much in the same way comic books illustrate a story without words today.  Churches were full of illuminated images of biblical stories, and everyone could read the story depicted knowing the central characters by identifying their attributes.  Art was a way of teaching, as well as giving people something to focus on when attending services in the days before printed Bibles and hymnals.

Colour was important, as I will explain, and every saint is depicted holding an attribute which is something particularly associated with each individual.  For example, a symbol of their martyrdom or something that was a dominant feature of their life.

The palm, frond or branch, is sacred to many religions, and to most of us is probably best known for being cast before Jesus as he entered Jerusalem on what is now known as Palm Sunday.  Consequently, most Christian saints are depicted holding a palm frond as an attribute of their faith, and distinguishing them from lay people in crowd scenes.  It is symbolic of triumph, victory, peace and eternal life.

Probably the most important colour in hagiography is lapis blue.  Lapis blue paint is a pigment made from the expensive and highly prized mineral composite Lapis Lazuli.  Due to it's costly nature, it was reserved only for the most important saints, so the most important of all saints, the Blessed Virgin Mary is immediately identifiable as she is almost always depicted in Lapis Blue.  Amongst other things Lapis is symbolic of transcendence, purity, royalty, and the divine. 

Saints were immediately identifiable by their attributes.  In the main, attributes were symbolic of a saint's martyrdom, although not always as not all saints were martyred, sometimes they indicated the prominent events or characteristics of the venerated.  Some examples of attributes are:

Saint Catherine: a broken wheel {tortured and condemned to death in a spiked wheel which broke when it touched her; the origin of the firework that bears her name}

Saint Laurence: a gridiron {grilled to death}

Saint Barbara: chains and a tower {imprisonment and torture}

Saint Peter: keys {keeper to the Gates of Heaven} upside down cross {crucifixion}:

St David: Bishop with a white dove on his shoulder {appeared to him}

Hildegard of Bingen: book {prolific writer}

Francis of Assisi: Stigmata {first person known to experience this}

Joseph: Carpentry tools

John the Baptist: a lamb {the one chosen by God to baptise Jesus Christ}

Mary Magdelene: Alabaster box {a myrrh bearer; anointed the feet of Jesus}

Patrick: A shamrock, snakes {the Trinity; he expelled all the snakes from Ireland}

David depicted with a dove on his shoulder and a Bishop's crozier, rood screen St David's Cathedral

The Four Apostles are depicted thus:

Matthew: A winged man, or an angel

Mark: A winged lion

Luke: A winged ox or bull

John: An eagle

and they are depicted N,S,E,W positions of this beautiful Rose Window in the west wall of St David's Cathedral.

As mentioned earlier, a knowledge of hagiography and saintly attributes is an essential tool for any scholar of history.  I find it a fascinating area of study, and hope you have found it interesting.  It is something which without it, it can be impossible to understand many works of art, particularly pre the era of printed books.

Until next time

Stay safe, stay well.

Debbie xx