Natural Beauty Shows Path to Grace

By Nora Hamerman
Special to the HERALD
(From the issue of 3/28/02)

God’s saving presence is manifest throughout the works of His creation.

This is the message of an unusual painting of the Crucifixion, which is part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington. At first glance, the triptych by Pietro Perugino seems to be lacking in emotion for a depiction of the most tragic, and triumphant, moment in salvation history. But its deep meaning is brought out by putting it in its original historical and physical context, making it most apt for Lenten and Easter meditation.

From March 3 until May 27 ¾ or from Lent until Trinity Monday ¾ Perugino’s Crucifixion is hanging temporarily in a special exhibition at the National Gallery, entitled "The Flowering of Florence: Botanical Art for the Medici." The co-curators of the show, Gretchen Hirschauer and Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi, have shed light on its unique content. It is part of a small group of religious pictures in which plants with symbolic meanings for Christianity have been rendered with careful scientific observation.

Perugino did not depict the violence and anguish of the events on Golgotha, but rather, a meditation on the meaning of the Crucifixion. The Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Apostle stand at the foot of the cross, but there are neither thieves, nor tormentors, nor executioners. The dying Savior gazes tenderly at Mary. The three other saints in attendance show restrained emotions. The setting is not the Place of the Skull, but the rolling hills and luminous atmosphere of Perugino’s native Umbria in central Italy.

At the time he painted this triptych, Perugino had just been working in Rome amid a team of artists from Florence who carried out the first decoration of the new Sistine Chapel for Pope Sixtus IV. Along one wall, they depicted the life of Moses; on the opposite side, the life of Christ. Perugino’s four panels included the "Finding of the Infant Moses" (a fresco later destroyed to make way for the Last Judgment of Michelangelo), and his celebrated "Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter." Perugino was surrounded by the intellectual ferment of Rome at a time when scientific manuscripts, including botanical treatises, were being collected for the recently established Vatican Library.

Around 1485 the pope’s confessor, the bishop of Cagli, commissioned the painting from Perugino, probably for a private chapel. It later came into the Dominican Church in the town of San Gimignano. One must imagine the bishop kneeling for prayer before this small altarpiece. As he looked up toward the crucified Christ, the first thing that would have caught his eye would have been a row of realistically portrayed flowering plants arrayed along the lower border. Curator Gretchen Hirschauer points out that "these growing plants functioned as devotional aides in clarifying the triptych’s meaning."

Symbolism in Christian Art

Further insight is provided by the 1953 classic, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art by George Ferguson. The book centers on the art of the Renaissance. Symbolism, as Ferguson explains, developed as "the natural response of the Christian to his world. Christian man, in his quest after God, attaches to well-known words, actions, or things, a mystical and spiritual meaning. In this manner, divine truth is recognized and a deeper insight is given to man’s ability to understand God’s presence in all creation."

In Perugino’s "Meditation on the Crucifixion," we see four figures at the foot of the cross. Two are required for any depiction of the Crucifixion: the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John. A third, Mary Magdalene, in the right wing, also present at Calvary, is the most celebrated Biblical sinner forgiven by Jesus. On the left wing is St. Jerome, the translator of the Bible and Doctor of the Church who lived in the fourth century. He too was a penitent, who mortified himself over his love of the pagan author Cicero. The vehicle for meditating on supernatural grace for these two great penitents is the beauty of the natural world, especially seen in plants.

Plants as Devotional Aides

Starting on the left, the first remarkable plant is the purplish-pink mallow placed at St. Jerome’s feet. This plant was grown since antiquity to make ointments, and was boiled to make a soothing liquid used for sore throats and such a wide variety of ailments that it was regarded as a panacea; hence it stood for salvation. Opposite, near Mary Magdalene, bulrushes stand in a pool of water. Ferguson explains that because the bulrush is "a lowly, thickly clustered, common plant, growing near water ... it has become a symbol for the multitude of the faithful who lead a humble life and abide by the teaching of the Church, the source of living waters." And, of course, the life of Moses, the forerunner of Christ, was saved by placing the infant in the bulrushes, as Perugino had recently painted the scene in the Sistine chapel.

An acacia tree stands close to the cross near St. John, and there are other acacia trees dotted in the landscape. Native to Africa, the acacia has deep roots and survives through drought and famine, which made it a symbol of immortality. The wood of the tree was used by Moses to build the Ark of the Covenant and the sacred Tabernacle. According to a near Eastern legend, a thorny species of acacia was used to make Christ’s crown of thorns.

In front of the cross are two bright red poppy plants. The face of the poppy was marked with the sign of the cross, and its blood-red color evoked the Passion; moreover, as the source of sleep-inducing morphine, it symbolized Christ’s death on the cross.

Two other plants growing near the feet of the Blessed Virgin, the violet and the strawberry, are often associated with Mary as symbols of her humility.

Humility is also an attribute of God, in assuming human form. The wild strawberries directly below the cross, with their sweet red fruit (perfect righteousness) and spring-blooming white flowers, are symbols of the Incarnation.

The yellow dandelions in the central panel are one of the bitter herbs that begin the Passover meal, celebrated by Christ at the Last Supper. Near St. John’s feet is a symbol of discipleship, the humble plantain, described by Ferguson as "a common and lowly plant which thrives along roads." It became known as "way bread" and symbolizes the "well-trodden path" of the multitude that seeks the path to Christ.

The purple iris at Mary Magdalene’s feet symbolizes divine message. The iris is often shown in conjunction with the Blessed Mother, because the swordlike leaves suggested the sword that pierced her heart. Under the Magdalene’s feet are drooping purple columbine blossoms. Wearing the color of mourning, these different kinds of purple flowers are appropriate to the Magdalene’s role as the weeping penitent.

The palm behind Mary Magdalene is next to an open gate. Palms, Roman symbols of victory, came to be associated with the martyr’s triumph over death, and the gate may allude to the entrance into Paradise at the end of this life, as Hirschauer suggests. There are also several willows. The willow continues to flourish no matter how often it is cut; the Gospel remains intact, no matter how widely it is distributed among the world’s peoples.

Spiritual Meaning Not Just in Religious Art

The spiritual wealth of the "Flowering of Florence" show is not limited to the religious paintings or even to the exquisite floral-designed liturgical textiles, such as the embroidered chasuble, chalice veil, and baptismal cover. The words of Pope John Paul II in his Lenten "Letter to Artists," of 1999 seem apt, when he wrote that "even beyond its typically religious expressions, true art has a close affinity with the world of faith. ... In so far as it seeks the beautiful, fruit of an imagination which rises above the everyday, art is by its nature a kind of appeal to the mystery."

The connection of science, art and religious belief was not lost even in the later centuries when the botanical illustrations were pursued in their own right. One of the three botanical painters featured in the show, Jacopo Ligozzi, painted a watercolor in 1609 of the South American plant originally known as maracot, with extravagant fruit and multicolored blossoms. Ligozzi had retired for two decades from flower painting and was producing religious altarpieces at the time. The devoutly Catholic Grand Duke Ferdinando I de Medici insisted that Ligozzi depict the flower that had been renamed Passionflower, because its stamens and pistils resembled a crown of thorns.

It was adopted as a religious symbol, co-curator Tomasi reports, and "a sign that the native peoples were waiting to be converted to Christianity."

Hamerman is a freelance writer from Leesburg.

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