St Teresa de Jesús 2015

Anonymous

Canonisation of St Teresa in Rome 1622 

17th century

Oil on canvas

165 x 211 cm

Museo Carmelitano Teresa de Jesús. Monasterio de la Anunciación de Nuestra Señora. MM. Carmelitas Descalzas. Alba de Tormes, Salamanca, Spain

The ceremony of canonisation took place on March 12, 1622 in the presence of Pope Gregory XV

In front of the Pope is depicted  his nephew Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi  who was the promoter of the cause of canonisation

Gregorio Fernández 1576 - 1636

Saint Teresa de Jesús 

Circa 1615

Polychrome statue

160 x 74 x 75 cm

Santuario de Nuestra Señora del Carmen  Extramuros. Valladolid

Gregorio Fernández (1576 – 22 January 1636) was a Spanish Baroque sculptor of the Castilian school of sculpture

The most important collection of his work is in the National Sculpture Museum in Valladolid 

He moved to Valladolid which was then the court of the Kings of Spain , between 1601 and 1606 

Another sculpture of the saint by the sculptor is preserved in the Museum:(below)

Gregorio Fernández 1576 - 1636

Saint Teresa de Jesús 

Circa 1625

Polychrome statue

172 x 103 x 85 cm

Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid

The work was commissioned by the Convento de Nuestra Señora del Carmen (Carmelitas Calzados), Valladolid around the time of the canonisation of the saint

In her left hand she  holds an open book inscribed, in which the name of her confessor, Pedro de Alcántara is included. 

Here we see the dynamic saint but also one who meditates and writes

Luca Giordano (1634 – 12 January 1705)

The Transverberation of Saint Teresa

Circa 1664 

Oil on canvas 

202 x 157 cm

MM. Discalced Carmelites. Penaranda de Bracamonte, Salamanca

This work was commissioned by the Spanish diplomat Don Gaspar de Bracamonte 3rd Count of Peñaranda (c.1595 – December 14, 1676) for the Convent of the Incarnation of Discalced Carmelites of Penaranda de Bracamonte (Salamanca)  where the work still  resides

The Neapolitan Giordano was nicknamed 'Luca fa Presto' (Do it quick, Luke) by his contemporaries because of his enormous output and versatility. 

He studied in Naples, Rome, Florence and Venice where he copied works by Tintoretto and Veronese whose style clearly influenced this composition.

The work commemorates the famous event which  happened to the saint in 1559 at the Monastery of the Incarnation in Avila

All images (except from the Museum) are from a websie of an important Spanish exhibition to celebrate the the 500th anniversary of the birth of Mother Teresa of Jesús: "Teresa de Jesús, maestra de oración" Teresa of Jesus - Master of Prayer

The exhibition is organised  by the Foundation of The Ages of Man, the Castilla y León and the Discalced Carmelite Order, in collaboration with other institutions and organizations who have carefully prepared for this important  year in the cities of Avila and Alba de Tormes: the places where she was born to earthly life and eternal life.

More than 200 works of art and literature from all over Spain will be sent for the exhibition 

The 91st General Chapter of her Order  will also begin in Ávila on May 3

Here are two more images from what will prove a landmark exhibition:

Doménico Theotocópuli “El Greco” (1541-1614) (attributed to)

The Holy Face

Circa 1577-1580 / circa 1600

Oil on canvas

46 x 86 cm

Convento de las MM. Carmelitas Descalzas de Jesús Crucificado (antiguas Capuchinas del convento de la Purísima Concepción),  Toledo

Alonso Cano (1601 – 3 September 1667)

St John of God

1653-1657

Oil on canvas

140 x 110 cm.

Archivo-Museo San Juan de Dios. Granada

The saint, dressed in the black habit of the Order, kneeling in profile, holds a crucifix 

His head is tilted and illuminated with pallor mortis

He is on the point of human death and on the threshold of eternal life

The scene is a Transitus

He died on March 8, 1550, his 55th birthday, in Granada. 

John was canonized by Pope Alexander VIII on October 16, 1690,

In a letter John wrote:

"If we kept before us the mercy of God, we would never be deficient in doing good, while strength was in us. For, when we make over to the poor, out of the love of God, what he himself has given us, his promise is that we shall receive a hundredfold in eternal happiness. That indeed is a fortunate and happy way of gaining a profit! 

Who will not give over whatever he has to this best of merchants! He administers our business himself, and begs us with outstretched arms to turn to him and weep for our sins, and become servants in love, first for ourselves, and then for our neighbour. 

For just as water extinguishes a fire, just so does charity blot out our sins. 

So many people come here that I very often wonder how they can possibly be provided for. But Jesus Christ provides all things and feeds everyone. Many of the poor come into this house of God because the city of Granada is large and very cold, especially now in winter. 

There are now more than one hundred and ten people living in this house, including the sick, the healthy, the servants and pilgrims. Because the house is open to everyone, it takes in all manner of sick people. There are people with useless limbs, the maimed, the lepers, the dumb, the insane, paralytics, and some who are suffering from cancer. Others are afflicted with senility, and there are many children, as well as the innumerable travellers and pilgrims who arrive here, and whom we provide with fire, salt and water, as well as pots to cook their food. 

There is no charge made for all this, but Christ is our provider. 

So, I am working here in debt, and I am a captive for the sake of Jesus Christ. 

Often I owe so much that I dare not go out, in case I am seized for my debts. And when I see so many of my brethren in poverty, and my neighbours suffering beyond their strength, and oppressed in mind or body by so many cares, and am unable to help them, it causes me exceeding sorrow. 

But I trust in Christ who knows my heart. 

Then I say, ‘Accursed is the man who puts his trust in men, and not in Christ alone.’ You will be separated from men, whether you like it or not. But Christ is faithful and is with us always, and he provides all things. We are right to give him thanks. Amen." 

St John of God  Cartas y Escritos 18-19; 48-50

Saint Benedict of Nursia by El Greco

El Greco (1541 – 7 April 1614)

Saint Benedict of Nursia

1577 - 1579

Oil on canvas

116 cm x 81 cm

Museo del Prado, Madrid

This work was part of a triptych

It was paired with another similar work showing St Bernard of Clairvaux, the other great founder

Both flanked the depiction of the Assumption

The picture of St Bernard is in the Hermitage. The Assumption is in the Art Institute of Chicago

It was part of an altarpiece commissioned for the Church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo, a Cistercian monastery

The founder of the Benedictine order carries a silver crozier 

His hand gestures towards something but we now do not know what it was

He stares out at the viewer but his gaze is soft and benign

The work appears to be a portrait rather than an icon

The Assumption was crowned by a depiction of the Trinity and was surrounded by images of the saints

The work was one of a series of works commissioned by Don Diego de Castilla, Dean of the Cathedral of Toledo

In AD 592, St Gregory the Great wrote of St Benedict:

"The man of God who shone on this earth among so many miracles was just as brilliant in the eloquent exposition of his teaching" (cf. Dialogues II, 36)

In regard to his Rule, St Gregory wrote:

"the holy man could not teach otherwise than as he himself lived" (cf. Dialogues II, 36)

El Greco depicts him as a  man in his fifties, which Gregory described as the time when 

"the heat of the body waxes cold, and the souls of faithful people become holy vessels; because they then are made the doctors of men's souls. " (Dialogues II, 2)

In 1964, Pope Paul VI reconsecrated the Abbey of Monte Cassino and in his homily recalled the description of St Gregory about St Benedict:

"in superni Spectatoris oculis habitavit secum" 

"He dwelt alone with himself, in the sight of his Creator"

Thus in Dialogues II, 3:

"GREGORY: [H]e returned to the wilderness which so much he loved, and dwelt alone with himself, in the sight of his Creator, who beholds the hearts of all men. 

PETER: I do not understand very well what you mean, when you say that he dwelt with himself. 

GREGORY: If the holy man had longer, contrary to his own mind, continued his government over those monks, who had all conspired against him, and were far unlike him in life and conversation, perhaps he should have diminished his own devotion, and somewhat withdrawn the eyes of his soul from the light of contemplation. Being wearied daily with correcting of their faults, he would have had the less care of himself, and so it might have fallen out  that he should  have both lost himself, and yet not found them. 

For so often as by infectious motion we are carried too far from ourselves, we remain the same men that we were before, and yet not with ourselves as we were before: because we are wandering about other men's affairs, little considering and looking into the state of our own soul. 

For shall we say that he was with himself, who went into a far country, and after he had, as we read in the Gospel, prodigally spent that portion which he received of his father, was glad to serve a citizen, to keep his hogs, and would willingly have filled his hungry belly with the husks which they ate? When he remembered those goods which he had lost, it is written that, returning into himself, he said: "How many hired men in my father's house do abound with bread?" [Luke 15] 

If then, before he was with himself, from where did he return home to himself? 

Therefore I said that this venerable man dwelt with himself, because carrying himself circumspectly and carefully in the sight of his Creator, always considering his own actions, always examining himself, he never turned the eyes of his soul from himself, to behold whatsoever else"

According to Pope Paul VI, the return into the wilderness was motivated by the saint`s desire to escape

 "the decadence of society,  the moral and cultural vacuum of a world that no longer offered to the spirit of possibility of consciousness, development, conversion; it was necessary to find a shelter for safety, calm, study, prayer, work, friendship, trust."

The Oballe Chapel, Toledo

El Greco (1541 - 1614)

The Virgin of the Immaculate Conception

1608-13

Oil on canvas

348 x 174,5 cm

Museo de Santa Cruz, Toledo

It looks very much like an Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But no. It is a depiction of The Immaculate Conception

The connection between the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception is a strong one. See Munificentissimus Deus

In her Will, Doña Isabel Oballe of Lima in Peru left money for the foundation of a chapel in the church of San Vicente in Toledo

The chapel is now known as the Oballe Chapel after the founder

El Greco changed the original  scheme or composition of the chapel

Instead of fresco, the main work was to be an oil canvas for the main altar on The Immaculate Conception

At the bottom of the painting one can see the city of Toledo. The event is happening over the contemporary city

Within that city the devotion to the Immaculate Conception was strong through the Franciscan Order and the Order founded by Saint Beatriz de Silva

(The Conceptionists, or the Congregation of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, were a Spanish order founded in 1484 by St Beatrice of Silva Menezes (1424-90). The order still continues today.)

The medieval Pope who championed the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception was the Franciscan, Pope Sixtus IV (1414 -1484; pontiff 1471 - 1484)

On 8 December 1448 Sixtus delivered a famous sermon on The Immaculate Conception in the Duomo of St Antony of Padua. He stated that the theme of the sermon is in fact generation: ‘All generations will call me blessed’. 

He considered the use of the word generatio, and said:

with the angelic salutation and her divine response to the angel, in a clear vision appeared all the generations of the Virgin Mary, those who would be saved through Jesus Christ.

He said that ‘generations’ refers not only to the ancestors, but also to contemporary humanity, those who praise the Virgin’s intercessory power.

We also see the traditional symbols associated with the Virgin and the Immaculate Conception in particular: roses, lilies, mirror, fountain of clear water

The key note is purity

An ecstatic Mary (Tota Pulchra) is being raised up towards God

We recall the Canticle of Canticles 4:7, "Thou art all fair, O my love, and there is not a spot in thee"

She, the angels and The Holy Spirit are transfigured by Light and by Colour

The Virgin is situated in a space inhabited by light, clouds and angels, and seems carried aloft in an ethereal atmosphere.

One also recalls that the Spouse of the Canticles "that goes up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense" to be crowned (Song of Songs 3:6)

She wears the then traditional blue and red. It is not until the 16th century that the popularisation of the vision of Saint Beatriz de Silva led to her being clothed in blue and white

That the idea of Mary existed at the time of Creation before the creation of Man was one which fascinated medieval theologians. The Catholic idea of "original sin" is not the same as others

In his sermon Sixtus IV said:

For is it not said in Genesis chapter 1 ‘Fiat lux’ and that holy and pure light that shines forth from the darkness is made, without whom nothing is done, (she) who nursed the divine sun on earth by whom humankind was saved?

Pope Sixtus IV commissioned a new Office from Leonardo Nogarolo (1477), the Officium Immaculatae Virginis Mariae, and later the Officium Conceptionis Virginis Mariae by Bernardino Busti (1492)

There was a Papal bull granting a generous indulgence to those celebrating the Mass and the Office

It was of course Sixtus who commissioned and built two chapels in the Vatican. One was for the Vatican Palace, the Sistine Chapel which he dedicated to the Assumption

The other was the chapel of St Peter which he built in the Old St Peter`s and which was dedicated to The Immaculate Conception. It was within this chapel that Michelangelo`s Pieta was originally located

On the top left of the work we see the figure of St John the Apostle

He is writing in a book

We are reminded of the Vision of St John the Evangelist (Revelation 12:1) of a 'woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars'. 

In addition to the main wall where the main altar was, there were three other paintings:vtwo paintings of Saint Peter and Saint Ildefonso (Patron saint of Toledo) on the side walls, and the Visitation on the ceiling.

The paintings of Saint Peter and Saint Ildefonso found their way, possibly throught Velázquez, into the Royal Palace in Madrid and from there to the Escorial. 

The Visitation, is now in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection in Washington DC

El Greco (1541 - 1614)

San Ildefonso. 

1608-13. 

Oil on canvas

 219 x 105 cm

Monasterio de San Lorenzo, El Escorial

El Greco (1541 - 1614)

San Pedro

1608-13. 

Oil on canvas

209 x 106 cm

Monasterio de San Lorenzo, El Escorial

El Greco (1541 - 1614)

The Visitation

1608-13. 

Oil on canvas

96.52 cm x 71.44 cm

Dumbarton Oaks Museum, Washington DC

There are similarities in The Vistation to El Greco`s The Vision of Saint John (1608–14) in The Metropolitan Museum in New York