The Hidden Skull: The Story and Symbolism of Filippo Tarchiani’s St. Dominic in Penitence Part Two

 St. Dominic is shown beating himself as an atonement for his sins in Filippo Tarchiani’s painting St. Dominic in Penitence. However, if St. Dominic tried to flail his whip in the space he is given in the painting, he would knock over the crucifix and flowers on the altar, break the hourglass behind him, and possibly crack the hidden skull sitting on the bottom of the altar.

 

St. Dominic in Penitence by Filippo Tarchiani. A public domain image through Open Access for Scholarly Content. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Brian J. Brille, 2015. www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/440900

Why would Tarchiani paint St. Dominic in a cramped and unrealistic space?

Perhaps the story told by the symbolic objects cluttering the foreground was more important to Tarchiani than portraying a realistic scene. What is the story the objects tell?

In my last post I discussed the symbolic meaning of St. Dominic’s peculiar halo, the altar, and the hidden skull. Today I will address the symbolism of the remaining objects in St. Dominic in Penitence and the symbolic nature of this work as a whole.

 

Excerpt from St. Dominic in Penitence by Filippo Tarchiani highlighting the flowers, Photo by blog author.

Let’s look at the delicate vase of flowers perched on the edge of the altar. Flowers in paintings, especially paintings from the 1600s, are loaded with significance.

Flowers shown in a religious context represent life, death, and resurrection. There are six flowers in St. Dominic in Penitence. The number six symbolizes the six days of creation. There are three purple flowers clumped in a row. The number three represents supreme power and the holy trinity and the color purple symbolizes sorrow, penitence, and truth in their color. The purple flowers reflect the two sides of religion seen in St. Dominic in Penitence—the truth and power of holiness, and the sorrow and pain which comes with religious life.

This dualism is referenced again in the two red flowers which symbolize the human and divine nature of Christ.

The white flower stands alone to unite these two contrasting sides into one pure and divine whole.

In this painting St. Dominic appears to be experiencing a moment of divinity represented by the white flower based on the light surrounding his body and his reverent gaze towards the crucifix on the altar.

St. Dominic may have been a saintly man, but he was still a man. The moment of pure communion shown in this painting is only a moment. St. Dominic was obliged to return to the dark and murky realm of humanity represented by the shadows in St. Dominic in Penitence.

 

Pope Innocentius III excommunicating the Albigensians (left), Massacre against the Albigensians by the crusaders (right). A public domain image from the 14th century. Source.

St. Dominic was no stranger to the messiness of human life. He lived during the bloody crusade the Catholics fought from 1209-1229 against the Albigenses, a group of heretics. However, St. Dominic brought some of the peace seen in St. Dominic in Penitence to the chaos of the crusade. Despite being on the antagonistic Catholic side of war, St. Dominic did not physically fight against the Albigenses. Instead he worked to protect all people from the violence of the war by providing them with food and shelter.

 

Excerpt from St. Dominic in Penitence by Filippo Tarchiani highlighting the window, Photo by blog author.

St. Dominic’s ability to influence people without resorting to force is represented by the window in the right-hand corner of St. Dominic in Penitence. No light enters the painting through this window, but instead the window may allow the light surrounding St. Dominic to shine out upon the world.

St. Dominic’s persuasive power is also demonstrated by the way our gaze travels around St. Dominic in Penitence. St. Dominic himself, the illuminated focus of Tarchiani’s work, draws the eye first, just as St. Dominic the man might draw a person in by his saintly life and teaching. Then, our eyes follow St. Dominic’s gaze to fall upon the crucifix on the altar, representing how St. Dominic led his followers to Christ. The crucifix faces St. Dominic and following its direction and our eyes return to the saint. This action could symbolize St. Dominic’s disciples being led to live a saintly life through following the teachings of Christ.

 

Excerpt from St. Dominic in Penitence by Filippo Tarchiani highlighting the hourglass and books, Photo by blog author.

Outside of the light surrounding St. Dominic and underneath the window on top of some closed books is an hourglass. The hourglass represents the time and the passing of human life. The closed books the hourglass rests on symbolize unknown knowledge. The hourglass and the closed books in St. Dominic in Penitence bring us back to the frailty of this painting. Just as one movement from St. Dominic’s whip could break the objects surrounding him and shatter the peace of this painting, so the reality of human life could end without notice. There is inevitable destruction lurking in St. Dominic in Penitence, but in spite of this destruction or even because of it, St. Dominic appears in a moment of divine bliss.

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The Hidden Skull: The Story and Symbolism of Filippo Tarchiani’s St. Dominic in Penitence Part One

There's something hidden in this painting that made me gasp. 

St. Dominic in Penitence by Filippo Tarchiani. A public domain image through Open Access for Scholarly Content. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Brian J. Brille, 2015. www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/440900

Do you see the shadowy form of a skull hidden in the depths of Filippo Tarchiani's St. Dominic in Penitence?

 

Excerpt from St. Dominic in Penitence by Filippo Tarchiani highlighting the skull. Photo by blog author.

Why is there a skull in this painting almost hidden in the dark? Before I answer that question let’s back up and look at the main figure in this painting—St. Dominic.

St. Dominic

In Tarchiani’s painting St. Dominic (1170-1221 C.E.) is shown whipping himself as an atonement for his sins. Penitent self-flagellation was a typical act for St. Dominic, who was arguably the most penitent saint. St. Dominic frequently stayed up all night engaging in penitent acts like the one shown. Sometimes, he was so over-zealous in his penance that his friends intervened to stop him from hurting himself.

Aside from his penance, St. Dominic was known for being kind, converting heretics, taking the vow of poverty, and being extremely studious. During his life, St. Dominic worked to evangelize the Albigenses, a group of particularly heinous heretics hated by the Catholic Church. St. Dominic was also the founder of the Dominican Order.

 

St. Dominic de Guzman and the Albigenses by Pedro Berruguete. A public domain image. Source.

How do we know that the man in Tarchiani’s painting is actually St. Dominic?

Deciphering the Symbols

St. Dominic was an avid practitioner of penance, and the fact that the man in Tarchiani’s work is flagellating himself is the first big clue that the subject may be St. Dominic.

The man has a faint halo around his head with a small red star on it. We all know that halos are used to indicate holiness, but why the red star? As legend has it, when baby St. Dominic was baptized a glowing star appeared on his forehead. Artists, like Tarchiani, often place a red star on the halo of St. Dominic to help reveal his identity.

 

Excerpt from St. Dominic in Penitence by Filippo Tarchiani highlighting the halo and star.Photo by blog author.

As a child, St. Dominic remained as holy as his baptism predicted. His favorite activities were serving at the altar, reading, and penitent prayer. In St. Dominic in Penitence the saint is shown kneeling in front of an altar with an open book propped up against it while praying in penance. The open book also symbolizes spreading wisdom and truth, which St. Dominic did when preaching to the heretical Albigenses.

 

Excerpt from St. Dominic in Penitence by Filippo Tarchiani highlighting the altar and book. Photo by blog author.

The hidden skull itself is an attribute of penitent saints like St. Dominic because it is a reminder of the shortness of life and the inevitability of death. The skull in this work, similar to death, may not be the focus of our thoughts, but it is always present.

There are more symbols in St. Dominic in Penitence, like the hourglass, the vase of flowers, and the window. I’ll delve deeper into these symbols and the story they tell in my next post.

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Old Bach's Sons

Today, J. S. Bach overshadows his musical relatives, but that wasn’t always the case. During the 1700s the modern music of J. S. Bach’s sons Carl Philipp Emanuel, Wilhelm Friedemann, Johann Christian, and Johann Christoph Friedrich was popular while the works of Johann Sebastian, aka “Old Bach” were left on the shelf.

 

A portrait of C. P. E. Bach By Franz Conrad Löhr.
A public domain image. Source.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the second son of J. S. Bach, was likely the most noted composer of the Bach family during his time—and he knew it. Even Mozart appreciated C. P. E. Bach’s work, and he wrote: “[C. P. E.] Bach is the father. We are the children!” C. P. E. Bach liked to think of himself as influential, and to secure his musical legacy, he wrote himself an autobiography.

Unfortunately, the music of C. P. E. Bach is little known today. But he did leave a huge imprint on the musical world with his book: Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments. In C. P. E. Bach’s time, the thumb was never used when playing keyboard instruments. C. P. E. Bach, however, disagreed with convention and wrote Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, which introduced a revolutionary new keyboard technique featuring the thumb. C. P. E. Bach’s keyboard technique is still used today.

C. P. E. Bach was the model son of the Bach family. He was an honorable musician who helped preserve his family's good name. The same could not be said about C. P. E. Bach’s older brother, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.

 

A portrait of W. F. Bach. A public domain image, Source.

W. F. Bach’s career started well. He was gifted at musical improvisation and composition, and was possibly the most musically gifted of J. S. Bach’s sons. J. S. Bach wanted his gifted eldest son to be successful, so he wrote a job application for Wilhelm, such an impressive application that W. F. Bach was accepted as the organist of Liebfrauenkirche in Halle without even an interview or audition. Sadly, it seems that W. F. Bach relied on his father a little too much. After J. S. Bach died in 1750, Wilhelm’s life started to fall apart. He lost his job and ended up destitute, reduced to selling his father’s compositions—entrusted to him for safekeeping—just to get by. Many of J. S. Bach's works are lost due to his son's reckless behavior.

 

Portrait of J. C. Bach by Thomas Gainsborough.
A public domain image. Source.

Johann Christian Bach, the youngest of J. S. Bach’s sons, was also a shame to the Bach family, not because he was destitute, but because he became a Catholic. The Bach family was Lutheran, and at the time the Lutheran and Catholic churches did not get along at all. When J. C. Bach converted to Catholicism, 1760 his family was horrified and stopped speaking to him. However, becoming a Catholic ended up being a smart move for J. C. Bach as it secured him a spot the Italian Catholic music world.

 

J. C. Bach's memorial in Old St. Pancras Churchyard, London.
A creative commons image. Source.

J. C. Bach spent the latter half of his career as a fashionable opera composer in England and music master for Queen Charlotte. But, fashions changed, and J. C. Bach died unknown in 1782 and was buried in a mass grave.

 

Portrait of J. C.F. Bach by Georg David Matthieu.
A public domain image. Source.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach was not a shame to his family like his two brothers. J. C. F. Bach lived a respectable life as a composer and worked for Count Wilhelm in his Bükeburg court for the entirety of his career. Count Wilhelm was partial to Italian music, and to please him J. C. F. Bach wrote many Italian-influenced works including the strange cantata Die Amerikanerin. Die Amerikanerin was first titled A Moor’s Song. It was renamed after the American Revolution in 1776, though the cantata has nothing to do with America or revolution at all—it is about a lovesick man pining after his beloved—and the reason for the title change is unclear.

I recently heard Die Amerikanerin, and the work of Bach’s other composing sons, for the first time at All in the Family: Music of Bach’s Sons, an ARTEK Concert conducted by Gwendolyn Toth and you can listen to the music of Bach’s sons here:

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach

Johann Christian Bach

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach

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Bach’s Job Application: The Mass in B-Minor

Johann Sebastian Bach’s job was in danger. In 1733 Bach was working as a music teacher at a Lutheran church (Thomaskirche) in Leipzig. The church and town leaders, Bach's bosses, accused Bach of being a poor teacher and wanted to fire him. Bach replied that his students were untalented and unreceptive to teaching. 

Bach managed to keep his job, but tensions were high and he was tired of Leipzig. Bach applied for the position of Court Composer for Elector of Saxony Friedrich Augustus II’s court in Dresden. The title of Court Composer was purely honorary and non-residential. Bach would continue to work at Leipzig whether or not he obtained the position. But, being the honorary Court Composer would allow Bach to mentally escape Leipzig and mingle with the elite Dresden music scene.

Friedrich Augustus II was a great patron of the arts, and he was a Catholic. As a nod to the Elector’s tastes, Bach sent a short Latin Catholic Mass (the first half of the Mass in B-Minor) with his application. Bach did not compose this Mass completely from scratch. Instead, he took some of his best musical themes from the past and used them as inspiration. The mini Mass was dramatic, which suited the current fashion in Dresden. The instrumental parts of the Mass were written to especially compliment the talents of the Dresden Court musicians, and the vocal parts were perfect for the popular opera singers of the day. 

First page of the Benedictus from Bach's autograph score of the B-Minor Mass.
A public domain image. Source.

Three years later, Bach obtained the coveted title of Court Composer and set the Mass aside, but that wasn't the end of the piece. In 1745 Bach set to work on the B-Minor Mass again.

What prompted Bach to pick up the Mass in 1745 and add the second half?

The true answer to this question is no one really knows.

One theory, illustrated by John Eliot Gardiner in his book Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven, is that Bach was inspired by the Second Silesian War. This war ravaged Leipzig, and after peace was declared, Bach revived and revised the shorter Mass for a war memorial service. Coming back to the Mass for this service may have inspired Bach to transform the piece into a full Mass ordinary.

 John Eliot Gardiner's book.
Photo taken by blog author.

Or, perhaps Bach always intended to complete his great Mass. The great composers before Bach like Palestrina, and Josquin des Prez, all wrote Catholic Masses. By writing a Mass ordinary, Bach was putting himself in the category of these musical giants and preserving his legacy. 

 

First Page of the Credo from Bach's autograph score of the B-Minor Mass.
A public domain image. Source.

Or maybe Bach wanted to challenge himself with the B-Minor Mass. Bach had written 150 or more church cantatas by the time he started on the Mass. Composing a Mass would allow him to experiment with a new and unfamiliar musical terrain. 

Despite the sheer number of cantatas and other compositions Bach produced, he may have been scared that his music wouldn’t survive long. Church music in Bach’s time was not valued very highly and the paper it was written on was often used as scrap paper or kindling for fires. By composing the B-Minor Mass and preserving a copy of at least half with Friedrich Augustus II, Bach made sure his music would be remembered, even if his cantata scores were burned.

Whatever the motives or inspiration behind the B-Minor Mass, I think it is Bach’s greatest work. Since Bach composed the Mass over the span of many years, it contains compositions and themes from across his lifetime, giving the listener the full picture of his musical ability. The Mass also serves as showcase of the best Western musicals styles, from the Medieval era to the late Baroque. Throughout the Mass, Bach seamlessly blends movements which were ultra-modern in his time, like the Domine Deus, with pieces based off of ancient Gregorian chants, like the Gratias.

 

Photo of program for Trinity Church Wall Street's performance of the Mass in B-Minor.
Photo taken by FAA. Used with permission.

I was lucky to see the B-Minor Mass performed live—it’s something. Bach himself never did. He died soon after he finished the Mass. The score lay dormant for just over a hundred years, before the full Mass was first performed in 1859. Now, the Mass in B-Minor is one of Bach’s most loved compositions.

 

Author's ticket to the B-Minor Mass.
Photo taken by author.

Listen to the full Mass in B-Minor here!

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Coffee, I Must Have Coffee

From the minute coffee arrived in Europe in the early 17^th Century the robust brew won admirers ranging from businessman Edward Lloyd to Pope Clemente VII.

Morning coffee, Author's own image.

Along with coffee came the coffeehouse, an import from the Middle East, just like coffee itself. Coffeehouses were cultural hubs attracted artists, businessmen, and intellectuals—all drawn to the drink which drove away drowsiness. For a mere penny one could buy a cup of coffee and gain admission to the coffeehouse, a place teaming with characters ready to discuss the latest innovations in art, politics, and music. These characters included intellectual giants like Isaac Newton, Abraham de Moivre, John Dryden, and Johann Sebastian Bach. In addition to coffee and conversation, coffeehouses hosted chess matches, scientific lectures, mathematical consultation, and musical concerts.

Coffeehouse soon replaced taverns as gathering places for conversation and business meetings as coffee promotes intelligent thinking while alcohol promotes drunken babbling, bad conversation, and bad business.

Lloyd's Coffeehouse. A public domain image. {PD-1923}

A coffeehouse in London owned by Edward Lloyd was popular among mariners who would go there to do business and insure their ships. Lloyd began creating lists of all the ships represented by his customers, their cargo, and their schedules. Insurance providers found these lists so useful that Lloyd’s coffeehouse became better known for its marine insurance than its coffee! The coffeehouse transformed into Lloyd’s of London, the famous insurance company which is still in operation today.

Lloyd’s was not the only coffeehouse to grow into a larger business. The London Stock Exchange, Sotherby’s Auction House, and Christie’s Auction House all grew out of coffeehouses. Even the Royal Society has its roots in the Oxford Coffee Club.

Zimmermann's coffeehouse. A public domain image. {PD-1923}

Johann Sebastian Bach frequented Zimmermann’s coffeehouse in Leipzig, Germany, a gathering place for local musicians. It’s no wonder the Bach was a coffee drinker given his hectic schedule as a teacher, composer, conductor, and father of ten children. Bach arranged and conducted weekly concerts performed by musicians from the collegium musicum at Zimmerman’s coffeehouse for ten years.

Bach, being the overachiever that he was, was not content only enjoying coffee and conducting concerts at Zimmermann’s. Inspired by the delicious drink, Bach composed BWV 211, better known as the Coffee Cantata. Bach is seen as a serious, cerebral composer, but the Coffee Cantata shows that he had a lighter side. (Listen to BWV 211 here, and read an English translation of the text here.)

Author's own image.

 Christian Friedrich Henrici, also known as Picander, a poet and librettist, collaborated with Bach on the text for BWV 211 which recounts the story of a young coffee drinker, Liesgen, and her father Schlendrian (his name literally translates to “lazy bones”). Schlendrian who vehemently opposes his daughters coffee habit. Liesgen agrees to give up most pleasures in life, like new clothes and the view from her window, if she can keep drinking coffee. But when her father threatens to prevent her from getting a husband, Liesgen gives in and agrees to give up coffee—or so she says.

Here’s where Picander original libretto ends, but Bach was not about to finish his cantata with Liesgen’s defeat. Bach had Picander add a second half to the story in which Liesgen goes behind her father’s back and forms a contract with her future husband which will allow her to drink all the coffee she wants. In the end, Schlendrian admits that it is impossible to keep women from their coffee.

Despite their love of coffee, Baroque women, aside from disreputable “coffee-trollops,” were not allowed in coffeehouses. However, like Liesgen, they were not about to let anything keep them from enjoying coffee on their own. Women formed coffee societies where they met in one another’s homes to drink coffee and talk.

A public domain image. {PD-1923}

English women were not satisfied with coffee societies and became increasingly irritated with men and their coffeehouses. In 1674 British women produced the Women’s Petition Against Coffee where they insisted that coffee made men weak. In their words: “Some of our Sots pretend tippling of this boiled Soot cures them of being Drunk; but we have reason rather to conclude it makes them so, because we find them not able to stand after it[.]”(Read the full text of the Women’s Petition Against Coffee here.)

Pietist preachers insisted that coffee drinking was as evil as using inappropriate music in church. This jab may have been particularly aimed at Bach who was a known coffee drinker and who was considered to make radical music choices for Sunday’s service.

Johann Heinrich Zedler praised the energizing effect of coffee, but mentioned its drawbacks which included weakness and a yellow complexion. Others complained that drinking coffee wasted time and distracted people from their work.

Charles II, king of England, opposed coffee and the progressive thinking promoted by coffeehouses. He was concerned the coffee drinkers might rebel against his noble rule. Charles’ answer to this problem was to ban coffeehouses. This outraged his citizens and instigated more resistance to Charles’ rule than coffee drinking did. The British government was forced to withdraw the ban after a mere eleven days.

The Baroque era was the golden age for coffee in Europe. After the 1700s the aristocrats began to drink the next popular drink, tea, and the common people soon followed. I’m normally a tea drinker myself, but while writing this post I drank a cup of coffee and enjoyed it almost as much as Liesgen did.

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The Misshapen Pearl: A Brief Description of the Baroque Era

The Baroque period (1600-1750) marks a time of great artistic innovation, strong perfumes, and gentlemen with luscious locks. During this age, music was seen as a form of communication, paintings were filled with dramatic effects of light and shadow, and bathing was considered dangerous. Famous artistic people who lived and worked during the Baroque era include: Bach, Bernini, Purcell, Rembrandt, and Monteverdi.

A copy of Elias Gottlob Haussmann's original portrait of Bach.
This copy was made by Haussmann in 1748. The original was painted in 1746.
A public domain image.

Today, we use the word baroque to describe the period of history from 1600-1750, but that is not how the word was originally used. Baroque, which comes from the Portuguese word for misshapen pearl, barroco, was first used as a derogatory term by 19^th century critics who found Baroque art to be old fashioned. Misshapen pearls may not be as popular as their uniform counterparts, but I find that the abnormalities of these odd pearls make them appealing. In the same way, Baroque art and culture, though no longer mainstream, offer a unique beauty of their own.

Misshapen pearls also known as Keshi pearls. A public domain image.

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