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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