Raphael & Marian Liturgy at Notre-Dame de Paris

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Marian Hymnology

Tags

Alma Redemptoris Mater, Annunciation, Canonical Hours, Fra Angelico, Marian, Mariology, Mary, Salve Regina

Raphaël, born Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In my last post, I showed you frescoes on the theme of the Annunciation, executed by Fra Angelico, an artist and a saint. But today, our featured artist is Raphaël. As you know Marian art constitutes one of the richest areas of the Fine Arts.

However, Mariology is also an important source of sacred music. Just think how often the Ave Maria has been sung. I was brought up a Catholic child, but somehow I was not able to appreciate fully the importance of the Virgin in the arts and in sacred music until I started taking courses on the history of art and musicology. It was a wonderful rediscovery.

Given that I have written blogs on Mariology, Christmas and the Canonical Hours, my readers have already been introduced to the subject matter we are visiting today. For those of you who are new to my site, here are the links you may require:

Fra Angelico & the Annunciation, my last post, contains a list of the four Marian Antiphons or Antiphonies (antiennes, in French):

Alma Redemptoris Mater (Advent through February 2)
Ave Regina Cælorum (Presentation of the Lord through Good Friday)
Regina Cœli (Easter season)
Salve Regina (from first Vespers of Trinity Sunday until None of the Saturday before Advent)

There are many other prayers to Mary, but the antiphonies, responsorial hymns, are at the centre of Marian Sacred Music, and the one attached to the Annunciation is the Ave Regina Cælorum. As of Good Friday, two days from now, the Marian antiphon will be the Regina Cœli.

It is therefore nearly too late to speak about the Ave Regina Cælorum. However, because there is so little time, I will quote Notre-Dame de Paris:

This Antiphony dedicated to Mary was used in Assumption services starting in the 12^th century. This salute to the Queen of the Heavens, this radiant admiration uses every possible term for praise: Ave, Salve, Gaude, Vale.

On the Notre-Dame de Paris site, one can also read the following:

Since the 14^th century, it has been the Spring Antiphony, maybe because it praises Mary as the earthly root, Salve radix, of this light that opens onto the world – isn’t spring the time when days get endlessly longer and life sprouts up from root to branch? At Notre-Dame de Paris, tradition has it that before the great mass, the Ave Regina is sung in front of the statue of the Queen of the Heavens, which is why this antiphony is sung every Sunday at the end of the Lauds service.

On the same site, it is also possible to hear the Ave Regina Cælorum (Notre-Dame de Paris), but I am including the Ave Regina Cælorum on YouTube.

Orlando de Lassus (c. 1532 – 1594): Ave Regina Cælorum

performers: Pro Cantione Antiqua
conductor: Bruno Turner

photo: Mario De Biasi

Giovanni Legrenzi (1626 – 1690): Ave Regina Cælorum, Philippe Jaroussky & Marie-Nicole Lemieux

The Tempi Madonna by Raphaël, 1508

Fra Angelico & the Annunciation

03 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Annunciation, Fiesole, Fra Angelico, Gabriel, Mary, Michael Custode, Michael Glover, Pope John Paul II

: Fra Angelico

Last night, it occurred to me that today I would show you works by Fra Angelico on the theme of the Annunciation , the Christian Feast Day celebrated at about the same time as April Fools’ Day.

However, surfing the internet, I found a site dedicated to Great Works of art and in particular Fra Angelico’s Annunciations. So I decided that my best option was to tell about the existence of Michael Glover‘s site.[i]

The Annunciation

Fra Angelico: The Annunciation

In his description of the fresco to the left, Michael Glover writes that the Annunciation, “though central to the Christian story, appears in only one of the Gospels, St Luke’s.”

To the right, we see “The Annunciation Angel.” I found this second painting on a site named Artful Home (www.artfulhome.com).[ii] Michael Custode, the author, writes that “as in the ‘Descent,’ [another painting by Fra Angelico] in the “Annunciation, painted in 1438, [Fra Angelico] divides the painting into thirds. The first third is the left garden representing the virginity of Mary. The second third, is the portico the angel Gabriel has just entered and the last one-third, Mary sits and awaits news about her destiny from the angel Gabriel.”

In other words, it is a triptych.

Fra Angelico: biographical information

Fra Angelico (c. 1395 – February 18, 1455) was born Guido di Pietro, in Tuscany. In his Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Giorgio Vasari wrote that

it is impossible to bestow too much praise on this holy father, who was so humble and modest in all that he did and said and whose pictures were painted with such facility and piety.

Fra Angelico was a Dominican friar called, in Italy, “il Beato Angelico,” the Blessed Angelico. He was beatified paintings in 1982 by Pope John Paul II.

Little is known about the details of his life but, according to Britannica, “he appeared in a document of 1417 as a lay painter” and “between the years 1420 and 1422, he became a Dominican friar and resided in the priory of San Domenico at Fiesole, there taking the name of Fra Giovanni da Fiesole.”[iii]

According, once again, to Vasari, quoted in Britannica, “Fra Angelico was trained by the greatest painter and miniaturist of the Gothic tradition, Lorenzo Monaco.” It is therefore rather surprising that he became a painter of frescoes, mural paintings.

I would gather from Wikipedia that, listed below, arehis assignments, and his assignments were his life.[iv]

From 1408 to 1418, Fra Angelico was at the Dominican friary of Cortona.
Between 1418 and 1436, he was at the convent of Fiesole where he produced an Altarpiece for the Convent of Fiesole. This Altarpiece is now housed at the National Gallery, in London, England.
In c. 1436, he was housed in the friary of San Marco, which he decorated.
As of 1445, he was at the Vatican where Pope Eugenius IV assigned to him decoration of the Chapel of the Holy Sacrament.
In Rome, Pope Nicholas V (or Eugenius IV) offered him the Archbishopric of Florence, which he refused.
In 1447, Fra Angelico was in Orvieto executing works for the Cathedral.
From 1447 to 1449, he was back at the Vatican, designing the frescoes for the Niccoline Chapel for Nicholas V.
From 1449 until 1452, Fra Angelico was back at his old convent of Fiesole, where he was the Prior
He died in 1455, while staying at a Dominican Convent in Rome, where he was probably working on the decoration of Pope Nicholas’ Chapel.

It seems that what we need remember about Fra Angelico is that,

although he was a classical artist, he did not subscribe to Renaissance humanism, a scrutiny of man, as in man and woman,
that he worked for the Church as an artist and was extremely humble,
that, although he painted large frescoes, his frescoes reflect his training as a miniaturist : beauty is in the detail,
that he had mastered perspective, which gives depth to a painting or drawing,
and that he is a revered Christian saint.

I will now close so I can go and look at that Marian antiphon that corresponds to the Annunciation and discuss a little further Marian hymnology.

— The Annunciation

01 ニ短調の作品集　プレリュード

D’Anglebert: Prélude en ré mineur (D Minor), Hank Knox (harpsichord)

(click on the title to hear the music)

____________________

[i] Michael Glover: Annunciation (1435-45), Fra Angelico, published on July 16, 2010 (please click on Michael Glover or on the following URL: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/great-works/great-works-annunciation-143845-fra-angelico-2027376.html

[ii] Michael Custode: Artful Home http://www.arthistory-famousartists-paintings.com/FraAngelico.html

[iii] Mario Salmi, “Fra Angelico.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 03 Apr. 2012. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/24542/Fra-Angelico>.

[iv] “Fra Angelico.” Wikipedia. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fra_Angelico>.

On Calendars & Feast Days

02 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Uncategorized

≈ 96 Comments

Tags

Annunciation, April Fool, April Fools Day, Edict of Roussillon, Halloween, Marian Feast Days, Paolo de Matteis

: Annunciation by Paolo de Matteis, 1712. The white lily in the angel’s hand is symbolic of Mary’s purity in Marian art. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

the Feast of the annunciation

I remember a time when the Feast of the Annunciation (Latin Vulgate Luke 1:36-39 Annuntiatio nativitatis Christi) was a Feast Day. We wore our best clothes and went to mass to celebrate the day on which the Archangel Gabriel told Mary that she would give birth to Jesus, the long-awaited Saviour.

April Fools’ Day

However, we never associated April Fools’ Day with the Feast of the Annunciation. When I saw that April Fools’ Day could be celebrated on March 25th, and that the Feast of the Annunciation was a precursor to April Fools’ Day, I was a little puzzled.

For members of my family, the Feast of the Annunciation was a Christian feast and April Fools’ Day, a lay feast, and both were celebrated. April Fools’ Day was the day when you pinned a paper fish on the back of one of your siblings clothes. It was not easy.

All Saints’ Day

We also celebrated All Saints’ Day, la Toussaint, a feast that takes place on November 1st, but Halloween was not an important event. Mother would not allow her children to go out in the dark and knock at people’s doors. So Halloween was a family event.

Halloween

For us Halloween was the day on which we ate pumpkin pie and admired the light from the candle mother had placed in the pumpkin after she had emptied it out of its contents. The pumpkin had eyes and a mouth. Not only did mother bake pumpkin pie, but she also made orange and pumpkin marmalade. My mother’s marmalade is the best I have ever tasted.

The Edict of Roussillon: New Years’ Day

As for the Edict of Roussillon, promulgated in 1574, we did not know about it. For us, January 1st was the first day of the year.

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Eastern Orthodox icon of All Saints. Christ is enthroned in heaven surrounded by the ranks of angels and saints. At the bottom is Paradise with the bosom of Abraham (left), and the Good Thief (right). (Wikipedia)

The Good Thief to the right was crucified next to Jesus.

Marian Feast Days

There are four Marian Feast Days, all of which have been mentioned in early blogs:

the Annunciation (March 25th),
the Nativity (December 25th),
the Purification (December 8th) (Presentation of Jesus at the Temple),
the Assumption (August 15th).

Antiphons, the Hail Mary and the Magnificat

The links below each lead to Notre-Dame de Paris, as well as the text and a performance of the Marian Antiphons:

The Hail Mary, the Ave Maris Stella and the Magnificat are also part of the Marian hymnology.

Their story is told on the Notre-Dame de Paris site (in French or English). Simply click on the links above (Hail Mary) and you will also hear the music.

* * *

Once again, we have evidence that ‘pagan’ feasts were replaced by Christian feasts and that feast days were determined by the Seasons and, more specifically, by the degree of day light compared to darkness, i.e. solstices and equinoxes. It was a rather easy and sensible transition.