The Original Illustration
The “Man of Sorrows” is defined by Medieval Art: A Topical Dictionary as an image of imago pietatis “self-sacrificing love,” or akra tapeinosis “utmost humiliation” (in Latin and Greek respectively) [1]. Characterized by the image of a worn and bloodied Jesus, the Man of Sorrows often shows him rising from the tomb or positioned in front of a cross, sometimes surrounded by instruments of the Passion. Occasionally mourners are depicted alongside Christ, or a host of angels, but most of the time Jesus is solitary in his suffering. This is the case in the Man of Sorrows in Castle Hours #3, a book of hours made in Northern France in the third quarter of the 15th century [2]. While some books of hours were made specifically for female or male use, there is no certainty to which Castle Hours #3 can be ascribed. Sarah Rees Jones and Felicity Riddy write in the book Household, Women, and Christianities in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages that although the contents of such primers were “chosen from a reasonably limited range of material,” they were easily personalized on the whim of the commissioner [3]. This allowed me to think about the personalization of the image and identity of Jesus, and how, if I were a medieval woman, I would commission such a piece. In his book Clash of the Gods, Thomas Mathews writes of the early medieval feminine representations of Christ as perhaps being a nod to his role of the nurturer, but also of the Gnostic and orthodox belief that Jesus was “polymorphous, that he had many different appearances depending on who was perceiving him” [4]. Mathew also questions the role of the patron in the representation of Christ, that if a woman commissioned a certain painting or mosaic of the Lord, then wouldn’t their vision shine through in the artist’s portrayal? [5] While reading this excerpt of Mathew’s “Christ Chameleon” chapter, the inspiration for a female Jesus struck me, and I began contemplating my inner image of Jesus and God.
1. Leslie Ross, Medieval Art: A Topical Dictionary (Westport, US: Greenwood Press, 1996), 161.
2. "Castle Hours #3, use uncertain." Bryn Mawr Special Collections, February 23, 2017, http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/speccoll/guides/ms21.shtml.
3. Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B. and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Household, Women, and Christianities in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 219.
4. Thomas Mathews, Clash of the Gods (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 138-139.
5. Ibid., 140.