The Tree of Jesse

In Christian iconology, the "tree of Jesse" refers to Isaiah 11:1, and the imagery it inspired.

The pertinent text (KJV) says: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots".

In the Latin Vulgate, the passage reads: "Et egredietur virga de radice Iesse et flos de radice eius ascendet," so we see that a Latin term for a tender green shoot, "virga," [with the near-pun, obvious enough to western Europe for centuries before King James' day, to "virgo" or "Virgin"] became the sturdier-seeming "rod" in English.

But I'm thinking just now of the window in Chartres Cathedral in which a tree rises from a sleeping Jesse, and the rod, the trunk of the tree, consists of figures of David, Solomon, then two other crowned but uncertain referents, then Mary and at the tree's peak -- Jesus.

The 19th century French architect and theorist, Viollet-le-Duc, rhapsodized about this window, as an achievement in color. Then he turned to the issue of perspective -- not something, in his opinion, that can possibly enter into the particular form of art that produced this window.

"The radiation of translucent colors in windows cannot be modified by the artist; all his talent consists in profiting by it, according to a given harmonic scheme on a single plane, like a rug, but not according to an effort at aerial perspective. Do what you like, a glass window never does and never can represent anything but a plane surface; its real virtues even exist only on that condition. Every attempt to present several planes to the eye is fatal to the harmony of color, without producing any illusion in the spectator."

Henry Adams

Today's reading is from Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres, chapter six:

"You must first try to rid your mind of the traditional idea that the Gothic is an intentional expression of religious gloom. The necessity for light was the motive of the Gothic architects. They needed light and always more light, until they sacrificed safety and common sense in trying to get it. They converted their walls into windows, raised their vaults, dimninished their piers, until their churches could no longer stand. You will see the limits at Beauvais; at Chartres we have not got so far, but even here, in places where the Virgin wanted it -- as above the high altar -- the architect has taken all the light there was to take."

My personal experience is only with the great English cathedrals -- I have been privileged to gape at Winchester, Salisbury, and Canterbury. I wonder what kind of illumination (punning slightly there) I might have missed in the books Adams could have written about them.

Light is the material and the obsession not only of architects and physicists but of poets and metaphysicians too, and though my mind is racing in all of those directions now, I think it best to close down here and leave the racing to you.

Back to real time

The next you'll hear from me on this blog will be this Thursday, the 18th.

And that will be an entry written Thursday. This is the last of the pre-scheduled doohickeys.

Since yesterday's entry compared subway maps with medieval art, we might as well continue that throught today.

Here's a well-written passage from the pen of Henry Adams, speaking of Gothic art and architecture in general, although with Chartres in mind especially.

"No two men think alike about it, and no woman agrees with either man. The Church itself never agreed about it, and the architects agree even less than the priests. To most minds it casts too many shadows; it wraps itself in mystery; and when people speak of mystery, they commonly mean fear. To others, the Gothic seems hoary with age and decrepitude, and its shadows mean death."

For himself, and for his receptive reads, Adams says a little further on, "our amusement is to play with it, and to catch the meaning in its smile; and whatever Chartres may be now, when young it was a smile."