Catholic Saints

[porphyry]

My first ambition in life was to be a nun, and it was a strong one. That story, however, would mean a much longer post, so perhaps some other time.

A few weeks ago, Benicek inspired this post by looking at Andrew's newest toy, a statue of Zeus, and suggested we get a statue of Jesus and have the two battle it out. I explained to Benicek that would mean buying nothing since I already had some thirty little statues of saints and created my own kitsch version of the Vatican across the top of some bookcases. I then asked if he would like to see more of them--they are Catholic kitsch at its best--and he said all right. Another LJ friend particularly wanted to see St. Lucy holding her eyes in a bowl and so she is featured among the pictures of some of my little statues.

What a strange child I must have been! Obsessed with saints and martyrs and flagellants and stigmata, collecting statues of saints and prayer cards (of which I have an even vaster collection) while my peers collected trading cards from Charlie's Angels and Star Wars and baseball players. So far, my children haven't shown the same predilection, but time will tell.






http://picasaweb.google.com/Anebo10/Sancti

Comments

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Notice that Satan is a Mermaid--that is his fluke hovering above his head.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Would you stop? It's supposed to show his serpentine nature!

[(Anonymous)]

Like the "serpentipedes Gigantas" (Ovid, Tristia 4.7.17), foes to Jupiter's order and therefore "missos ad Orcum" (Horace, Odes 3.4.75).

http://www.saintseiya-world.com/images/mythologie/zeus/gigantomachie.jpg

Thanks for putting the pictures on. They're wonderful; and "my" Lucy/Lucia super-cute. Did you ever hear of St. Dympna?

As to whether St. Paulus was a lunatic: Albrecht Dürer's famous painting of four apostles makes them archetypes of the four temperaments:

http://www.nuernberg.ihk.de/ihk_nbg/IHK_NBG/Grafiken/WiM_Bilder/Duerer_04_04.jpg

(left to right: St. John = sanguine, St. Peter = phlegmatic, St. Mark = choleric, and St. Paulus = melancholic.) Of course melancholy is traditionally a very problematic temperament. But Dürer sees the positive side of it and favours John and Paul (who also kind of represent Protestantism) over the other two (rather Catholic) figures, cf. Klibansky/Panofsky/Saxl: Saturn and Melancholy, which I have just finished.

(Very exciting read. Originally all the temperaments were regarded as disturbances or "dyskraseis", and only a balance to be longed for. Galen thought of nine "temperaments", namely: Too hot; too cold; too dry; too moist; too hot and dry (="choleric"); too hot and moist (="sanguine"); too cold and dry (="melancholy"); too cold and moist (="phlegmatic"); just right. During the Middle Ages the hierarchy 1. Sanguine > 2. Choleric > 3. Phlegmatic > 4. Melancholic got established, and Melancholy was somehow linked to astrological thoughts about the influence of Saturn. Ficino and Renaissance thinkers revived the idea of the Melancholy Genius of Ps.-Aristoles'/Theophrastus' "Problemata XXX,1". Erm, the book is over 600 pages, so this obviously is no summary, just a somewhat overexcited communication of things I didn't know and found fascinating.)

[(Anonymous)]

PS: My fourth or fifth ambition in life was to be a monk, and it was a desperate one. ;-)

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I just had the brilliant idea of photographing my three figurines and posting them here for you; but it seems that the baby has stolen one of them and hidden him somewhere, so it'll have to wait :(

Your collection is truly hideous and entertaining.

[(Anonymous)]

Still Martin, I do hope you see the PIN, so I don't always have to introduce me, I think I remember you once said you liked Caryatides. This came to my mind today, when I was reading the following paragraph in Vitruvius (quite at the beginning of his work; 1.1.5f). I didn't know how they came to their name, did you? And it's not even totally off-topic, aftzer all they are statues symbolizing obedience and mortification. But read for yourself:

Carya civitas Peloponnensis cum Persis hostibus contra Graeciam consensit, muni consilio Caryatibus bellum indixerunt. itaque oppido capto viris interfectis civitate desacrata matronas eorum in servitutem abduxerunt, nec sunt passi stolas neque ornatus matronales deponere, uti non una triumpho ducerentur sed aeterno servitutis exemplo gravi contumelia pressae poenas pendere viderentur pro civitate. ideo qui tunc architecti fuerunt aedificiis publicis designaverunt earum imagines oneri ferundo conlocatas, ut etiam posteris nota poena peccati Caryatium memoriae traderetur. non minus Lacones, Pausania Agesipolidos filio duce, Plataico proelio pauca manu infinitum numerum exercitus Persarum cum superavissent, acto cum gloria triumpho spoliorum et praedae, porticum Persicam ex manubiis, laudis et virtutis civium indicem, victoriae posteris pro tropaeo constituerunt, ibique captivorum simulacra barbarico vestis ornatu, superbia meritis contumeliis punita, sustinentia tectum conlocaverunt, uti et hostes horrescerent, timore eorum fortitudinis effectus, et cives id exemplum virtutis aspicientes gloria erecti ad defendendam libertatem essent parati. itaque ex eo multi statuas Persicas sustinentes epistylia et ornamenta eorum conlocaverunt, et ita ex eo argumento varietates egregias auxerunt operibus. item sunt aliae eiusdem generis historiae, quarum notitiam architectos tenere oportet.

(Carya, a city of Peloponnesus, joined the Persians in their war against the Greeks. These in return for the treachery, after having freed themselves by a most glorious victory from the intended Persian yoke, unanimously resolved to levy war against the Caryans. Carya was, in consequence, taken and destroyed, its male population extinguished, and its matrons carried into slavery. That these circumstances might be better remembered, and the nature of the triumph perpetuated, the victors represented them draped, and apparently suffering under the burthen with which they were loaded, to expiate the crime of their native city. Thus, in their edifices, did the antient architects, by the use of these statues, hand down to posterity a memorial of the crime of the Caryans. Again; a small number of Lacedæmonians, under the command of Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, overthrew the prodigious army of the Persians at the battle of Platea. After a triumphal exhibition of the spoil and booty, the proceeds of the valour and devotion of the victors were applied by the government in the erection of the Persian portico; and, as an appropriate monument of the victory, and a trophy for the admiration of posterity, its roof was supported by statues of the barbarians, in their magnificent costume; indicating, at the same time the merited contempt due to their haughty projects, intimidating their enemies by fear of their courage, and acting as a stimulus to their fellow countrymen to be always in readiness for the defence of the nation. This is the origin of the Persian order for the support of an entablature; an invention which has enriched many a design with the singular variety it exhibits. Many other matters of history have a connexion with architecture, and prove the necessity of its professors being well versed in it.)

PS: In my mind the punishment of these poor innocent women seems like a real petrification, too much coffee or too vivid imagination? - There's a very strange novel by Austrian writer Gert Jonke about all the Caryatides of Vienna, exhausted by the Sisyphan tension and the burden of perpetual vigilance, decide to simultaneously fall asleep and thereby let the whole city fall into ruins. (Erwachen zum großen Schlafkrieg = Awakening to the Great Sleeping War, 1982.)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Try to find them! I'd like to see them. What three do you have?

"...truly hideous and entertaining." Thanks. I know. :)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Why desperate? I wanted nothing more than to live in my little cell, plant my little garden, and contemplate God all day. :)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Those both strike me as folk tales. The Persian order consists of capital's whose volutes are formed of bulls horns, or in some cases even bull's fore-quarters and occurs in the Near East, so I doubt there is any influence of the kind Vitruvius here describes, even if there was such a building as the Persian Portico. I don't know the origin of Caryatids, but if I had to guess I would say it was something to do with columns originally having been tree trunks (the oldest temples were all wood, but their deigns were cosnerved in the switch to sotne), and trees being represented as female figues (dryads).

I see the Librarby I will be visiting on Monday has the Jonke, aber auf Deutsch, und meine Deutsches spraeche ist nicht so gut fuer ein Roman.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

I have replicas of a knight and bishop from the Lewis chess set, which I bought in the British Museum, and a figurine of Švejk, the hero of the Czech satirical novel by Jaroslav Hasek.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

You simply must post the whole nun story. It is unclear to me whether you believe these saints exist or not.

Damn, I wish I'd kept my Star Wars cards :(

[benicek.livejournal.com]

'Mer-man', surely?

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Apart from the last one, I think that's all my wife and I want to do now. I'd require the internet though.

I do quite like the look of this place: http://benicek.livejournal.com/84058.html

[(Anonymous)]

That's interesting indeed. Here are some Viennese Caryatides by the way: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9a/Karyatiden_Josefsplatz_Wien02.jpg

I really wouldn't recommend this one novel by him. (It's the third and weakest part of a trilogy, the frist and second part being: "Schule der Geläufigkeit" [named after Carl Czerny's work of etudes] and "Der ferne Klang" [named after Franz Schreker's opera].) Besides he's unlikely to be translated and notorious for his complicated grammar and endless sentences.

And to be honest, I'm not sure if I can recommend him at all. I was a big fan of his fifteen years ago (and I really really loved "Der ferne Klang"), but wouldn't read him nowadays. Like Ingeborg Bachmann, Peter Handke and Peter Turrini he's just one of those writers that are familiar to me because they like myself come from Klagenfurt and went to Vienna. Ingeborg Bachmann is the only one that really stood the test of time with me.

[(Anonymous)]

The image you paint was close to what I made the idea attractive to me. And I thought: Poverty, celibacy? I'd gladly, anytime. But obedience? Having my every day reglemented by somebody else? Living with my co-workers? That's almost as awful as if I'd join the army. "Non serviam. I will not serve", to quote Satan.

That was in my "Dostoevsky years"... I think I only wanted (yes: desperately) to become a monk because I was frightened of the struggle of adult life to be honest. Another (rather attractive) option at that time was suicide. Luckily I read about Wittgenstein's life, and I realized that there are other options.

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

That image of St Lucy with her eyes on a dish reminds me of Zurburan's painting of St Agatha; the idea of carrying attributes on a dish is obvious enough I suppose, but I wonder where this iconography first originated.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I wish we had such Sapphic caryatids like there on the justice department building in Washington. Whn the fundamentalist Ashcroft was Attorney General he had the mere statue of Justice with one breast bared covered by a curtain, I suppose otherwise he could not still his lust for the bronze. His reaction to thsoe things would ahve been really amusing.

nevertheless, those are quite beautiful. thanks for posting them.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I am not sure of its origin. I would guess becuase the splanchna were carried on a plate. I wonder if the fat-wrapped thigh bones were too?

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

It would follow then that Lucy's bowl was a patera for libation.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I couldn't say although one often sees that, as you say.

That's a lovely painting, by the way.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

All right. I'll start working on it soon, and then you'll hear the whole scary tale. :)

I still have all my prayer cards. Seventy-five at least, maybe more.

[petrusplancius.livejournal.com]

Zurburan is a fantastic painter, though I wouldn't take that as my favourite (I find the body-parts off-putting, I doubtless have too much of a Protestant sensibility).

[(Anonymous)]

In very Catholic and very Baroque Austria these are images very deeply burned into our brains. During World War II and in the early post-war time for example, many little girls were told that Russian soldiers cut off women's breasts to put them into barrels of salt. And even Marlene Streeruwitz, born 1950 (and one of my favourite contemporary writers), tells that she grew up with images like that.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you do find the body parts off-putting due to your sensible Protestant ways--Catholicism can be all about gore although it's gotten more "user-friendly" since Vatican II.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

You know, that's true and I suppose it could affect one adversely, but I find it all fascinating.

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Those are cute! A real bishop as the piece, and knight too. They are very nice. I don't recognize the middle figure or the story--is it a folktale?

[(Anonymous)]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_%C5%A0vejk

A household name in Austria as well. (An Austro-Hungarian, good old times thing. But also Bert Brecht used the subversive potential of the popular figure.)

[(Anonymous)]

Same fascination, but on the whole very ambivalent feelings here.

[benicek.livejournal.com]

That's Svejk. He's the eponymous hero of 'the good soldier Svejk' a satirical novel about a Czech conscript in the Austro-Hungarian army during the first world war. He subverts authority at every turn simply by doing exactly as he's told, as badly as possible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Soldier_%C5%A0vejk

:)

[benicek.livejournal.com]

To be honest, if I believed in hell I think it would look a bit like the Catholic heaven.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't speak Czech, but I think this gives a good impression anyway. (I only know the Austrian Fritz Muliar version.)

[benicek.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the classic two-part film version made in 1956, with Rudolf Hrusinsky as Svejk.

[himmapaan.livejournal.com]

Ah, but serpentine and piscine are surely different things?! ;P

[himmapaan.livejournal.com]

These are extraordinary! What do you make them out of?

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Thnaks you, but these are massed produced items. Put saint's statues into google shopping and you will see plenty of them. They are said to me made out of 'resin' which seems to be a fancy name for plastic.

[himmapaan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see! For some reason, I understood that Rita made them!

Resin is quite different from plastic (at least the good quality kind is) - though I'm sure you know this perfectly well and were simply being sardonic, so I don't have to attempt to explain its property! :P

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

No, No, I assure you, I genuine thought resin wa sa euphemism for plastic; I will take your word for it being otherwise, however.

[himmapaan.livejournal.com]

Hehe!

It IS in part at least plastic - in varying degrees depending on use. Usually, for the kind used in model-making, the natural tree sap is compounded with synthetic polymers so that although the material looks superficially plastic, it has a different 'feel' and a much more breakable property.

But I daresay there is more plastic than natural resin in mass-produced figures such as these!

Re: :)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Why on earth would that be? Wouldn't you want to be among the virtuous for all eternity? :)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

If I were better at art-making than I am (I have no pretenses that way), I certainly would have fashioned a lot of saints! However, I'm afraid I was a better model for true artists in college than I was artist myself, though I took a few drawing and sculpture classes along the way, mostly just for fun. One thing I learned though; using a pottery wheel is much harder than it looks. :)

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

I'd be okay with poverty and celibacy too, probably even obedience if it were for a good cause :) I'd be certain to take a vow of silence if I were living with my co-workers so I wouldn't have to talk to them.

Probably, though, the obedience thing wouldn't come to me as easily as I believe--I have a bit of a rebellious nature, though it's a quiet one.

Upward Man And Downward Fish

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

Imagine the grin on my face when I read this in Paradise Lost I, 462f. (The Fallen Army is described, amongst them:)

Dagon his Name, Sea Monster, upward Man
And downward Fish

Re: Upward Man And Downward Fish

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Now there is a discovery! that must be where HP Lovecraft got the idea that Dagon was some kind of aquatic monster.

In actual Canaanite beliefe Dagon was a corn god; Yam (or Yammu) was the sea god.

Re: Upward Man And Downward Fish

[leopold-paula-b.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked that. It's from the "Homeric catalogue of ships" kind of list of demons in Paradise Lost 1.376-521. (Even starting with an invocation of the Muse.)