Penitent Mary Magdalene: Visual Motifs in the Transformation of the Meaning of Seclusion

Year 2022, , 719 - 739, 09.07.2022

Serap Yüzgüller

https://doi.org/10.29135/std.1065395

Abstract

The Counter Reformation period in European art was a process in which some themes were transformed and also new themes emerged in Christian iconography. While the Catholic Church attempted to respond to the Protestant Reformation by using religious art as propaganda on the one hand, it focused on penitence – which was strongly criticized by Luther - on the other hand by concentrating on the sacraments which are determinative in terms of the Catholic doctrine. The most significant reflection of penitence in religious painting, which is more effectively underlined by the decrees of Council of Trent (1545-1563), is indisputably the figure of Mary Magdalene, with her biography evolving from sinfulness to penitence. The biography of the saint, whose controversial identity in the canonical gospels was “clarified” by the homily of Pope Gregory, was expanded with narratives in the late medieval literature that detailed the period of her seclusion. Thus, the image of the Penitent Mary Magdalene, distinguished by being the first follower to witness the resurrection of Jesus Christ, served as a remarkable model in the defence of the Counter-Reformation.
Presented by the Catholic Church as a symbol of repentance to both Protestants and Christians in general, Mary Magdalene has been depicted in paintings with the characteristics of portraits in which her nudity is often emphasized with reference to her sinfulness since the beginning of the 16th century. Tiziano’s painting dated to 1531 (Palazzo Pitti, Florence) is one of the prototype examples of such depictions in European art. With the influence of the spiritual environment that emerged with the Counter-Reformation and intensified in the Baroque period, this “erotic portrait” brought a new mode of representation composed with the visual motifs of contemplation on repentance and death while renunciation of worldly things and the idea of memento mori became the main statement of these scenes. As a matter of fact, in the widespread depictions within this period, the skull motif can be defined as an invariable attribute.
In the study, the content of the saint’s seclusion was examined in the context of both gestures of the figure and the visual motifs included in the composition, with reference to painting series of the Penitent Mary Magdalene by Tiziano, El Greco, Domenico Fetti and Georges de la Tour. The basis of this preference lies in the idea that motifs such as a skull, the Bible, a candle, a mirror, and jewels allow different meanings to be read in the scene created by these painters. While the paintings of Tiziano and El Greco trace the contrast in the sinful/penitent identity of the saint, Domenico Fetti and Georges de la Tour deepened the contemplation of the saint with “a melancholic touch” by feeding off the repertoire of the Baroque allegories. This paper aims to analyse the visual code revealed in the iconography of the Penitent Mary Magdalene, based on Panofsky’s “a world of symbolic values” paradigm, within the framework of the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, religious literature, Christian symbolism, the new mode of piety and the melancholic temperament.

Keywords

Mary Magdalene, Counter-Reformation, penitence, contemplation, memento mori

Tövbekar Mecdelli Meryem: İnzivanın Anlamsal Dönüşümünde Görsel Motifler

Abstract

Batı sanatında Karşı Reform dönemi, Hıristiyan ikonografisinde bazı temaların dönüşüme uğradığı ve aynı zamanda yeni temaların ortaya çıktığı bir süreçtir. Reform hareketine dini sanatı da propaganda aracı kullanarak yanıt üretmeye çalışan Katolik Kilisesi, doktrin açısından belirleyici olan sakramentler üzerine yoğunlaşarak özellikle Luther’in şiddetle eleştirdiği tövbekarlık olgusuna odaklanmıştır. Trento Konsili (1545-1563) kararlarıyla altı daha da etkili biçimde çizilen tövbekarlığın resim sanatındaki yansıması ise günahkarlıktan tövbekarlığa evrilen yaşam öyküsüyle tartışmasız biçimde Mecdelli Meryem figürüdür. Katolik Kilisesi’nin hem Protestanlara hem de genel anlamda Hıristiyanlara tövbenin simgesi niteliğinde bir önerme olarak sunduğu Mecdelli Meryem, 16. yüzyılın başlarından itibaren, sıklıkla günahkarlığına atıfla çıplaklığının vurgulandığı ve adeta bir portre niteliği taşıyan betimlerde karşımıza çıkmaktadır. Tiziano’nun 1531 tarihli yapıtı (Palazzo Pitti, Floransa), bu türün prototip olarak anılan örneklerinden biridir. Karşı Reform’la beliren ve Barok dönemde yoğunlaşan tinsel iklimin etkisiyle bu “erotik portre”, tövbekarlık ve ölüm üzerine tefekkürün görsel motifleriyle kompoze edilen yeni bir betimleme anlayışını gündeme getirmiş, dünyevi şeylerden feragat ve memento mori düşüncesi bu sahnelerin temel bildirisi haline gelmiştir. Bu çalışmada Tövbekar Mecdelli Meryem betimlerini seri halde üreten ve azizenin inzivasının içeriğini gerek figürün gösterim biçimi gerekse kompozisyona dahil edilen görsel motifler bağlamında farklı anlam katmanlarını temsil eden bir anlayışla ele alan Tiziano, El Greco, Domenico Fetti ve Georges de la Tour’un yapıtları referans alınmıştır. Özcesi, metinde amaçlanan, Panofsky’nin “sembolik değerler dünyası” paradigmasından hareketle Tövbekar Mecdelli Meryem ikonografisinde ortaya konan görsel kodun Karşı Reform ruhu, dini literatür, Hıristiyan sembolizmi, yeni dindarlık modeli ve melankolik ruh hali çerçevesinde çözümlenmesidir.

Keywords

Mecdelli Meryem, Karşı Reform, tövbekarlık, tefekkür, memento mori

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