HUMANISM AND RELIGION

FROM MARRIAGE TO CHILDBIRTH AND CHILD REARING: DÜRER’S LIFE OF THE VIRGIN AS SOCIAL DOCUMENT
On view at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine
From November 4 to December 14, 2003

Reviewed by Laurie Meunier Graves

It always puzzles me when I think about the conflict between humanism and religion. According to Jacques Barzun, this conflict started early. Martin Luther labeled Renaissance scholar and writer Erasmus an atheist because he was a humanist. That is, someone who turned to the Roman classics for inspiration and style and who thought Reason and Nature “were the best guides to the good life.” In Luther’s eyes, even worse was Erasmus’s belief in free will, and this belief was surely a result of being a humanist.
Yet, according to Barzun, Erasmus was “a good Christian” as well as a humanist, and apparently Erasmus did not see any contradiction in being both.

My sympathies, of course, are with Erasmus rather than Luther. And it seems to me that in the Renaissance (at least with some artists, writers and thinkers), humanism and religion could complement each other: the human bringing warmth to the divine and the divine in turn illuminating the human. The great Italian artists of the times brilliantly illustrate this, but there were other artists who blended the human with the divine, and Albrecht Dürer was one of them.

Born in Nuremberg in 1471, Dürer is perhaps known best for his graphic work—woodcuts and copper engravings—but he was a talented painter as well as a writer, scholar, and thinker. Traveling to Italy to study, Dürer combined what he learned there with his own German heritage and developed a style that was a blend of both cultures, dark and gothic but also warm and full of life. I must admit when it comes to Dürer, I am not in the least impartial; I absolutely love his work.

At the Bowdoin College Museum of Art in Brunswick, Maine, there is a terrific exhibit of Dürer’s prints of the Life of the Virgin that includes commentary about the domestic life of women during the Renaissance. With detailed wall texts to go along with the art, this exhibit is a fascinating combination of religion, Renaissance history, and art.

According to one of the wall texts, “Albrecht Dürer published his series of twenty woodcuts illustrating the life of the Virgin in 1511. Latin texts written by the artist’s friend, Abbot Benedictus Chelidonius, a member [of] Dürer’s intellectual circle in Nuremberg, accompanied the images.” However, these works are not historically accurate. Dürer used details from sixteenth-century Nuremberg to portray Mary’s life, from her own conception to her birth to her education to her marriage, and, of course, to the birth of Jesus.

Yet despite the anachronisms (or maybe because of them), these prints manage to illuminate the sacred while at the same time providing scenes of homely, Renaissance life. They are a beautiful blend of the holy and the secular. In addition, woodcuts are an art form that gives plenty of latitude to the imagination and leaves room for fancy.

Just as fascinating are the details of Renaissance life. For example, I learned “During the Renaissance, marriage was the defining event of a young woman’s life…. European marriage customs did not require a religious ceremony or the presence of a priest for a marriage to be legal.” Apparently, if the man and woman were “eligible by age and gave their consent freely,” then that was enough.

In Betrothal of the Virgin, Mary, looking demure and somber, clasps Joseph’s hand. With his baldpate and kindly gaze, Joseph seems more like a father than a husband. (Perhaps Dürer didn’t want him to look too young and virile?) Around the couple, people are dressed in flowing robes and hats of the times. A holy man (a rabbi?), wearing a mitered hat and a long beard, puts his hand over theirs. Dark arches and columns loom behind everyone, giving the print a mysterious look.

Then there were the birthing customs. “In Renaissance Germany prospective midwives began as apprentices…. When a woman had completed her training, she was given an exam to receive her license. In addition to the midwife, female friends and relatives would be present at a child’s birth. Even with a midwife, childbirth was risky.”

Despite the risk, a birth in Renaissance Germany sounds like it must have been quite a party, and in Birth of the Virgin, this is exactly how Dürer portrays it. At least ten women are milling about; some of them have tankards and one woman has a bowl of broth that she is offering to Anne, Mary’s mother. Looking suitably wan, Anne is reclining in a huge bed complete with curtains. Yet, I can only imagine how comforting it must have been for the mother to have the company, care, and concern of these women. And, perhaps a sip or two from a tankard.

For sheer fancy, Madonna Sitting in Crescent Moon is perhaps my favorite. A plump and content Mary sits on a collection of tasseled cushions placed in the curve of the moon. She is nursing a very chubby Jesus, and his little head looks soft and fuzzy, the way a baby’s head really looks. The accompanying wall text informs us “Five hundred years ago, parents believed that a mother’s milk transmitted virtues to the child.” Therefore, the nourishment was spiritual as well as physical.

I could go on and on, but I’ll end with another one of my favorites: Repose in Egypt. Jesus, as you recall, was born in Bethlehem, but Mary and Joseph had to flee to Egypt because of the jealous, murderous Herod. Once in Egypt, they set about their business with Mary tending baby Jesus and Joseph working with wood. As Dürer imagined it, the holy family sits outside next to an old stone building. From a distance, God watches. Around Mary and Joseph are a flutter of angels big and small. The large ones help keep watch over baby Jesus. The smaller ones scurry about to assist Joseph and collect the shavings of wood from Joseph’s project. I can almost hear the hum of their small wings as they hurry to clean up the mess Joseph is making.

Cherubs, childbirth, child rearing, and the holy. Dürer incorporated what he knew as well as glimmers of the sacred to produce art that was both earthy and transcendent. For him and for other artists during that time, the split was just beginning, and it hadn’t yet affected their art. No doubt I am being unfair to Martin Luther and the Reformation. The Catholic Church certainly had more than its share of tics and flaws and was capable of great cruelty. However, art and ideas exploded during the Renaissance, and the dazzling creativity of that period has not yet been matched by any of the subsequent eras. Will it ever be? Who can say? But at least we have exhibits such as the Life of the Virgin to console and inspire us.

 

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