Étiquette : bible
Joachim Patinir and the invention of landscape painting
In November 2008, a symposium was held at the Centre d’études supérieures sur la Renaissance in Tours on the theme of « Contemplation in Flemish painting (14th-16th centuries) ».
Here is a transcript of the contribution by Karel Vereycken on Joachim Patinir, a little-known Belgian painter who is essential to the history of art.
It is generally believed that the « modern » concept of landscape in Flemish painting only emerged with the work of Joachim Patinir (1485-1524), a Dinant-born painter working in Antwerp in the early 16th century.
For Viennese art historian Ludwig von Baldass (1887-1963), writing at the beginning of the 20th century, Patinir‘s work, presented as clearly ahead of its time, would herald landscape as überschauweltlandschaft, translatable as « panoramic landscape of the world », a truly cosmic and totalizing representation of the visible universe.
What characterizes Patinir‘s work, say the proponents of this analysis, is the sheer scale of the landscapes it presents for the viewer to contemplate.
This breadth has a dual character: the space depicted is immense (due to a panoramic viewpoint situated high up, almost « celestial »), while at the same time it encompasses, without concern for geographical verisimilitude, the greatest possible number of different phenomena and representative specimens, typical of what the earth can offer as curiosities, sometimes even imaginary, dreamlike, unreal, fantastic motifs: fields, woods, anthropomorphic mountains, villages and cities, deserts and forests, rainbows and storms, swamps and rivers, rivers and volcanoes.
For example, the « Bayart Rock », which borders the Meuse not far from Patinir‘s native town of Dinant.
In addition to this panoramic perspective, Patinir uses aerial perspective – theorized at the time by Leonardo da Vinci – by dividing the space into three color planes: brown-ochre for the first plane, green for the middle plane and blue for the distant plane.
However, the painter preserves the visibility of the totality of details with a meticulousness, minutiae and preciousness worthy of the Flemish masters of the XVth century, who, by tending towards a quantitative infinity (consisting in showing everything), sought to approach a qualitative infinity (allowing us to see everything).
For their part, the authors of the weltlandschaft thesis, after showering with praise, do not hesitate to strongly relativize his contribution, saying:
« For landscape painting to become anything other than a virtuoso but compulsive accumulation of motifs, and more precisely, the quasi-documentary capture of an infinitesimal fragment of contingent reality, we have to wait for the XVIIth century and the full maturity of Dutch painting… ».
And it’s here that the trap of this approach, which consists in making us believe that the advent of landscape as an autonomous genre, its so-called « secularization », is simply the result of emancipation from a medieval and religious mental matrix, considered necessarily retrograde, for which landscape was reduced to a pure emanation or incarnation of divine power, is clearly identified.
Patinir, the first, would thus have demonstrated a purely « modern » aesthetic conception, and these « realistic » landscapes would mark the transition from a religious – and therefore obscurantist – cultural paradigm to a modern one, i.e. one devoid of meaning… which he would later be criticized for.
This is how the romantic and fantastic minds of the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries viewed the artists of the XVth and XVIth centuries.
Von Baldass was undoubtedly influenced by the writings of Goethe, who, no doubt in a moment of enthusiasm for Greek paganism, analyzed the increasingly diminished role of religious figures in XVIth-century Flemish paintings and deduced that it was no longer the religious subject that was the subject, but the landscape.
Just as Rubens would have used the pretext of painting Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise to be able to paint nudes, Patinir would simply have seized the pretext of a biblical passage to be able to indulge his true passion, landscape…
A little detour via Hieronymus Bosch
A fresh look at Patinir’s work clearly demonstrates the error of this analysis.
To arrive at a more accurate reading, I suggest a detour to Hieronymus Bosch, whose spirit was very much alive among Erasmus‘ circle of friends in Antwerp (Gérard David, Quentin Massys, Jan Wellens Cock, Albrecht Dürer, etc.), of which Patinir was a member.
Bosch, contrary to the clichés still in vogue today, is above all a pious and moralizing spirit. If he shows vice, it’s not so much to praise it as to make us aware of just how much it attracts us. Faithful to the Augustinian traditions of Devotio Moderna, promoted by the Brothers of the Common Life (a spiritual renewal movement to which he was close), Bosch believes that man’s attachment to earthly things leads him to sin. This is the central theme of all his work, the spirit of which can only be penetrated by reading The Imitation of Christ, written, in all probability, by the founding soul of the Devotio Moderna, Geert Groote (1340-1384), or his disciple, Thomas à Kempis (1379-1471), to whom this work is generally attributed.
In this work, the most widely read in human history after the Bible, we read:
« Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, except loving God and serving Him alone.
Sovereign wisdom is to strive for the kingdom of heaven by despising the world.
—Vanity, then, to hoard perishable riches and hope in them.
—Vanity to aspire to honors and to rise to the highest.
—Vanity, to follow the desires of the flesh and seek that for which one must soon be rigorously punished.
—Vanity, to wish for a long life and not care about living well.
—Vanity, to think only of the present life and not to foresee what will follow it.
—Vanity, to cling to what passes so quickly and not hasten towards the joy that never ends.
Remember often the words of the wise man: the eye is not satisfied with what it sees, nor the ear with what it hears.
Apply yourselves, therefore, to detaching your heart from the love of visible things, to bring it entirely to the invisible ones, for those who follow the lure of their senses defile their souls and lose the grace of God. »
Bosch treats this subject with great compassion and humor in his painting The Hay Wagon (Prado Museum, Madrid).
The allegory of straw already exists in the Old Testament. Isaiah 40:6 :
« All flesh is grass,
and all its brightness like the flower of the field;
The grass withers, the flower withers,
when the breath of Yahweh passes over it.
« Yes, the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower withers,
but the word of our God
is fulfilled forever.«
It was echoed in the New Testament by the apostle Peter (1:24):
« For all flesh is like grass,
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls. »
Johannes Brahms uses this passage in the second movement of his German Requiem.
Bosch‘s triptych depicts a hay wagon, an allegory of the vanity of earthly riches, pulled by strange creatures on their way to hell.
The Duke of Burgundy, the Emperor of Germany and even the Pope himself (this is the time of Julius II…) follow close behind, while a dozen or so characters fight to the death for a blade of straw. It’s a bit like the huge speculative securities bubble that is leading our era into a great depression…
It’s easy to imagine the bankers who sabotaged the G20 summit to perpetuate their system, which is so profitable in the very short term. But this corruption doesn’t just affect the big boys. In the foreground of the picture, an abbot has entire sacks of hay filled, a false dentist and also gypsies cheat people for a bit of straw.
The peddler and the Homo Viator
The closed triptych sums up the same topos in the form of a peddler (not the prodigal son). This peddler, eternal homo viator, is an allegory of Man who fights to stay on the right path and insists on staying on it.
In another version of the same subject painted by Bosch (Museum Boijmans Beuningen, Rotterdam), the peddler advances op een slof en een schoen (on a slipper and a shoe), i.e. he chooses precariousness, leaving the visible world of sin (we see a brothel and drunkards) and abandoning his material possessions.
With his staff (symbol of faith), he fends off the infernal dogs (symbol of temptation), who try to hold him back.
Once again, these are not manifestations of Bosch‘s exuberant imagination, but of a metaphorical language common at the time. We find this representation in the margin of the famous Luttrell Psalter, a XIVth-century English psalter.
This theme of homo viator, the man who detaches himself from earthly goods, is also recurrent in the art and literature of this period, particularly since the Dutch translation of Pèlerinage de la vie et de l’âme humaine (pilgrimage of life and the human soul), written in 1358 by the Norman Cistercian monk Guillaume de Degulleville (1295-after 1358).
A miniature from this work shows a soul on its way, dressed as a peddler.
Nevertheless, while in the XIVth century this spiritual requirement may have dictated a sometimes excessive rigorism, the liberating laughter of nascent humanism (Brant, Erasmus, Rabelais, etc.) would bring happier, freer colors to Flemish Brabant culture (Bosch, Matsys, Bruegel), albeit later stifled by the dictates of the Council of Trent.
Man’s foolish attachment to earthly goods became a laughing matter. Published in Basel in 1494, Sébastien Brant’s Ship of Fools, a veritable inventory of all the follies that can lead man to his doom, left its mark on an entire generation, which rediscovered creativity and optimism thanks to the liberating laughter of Erasmus and his disciple, the Christian humanist François Rabelais.
In any case, for Bosch, Patinir and the Devotio Moderna, contemplation was the very opposite of pessimism and scholastic passivity. For them, laughter is the ideal antidote to despair, acedia (weariness) and melancholy.
Contemplation thus took on a new dimension. Each member of the faithful is encouraged to live out his or her Christian commitment, through personal experience and individual imitation of Christ. They must stop blaming themselves on the great figures of the Bible and Sacred History.
Man can no longer rely on the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the apostles and the saints. While following their examples, he must give personal content to the ideal of the Christian life. Driven to action, each individual, fully aware of his or her sinful nature, is constantly led to choose good over evil. These are just a few of the cultural backgrounds that enable us to approach Patinir’s landscapes in a different way.
Charon crossing the Styx
Patinir’s painting Charon Crossing the Styx (Prado Museum, Madrid), which combines ancient and Christian traditions, will serve here as our « Rosetta stone ». Inspired by the sixth book of the Aeneid, in which the Roman writer Virgil describes the catabasis, or descent into hell, or Dante‘s Inferno (3, line 78) taken from Virgil, Patinir places a boat at the center of the work.
The tall figure standing in this boat is Charon, the Ferryman of the Underworld, usually portrayed as a gloomy, sinister old man. His task is to ferry the souls of the deceased across the River Styx.
In payment, Charon takes a coin placed in the mouths of the corpses. The passenger in the boat is thus a human soul.
Although the scene takes place after the person’s physical death, the soul – and this may come as a surprise – is tormented by the choice between Heaven and Hell.
Since the Council of Trent, it has been considered that a bad life irrevocably sends man to Hell from the moment of his death. But Christian faith continues, even today, to distinguish the Last Judgment from what is known as the « particular judgment ».
According to this concept, which is sometimes disputed within denominations, at the moment of death, although our final fate is fixed (Hebrews 9:27), all the consequences of this particular Judgment will not be drawn until the general Judgment, which will take place when Christ returns at the end of time.
So, the « particular judgment » that is supposed to immediately follow our death, concerns our last act of freedom, prepared by all that our life has been. Helping us to contemplate this ultimate moment therefore seems to be the primary aim of Patinir‘s painting, with other metaphors thrown in for good measure.
However, a closer look at the lower part of the painting reveals a contradiction that is absent from Virgil’s poem. While Hell is on the right (Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the gateway to Hell, can be seen), the gateway seems easily accessible, with splendid trees dotting the lawns.
To the left is Paradise. An angel tries to attract the attention of the soul in the boat, but it seems much more attracted by a seemingly welcoming Hell.
What’s more, the dimly-lit path to paradise seems perilous, with rocks, swamps and other dangerous obstacles. Once again, it’s our senses that may lead us to make a literally hellish choice.
The subject of the painting is clearly that of the bivium, the binary choice at the crossroads that offers the pilgrim viewer the choice between the path of vice and that of salvation.
This theme was widespread at the time. We find it again in Sébastien Brant‘s Ship of Fools, in the form of Hercules at the crossroads. In this illustration, on the left, at the top of a hill, a naked woman represents vice and idleness. Behind her, death smiles down on us.
On the right, planted at the top of a higher hill, at the end of a rocky path, awaits virtue symbolized by work. Let’s also remember that the Gospel (Matthew 7:13-14) clearly evokes the choice we will face:
« Enter by the narrow gate.
For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction,
and there are many who enter by it.
But the gate is narrow and the way to life is narrow,
and there are few who find it ».
Landscape as an object of contemplation
The art historian Reindert Leonard Falkenburg, in his 1985 doctoral thesis, was the first to note that Patinir takes pleasure in transposing this metaphorical language to the whole of his landscape.
Although the image of impassable rocks as a metaphor for the virtue achieved by choosing the difficult path is nothing new, Patinir exploits this idea with unprecedented virtuosity.
We thus discover that the theme of man courageously turning away from the temptation of a world that traps our sensorium, is the underlying theo-philosophical theme of almost all Patinir’s landscapes. In this way, his work finds its raison d’être as an object of contemplation, where man measures himself against the infinite.Let’s return to our Landscape with Saint Jerome by Patinir (National Gallery, London).
Here we discover the « narrow gate » leading to a difficult path that takes us to the first plateau. This is not the highest mountain. The highest, like the Tower of Babylon, is a symbol of pride.
Next, let’s look at Resting on the Road to Egypt (Prado Museum, Madrid). At the side of the road, Mary is seated, and in front of her, on the ground, are the peddler’s staff and his typical basket.
In conclusion, we could say that, driven by his spiritual and humanist fervor, by painting increasingly impassable rocks – reflecting the immense virtue of those who decide to climb them – Patinir elaborates not « realistic » landscapes, but « spiritual landscapes », dictated by the immense need to tell the spiritual journey of the soul.
Hence, far from being mere aesthetic objects, his spiritual landscapes serve contemplation.
Like a half-ironic mirror image, they enable those who wish to do so to prepare for the choices their soul will face during, and after, life’s pilgrimage.
Bibliography:
- R.L. Falkenburg, Joachim Patinir, Het landschap als beeld van de levenspelgrimage, Nijmegen, 1985;
- Maurice Pons and André Barret, Patinir ou l’harmonie du monde, Robert Laffont, 1980;
- Eric de Bruyn, De vergeten beeldentaal van Jheronimus Bosch, Adr. Heinen, s’Hertogenbosch, 2001;
- Dirk Bax, Hieronymus Bosch, his picture-writing deciphered, A. A. Balkema, Capetown, 1979;
- Georgette Epinay-Burgard, Gérard Groote, fondateur de la Dévotion Moderne, Brepols, 1998.
- Karel Vereycken, Devotio Moderna, cradle of Humanism in the North, Artkarel.com, 2011;
- Karel Vereycken, With Hieronymus Bosch on the track of the Sublime, Schiller Institute, 2007.
- Karel Vereycken, How Erasmus Folly saved our Civilization, Schiller Institute, 2004.
The ancient practice of debt cancellation
While anyone with a modicum of rationality knows that a huge proportion of the world’s debts are absolutely unpayable, it’s a fact that today any debt cancellation, however odious or illegitimate, remains taboo.
By Karel Vereycken, December 2020.
Debt repayment is presented by heads of state and government, central banks, the IMF and the mainstream press as imperative, inevitable, indisputable, compulsory. Citizens have elected their governments, so they must resign themselves to paying the debt. For not to pay is more than violating a symbol: it is to exclude oneself from civilization, and to renounce in advance any new credit that is granted only to « good payers ». What counts is not the effectiveness of the act, but the expression of one’s « good faith », i.e. one’s willingness to submit to the strongest. The only possible discussion is how to modulate the distribution of the necessary sacrifices.
It seems that the ultra-liberal, monetarist model that has been surreptitiously imposed on us is that of the Roman Empire: zero debt for states and cities, and no debt forgiveness for citizens!
In his treatise on Duties (De officiis), written in 44-43, Cicero, who had just quelled a revolt by people demanding a debt remission, justifies the radical nature of his policy towards indebtedness:
« What does the establishment of new debt accounts [i.e., remission] mean, if not that you buy land with my money, that you have this land, and that I don’t have my money? That’s why we have to make sure there are no debts, which can harm the state. There are many ways of avoiding it, but if there are debts, not in such a way that the rich lose their property and the debtors acquire the property of others. Indeed, nothing maintains the State more strongly than good faith (fides), which cannot exist if there is no need to pay one’s debts. Never has anyone acted more forcefully to avoid paying their debts than under my Consulate. It was attempted by men of all kinds and ranks, with weapons in hand, and by setting up camps. But I resisted them in such a way that this entire evil was eliminated from the State. »
What has been carefully concealed is that another human practice has also existed: moratoria, partial and even generalized debt cancellations have taken place repeatedly throughout history and were carried out according to different contexts.
Often, proclamations of generalized debt cancellation were the initiative of self-preservation-minded rulers, aware that the only way to avoid complete social breakdown was to declare a « washing of the shelves » – those on which consumer debts were inscribed – cancelling them to start afresh.
The American anthropologist David Graeber, in Debt, the first 5000 years (2011), pointed out that the first word we have for « freedom » in any human language is Sumerian amargi, meaning freed from debt and, by extension, freedom in general, the literal meaning being « return to the mother » insofar as, once debts were cancelled, all debt slaves could return home.
Debt cancellations were sometimes the result of bitter social struggles, wars and crises. What is certain is that debt has never been a detail of history.
David Graeber sums it up:
« For millennia, the struggle between rich and poor has largely taken the form of conflicts between creditors and debtors – disputes over the justice or injustice of interest payments, peonage, amnesty, property seizure, restitution to the creditor, confiscation of sheep, seizure of vineyards and the sale of the debtor’s children as slaves. And over the last 5,000 years, with remarkable regularity, popular insurrections have begun in the same way: with the ritual destruction of debt registers – tablets, papyri, ledgers or other media specific to a particular time and place. (After which, the rebels generally attacked cadastres and tax registers.) »
And as the great ancient scholar Moses Finley was fond of saying,
« All revolutionary movements have had the same program: cancellation of debts and redistribution of land. »
Let us now examine some historical precedents for voluntary debt forgiveness.
Debt cancellation in Mesopotamia
The earliest known debt cancellation was proclaimed in Mesopotemia by Entemena of Lagash c. 2400 BCE.
One of his successors, Urukagina, who was the last ruler of the 1st Dynasty of Lagash, is known for his code of rules that includes debt cancelation.
Urukagina’s code is the first recorded example of government reform, seeking to achieve a higher level of freedom and equality by limiting the power of priesthood and a usurous land-owner oligarchy. Usury and seizure of property for debt payment were outlawed. « The widow and the orphan were no longer at the mercy of the powerful man ».
Similar measures were enacted by later Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian rulers of Mesopotamia, where they were known as « freedom decrees » (ama-gi in Sumerian).
This same theme exists in an ancient bilingual Hittite–Hurrian text entitled « The Song of Debt Release ».
The reign of Hammurabi, King of Babylon (located in present-day Iraq), began in 1792 BC and lasted 42 years.
The inscriptions preserved on a 2-meter-high stele in the Louvre are known as the « Hammurabi Code ». It was placed in a public square in Babylon. If it is a long, very severe code of justice, prescribing the application of the law of retaliation (« an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth »), its epilogue nevertheless proclaims that « the powerful cannot oppress the weak, justice must protect the widow and the orphan (…) in order to render justice to the oppressed ».
Hammurabi, like the other rulers of the Mesopotamian city-states, repeatedly proclaimed a general cancellation of citizens’ debts to public authorities, their high officials and dignitaries.
Thanks to the deciphering of numerous documents written in cuneiform, historians have found indisputable evidence of four general debt cancellations during Hammurabi’s reign (at the beginning of his reign in 1792, in 1780, in 1771 and in 1762 BC).
Babylonian society was predominantly agricultural. The temple and palace, and the scribes and craftsmen they employed, depended for their sustenance on a vast peasantry from whom land, tools and livestock were rented.
In exchange, each farmer had to offer part of his production as rent. However, when climatic hazards or epidemics made normal production impossible, producers went into debt.
The inability of peasants to repay debts could also lead to their enslavement (family members could also be enslaved for debt).
The Hammurabi Code obviously wanted to change this. Article 48 of the Code of Laws states:
« Whoever owes a loan, and a storm buries the grain, or the harvest fails, or the grain does not grow for lack of water, need not give any grain to the creditor that year, he wipes the tablet of the debt in the water and pays no interest for that year. »
This ideal of justice is notably supported by the terms kittum, « justice as the guarantor of public order », and « justice as the restoration of equity. » It was asserted in particular during the « edicts of grace » (designated by the term mîsharum), a general remission of public and private debts in the kingdom (including the release of people working for another person to repay a debt).
Thus, to preserve the social order, Hammurabi and the ruling power, acting in their own interests and in the interests of society’s future, periodically agreed to cancel all debts and restore the rights of peasants, in order to save the threatened old order in times of crisis, or as a kind of reset at the beginning of a sovereign’s reign.
Proclamations of general debt cancellation are not confined to the reign of Hammurabi; they began long before him and continued afterwards. There is evidence of debt cancellations as far back as 2400 BC, six centuries before Hammurabi’s reign, in the city of Lagash (Sumer); the most recent date back to 1400 BC in Nuzi.
In all, historians have accurately identified some thirty general debt cancellations in Mesopotamia between 2400 and 1400 BC.
These proclamations of debt cancellation were the occasion for great festivities, usually during the annual spring festival. Under the Hammurabi dynasty, the tradition of destroying the tablets on which debts were written was established.
In fact, the public authorities kept precise accounts of debts on tablets kept in the temple. Hammurabi died in 1749 BC after a 42-year reign. His successor, Samsuiluna, cancelled all debts to the state and decreed the destruction of all debt tablets except those relating to commercial debts.
When Ammisaduqa, the last ruler of the Hammurabi dynasty, acceded to the throne in 1646 BC, the general cancellation of debts he proclaimed was very detailed. The aim was clearly to prevent certain creditors from taking advantage of certain families. The annulment decree stipulates that official creditors and tax collectors who have expelled peasants must compensate them and return their property, on pain of execution.
After 1400 BC, no deeds of debt cancellation have been found, as the tradition has been lost. Land was taken over by large private landowners, and debt slavery returned.
In Egypt
In Ancient Egypt interest-bearing debt did not exist for most of its history. When it started spreading in the Late Period, the rulers of Egypt regulated it and a number of debt remissions are known to have occurred during the Ptolemaic era, including the one whose proclamation was inscribed on the Rosetta Stone.
Now on display at the British Museum in London, the « Rosetta Stone » was discovered on July 15, 1799 at el-Rashid (Rosetta) by one of Napoleon’s soldiers during the Egyptian campaign. It contains the same text written in hieroglyphs, demotic (Egyptian cursive script) and Greek, giving Jean-François Champollion (1790-1832) the key to the passage from one language to another.
This was a decree issued by Pharaoh Ptolemy V on March 27, 196 BC, announcing an amnesty for debtors and prisoners. The Greek Ptolemy dynasty that ruled Egypt institutionalized the regular cancellation of debts.
It was perpetuating known practices, since Greek texts mention that Pharaoh Bakenranef, who ruled Lower Egypt from c. 725 to 720 BC, had promulgated a decree abolishing debt slavery and condemning debt imprisonment.
TRANSCRIPTION OF THE PHARAOH’S DECREE
ON THE ROSETTA STONE:
Assembled the Chief Priests and Prophets there and those who enter the inner temple to worship the gods, and the Fanbearers and Sacred Scribes and all the other priests of the temples of the earth who have come to meet the king at Memphis, for the feast of the Assumption of PTOLEMEE, THE LIVING FOREVER, THE BELOVED OF PTAH, THE GOD EPIPHANES EUCHARISTOS, the successor of his father, All assembled in the temple of Memphis on this day when it was declared:
“that King PTOLEMEE, THE LIVING FOREVER, THE BELOVED OF PTAH, THE GOD EPIPHANES EUCHARISTOS, the son of King Ptolemy and Queen Arsinoe, the Philopator Gods, both benefactors of the temple and those who dwell therein, as well as their subjects, being a god from a god and the goddess loves Horus the son of Isis and Osiris who avenged his father Osiris by being favorably disposed towards the gods, delivered to the revenues of the temples silver and corn and undertook much expenditure for the prosperity of Egypt, and the maintenance of the temples, and was generous to all out of his own resources ;
“and exempted them from some of the revenues and taxes levied in Egypt and alleviated others so that his people and all others could be in prosperity during his reign ;
“and that he cleared the debts to the crown for many Egyptians and for the rest of the kingdom; ”
The existence of this decree therefore confirms that the practice had existed for many centuries.
The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (Ist Century BC) provides the following rationale for abolishing the debt bondage by Pharaoh Bakenranef:
« For it would be absurd… that a soldier, at the moment perhaps when he was setting forth to fight for his fatherland, should be haled to prison by his creditor for an unpaid loan, and that the greed of private citizens should in this way endanger the safety of all »
As one can see here, one of the very pragmatic reasons for debt cancellation was that the Pharaoh wanted to have a peasantry capable of producing enough food and, if need be, able to take part in military campaigns. For both of these reasons, it was important to ensure that peasants were not expelled from their lands under the thumb of creditors.
In another part of the region, the Assyrian emperors of the 1st millennium BC also adopted the tradition of debt cancellation.
In Greece: Solon of Athens
In Greece, the Athenian lawmaker Solon (c. 638 BC–558 BC), in order to rectify the widespread serfdom and slavery that had run rampant by the 6th century BCE, introduced a set of laws nown as the Seisachtheia introducing debt relief.
Before Solon, according to the account of the Constitution of the Athenians attributed to Aristotle, debtors unable to repay their creditors would surrender their land to them, then becoming hektemoroi, i.e. serfs who cultivated what used to be their own land and gave one sixth of produce to their creditors. However, should the debt exceed the perceived value of debtor’s total assets, then the debtor and his family would become the creditor’s slaves as well. The same would result if a man defaulted on a debt whose collateral was the debtor’s personal freedom. The fight for debt relief and the fight to abolish slavery were in practice identical.
Solon’s seisachtheia laws immediately cancelled all outstanding debts, retroactively emancipated all previously enslaved debtors, reinstated all confiscated serf property to the hektemoroi, and forbade the use of personal freedom as collateral in all future debts. The laws instituted a ceiling to maximum property size – regardless of the legality of its acquisition (i.e. by marriage), meant to prevent excessive accumulation of land by powerful families.
In the Torah and Old Testament
Social justice, particularly in the form of forgiving debts that shackle the poor to the rich, is a leitmotif in the history of Judaism. It was practiced in Jerusalem in the 5th century BC.
The writing of the Torah was completed at this time. Deuteronomy, 15 states:
The Year for Canceling Debts
15 At the end of every seven years you must cancel debts.
2 This is how it is to be done: Every creditor shall cancel any loan they have made to a fellow Israelite. They shall not require payment from anyone among their own people, because the Lord’s time for canceling debts has been proclaimed.
3 You may require payment from a foreigner, but you must cancel any debt your fellow Israelite owes you.
4 However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you,
5 if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.
6 For the Lord your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.
7 If anyone is poor among your fellow Israelites in any of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward them.
8 Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need.
9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought: “The seventh year, the year for canceling debts, is near,” so that you do not show ill will toward the needy among your fellow Israelites and give them nothing. They may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin.
10 Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to.
11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.
Thus, the Israelites were obliged to free Hebrew slaves who had sold themselves to them for debt, and to offer them some of the produce of their small livestock, their fields and their wine presses, so that they would not return home empty-handed.
As the law is too rarely applied, Leviticus reaffirms it by modulating it:
The Year of Jubilee
8 “‘Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years.
9 Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land.
10 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.
11 The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines.
12 For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
13 “‘In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.
14 “‘If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other.
15 You are to buy from your own people on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And they are to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops.
16 When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what is really being sold to you is the number of crops.
17 Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God.
Today, some will tell you that under these conditions, a year before the jubilee date, credit would necessarily be scarce and expensive, and that debt would thus find its limit!
This is a mistake, because to ensure that the law is followed, the codes describe in detail how purchases and sales of goods between private individuals must be carried out according to the number of years elapsed since the previous jubilee (i.e., the number of years remaining before the goods must be returned to their previous owner).
Another passage, this time from the prophet Jeremiah, vividly illustrates the scope of the law on the remission of debts.
Faced with the advance of enemy armies towards Jerusalem in 587 B.C., Jeremiah supports, in God’s name, the undertaking of King Zedekiah (then ruler of the Kingdom of Judea), who demands the immediate release of all those enslaved for debt from the powerful forces of his kingdom (Jer. 34:8-17).
Jeremiah forcefully recalls the ancient demand for the freeing of slaves… which the king, in fact, needs to patriotically reunite the social classes before the battle, and give himself sufficient troops free of all servile obligations!
A passage in the Book of (the prophet) Nehemiah (447 BC), the governor of Persian Judea under Artaxerxes I of Persia (465–424 BC), influenced by the ancient Mesopotamian tradition, also proclaims the cancellation of debts owed by indebted Jews to their rich compatriots.
The social situation Nehemiah discovered in Judea was appalling. To remedy the problem, Nehemiah placed the law of debt relief within a religious framework, the Covenant with Yahweh. From then on, it was God himself who commanded the forgiveness of debts and the liberation of slaves and their land, for the land belonged to God alone.
Nehemiah Helps the Poor
« Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their fellow Jews.
2 Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.”
3 Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.”
4 Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards.
5 Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our fellow Jews and though our children are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.”
6 When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry.
7 I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are charging your own people interest!” So I called together a large meeting to deal with them
8 and said: “As far as possible, we have bought back our fellow Jews who were sold to the Gentiles. Now you are selling your own people, only for them to be sold back to us!” They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say.
9 So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?
10 I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let us stop charging interest!
11 Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the money you are charging them—one percent of the money, grain, new wine and olive oil.”
12 “We will give it back,” they said. “And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.”
If we add to these passages the countless verses forbidding the lending of interest to fellow human beings and the taking of property as collateral, we get an idea of what the Israelites in the land of Canaan had put in place to try and maintain a certain social equilibrium.
Alas, in the first century AD, debt forgiveness and the freeing of slaves from debt were swept away from all Near Eastern cultures, including Judea.
The social situation there had deteriorated to such an extent that Rabbi Hillel was able to issue a decree requiring debtors to sign away their right to debt forgiveness.
In the Bible and New Testament
What happened to debt forgiveness in the New Testament?
While the Acts of the Apostles and the writings of the Fathers of the Church sometimes express a great docility, Jesus’ position on the forgiveness of debts, as reported repeatedly and most forcefully in Luke’s Gospel, chapter 4:16-21, appears to be marked by a revolutionary prophetic breath.
Luke places the passage at the beginning of Jesus’ public life. He makes it a key to everything that follows.
16 Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read,
17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21 He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
Let’s not forget that the « year of the Lord’s favor (Jubilee Year) » to which he called, demanded at once rest for the land, forgiveness of debts and the liberation of slaves.
In the midst of the slave-owning Roman Empire, which fiercely rejected the concept of debt forgiveness, Jesus’ declaration could only be seen as a declaration of war on the ruling system.
Before he was arrested, Jesus made a highly symbolic material gesture: he forcefully overturned the tables of the money-changers in the Jerusalem temple. For the Jewish high priests and the Roman authorities, this was too much.
Peace of Westphalia of 1648
In 1648, after five years of negotiations, led by the French diplomat Abel Servien on the instructions of Cardinal Mazarin, the “Peace of Westphalia” was signed, putting an end to the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648).
Long before the UN Charter, 1648 made national sovereignty, mutual respect and the principle of non-interference the foundations of international law.
But there was more. As we have documented, the peace deal also included the cancelation of debts that had become the very reason for continuing the war.
Unpayable, unsustainable and illegitimate debts, interests, bonds, annuities and financial claims, explicitly identified as fueling a dynamic of perpetual war, were examined, sorted out and reorganized, most often through the cancellation of debts (articles 13 and 35, 37, 38 and 39), through moratoria or debt rescheduling according to specific timetables (article 69).
Article 40 concludes that debt cancellations will apply in most cases, “and yet the Sums of Money, which during the War have been exacted bona fide, and with a good intent, by way of Contributions, to prevent greater Evils by the Contributors, are not comprehended herein. » (Implying that these debts would have to be honored.)
Finally, looking to the future, for Commerce to be “reestablished”, the treaty abolished many tolls and customs established by “private” authorities for they were obstacles to the exchange of physical goods and know-how and hence to mutual development. (Art. 69 and 70).
TREATY OF WESTPHALIA (1648)
Art. 13:
“Reciprocally, the Elector of Bavaria renounces entirely for himself and his Heirs and Successors the Debt of Thirteen Millions, as also all his Pretensions in Upper Austria; and shall deliver to his Imperial Majesty immediately after the Publication of the Peace, all Acts and Arrests obtain’d for that end, in order to be made void and null.”
Art. 35:
“That the Annual Pension of the Lower Marquisate, payable to the Upper Marquisate, according to former Custom, shall by virtue of the present Treaty be entirely taken away and annihilated; and that for the future nothing shall be pretended or demanded on that account, either for the time past or to come.”
During the Cold War
In the United States, Eisenhower was elected in November 1952.
His Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, otherwise an evil man, noted that, despite the Marshall Plan, Europe, still burdened by a mountain of debt dating from before the First World War and the Treaty of Versailles, was unable to regain momentum.
So much so that it is in danger of turning to the USSR!
Action was called for. In 1953, under the leadership of German banker Hermann Abs, a former Deutsche Bank executive, a major conference was organized in London.
It was decided to write off 66% of Germany’s 30 billion marks in debt.
It was wisely agreed that annual repayments of German debt should never exceed 5% of export earnings. Those wishing to have their debts repaid by Germany should instead buy its exports, enabling it to honor its debts.
In other words, nothing like the madness recently imposed on Greece to « save » the euro!
Although this was done in the name of geopolitical principles, i.e. « in favor of some » but « against others », once again, it was in the name of a better future, i.e. a Europe capable of being the showcase of capitalism in the face of Moscow, that we were able to shed the weight of the past.
Tête d’apôtre
Van Eyck : la beauté,
prégustation de la sagesse divine
Same texte, english version
Jan Van Eyck (1390-1441). Comment saisir l’intention de ce grand peintre flamand dont cinq siècles nous séparent ?
A part regarder son œuvre, voici trois pistes que j’ai tenté de débroussailler pour vous :
- Le peintre était sans doute initié à la lectio divina , l’interprétation à plusieurs niveaux du sens profond des Saintes Ecritures ;
- L’influence du penseur religieux français Hugues de Saint-Victor (1096-1141), une figure méconnue mais majeure dont le cardinal philosophe Nicolas de Cues a pu s’inspirer ;
- Les conseils éventuels qu’a pu donner au peintre le théologien Denys le Chartreux (1401-1471), le confesseur de Philippe Le Bon, duc de Bourgogne, pour qui le peintre effectua des missions diplomatiques.
Par Karel Vereycken
Voici une bonne raison pour apprendre le néerlandais ! Lire dans le texte original le livre inspirant et bien écrit Landschap en Wereldbeeld, van Van Eyck tot Rembrandt (Paysage et vision du monde, de Van Eyck à Rembrandt) de l’historien d’art néerlandais Boudewijn Bakker (Paru en 2004 chez Thoth à Bossum, Pays-Bas, également disponible en anglais).
Dans un style précis et d’accès facile, Bakker nous offre une série de clés permettant au spectateur du XXIe siècle de renouveler le regard porté sur la peinture flamande et néerlandaise et de révéler son sens parfois un peu « caché »…
Ce qui parfois nous étonne aujourd’hui s’avère souvent des références largement partagées par les peintres, leurs commanditaires, les religieux et plus largement le grand public dans ces contrées.
Paradoxe
Avant de lire l’œuvre de Bakker, la peinture du Nord de l’Europe m’a souvent parue aller à l’opposé de la matrice philosophique et religieuse qui prévalait au XVe siècle, alors qu’elle en est l’expression.
Jusqu’ici, je pensais que, pour l’essentiel, la vision du monde qui prévalait à la fin du Moyen-Age se résumait au rejet du monde visible tel que nous le percevons par nos sens. Car ce monde, d’après la mésinterprétation de Saint Augustin et Platon par les scolastiques, n’est que tromperie et tentation, le diable en personne en quelque sorte.
Or, et c’est là que ce paradoxe se manifeste avec toute sa force éruptive, comment réconcilier ce rejet du visible avec en particulier l’œuvre du peintre flamand Van Eyck, qui nous montre des êtres humains animés de bonté, pleins de beauté et de douceur, entourés d’une nature belle, abondante et exubérante ?
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Adam, détail du retable de Gand (1432), Jan Van Eyck.
Comment ose-t-il, me demandais-je, nous montrer tant de beauté alors qu’à son époque la doctrine de la foi, s’érigeant en gardienne du temple, ne cessait de rappeler que l’Homme, dans son imperfection criante, n’est pas Dieu, et mettait systématiquement en garde contre les tentations de ce monde ?
Les tableaux ironiques mais extrêmement moralisateurs de Jérôme Bosch et de Joachim Patinier ne sont-ils pas là pour nous faire comprendre, avec une violence non-dissimulée mais avec humour et méthode, que l’origine du péché se trouve précisément dans notre attachement excessif aux biens terrestres et dans les plaisirs que nous croyons en tirer ?
Coïncidence des opposés
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Le cardinal philosophe Nicolas de Cues (Cusanus)
- Sans se référer explicitement à la méthode du grand théo-philosophe, le cardinal Nicolas de Cues, celle de la « coïncidence des opposés » (coincidentia oppositorum), c’est-à-dire la résolution de paradoxes d’apparence insolvable mais possible à partir d’un point de vue plus élevé et donc supérieur, Bakker démontre que le paradoxe que nous venons d’évoquer, n’en est, lui aussi, qu’un en apparence.
Pour comprendre cela, Bakker rappelle d’abord que pour le courant augustinien, pour qui l’homme a été créé à l’image vivante du créateur (Imago Viva Dei), la nature, n’est ni plus ni moins qu’une « théophanie », c’est-à-dire, pour ceux qui se rendent capable de la lire, la révélation d’une intention divine.
Pour ce courant, Dieu se révèle à l’homme, non pas par un seul, mais par « deux livres », dont le premier n’est autre que « le livre de la nature » qu’on apprécie par les yeux ; le deuxième étant la Bible à laquelle auquel on accède grâce aux yeux et aux oreilles.
Bakker souligne à ce propos le rôle, un peu oublié, de deux penseurs chrétiens de premier ordre qui, depuis l’hégémonie de l’aristotélisme introduit par saint Thomas d’Aquin, la montée du nominalisme et la contre-réforme, ont fini par tomber dans l’oubli.
Il s’agit en premier lieu de l’abbé et théologien français Hugues de Saint Victor (1096-1141), un des auteurs médiévaux ayant connu une large diffusion manuscrite à son époque, et de Denys le Chartreux (1402-1471), un ami néerlandais et collaborateur de Nicolas de Cues (1401-1464) et confesseur de Philippe le Bon, duc de Bourgogne (1396-1467).
Lectio divina de la nature ?
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Saint-Dominique lisant. Fresque de Fra Angelico.
- Par rapport à l’interprétation des peintures, l’approche de Bakker, qui en réalité a fait le travail que tout historien de l’art digne de ce nom devrait fournir avant de se livrer à des interprétations d’œuvres d’art, consiste dans la confrontation des tableaux avec, s’ils si elles existent, les écrits de leurs époques.
Dans cet exercice, Bakker formule l’hypothèse fertile que les chefs-d’œuvre de la peinture flamande, truffés d’autant d’énigmes et de mystères que nos belles cathédrales, se lisent « à plusieurs niveaux », tout comme l’exégèse biblique de l’époque faisait appel, pour les textes sacrés, à une méthode de lecture ancestrale, dite « à quatre niveaux ».
D’abord dans le judaïsme, bien avant l’arrivée de Jésus, l’étude de la Torah faisait appel à la « doctrine des quatre sens » :
- le sens littéral,
- le sens allégorique,
- le sens allusif, et
- le sens mystique (éventuellement caché, secret ou kabbalistique).
Ensuite, les chrétiens, en particulier Origène (185-254), puis Ambroise de Milan au IVè siècle, reprennent cette méthode pour la Lectio Divina, c’est-à-dire l’exercice de la lecture spirituelle visant, par la prière, à pénétrer le plus profondément possible un texte sacré.
Enfin, introduite au IVe siècle par Ambroise, Augustin fait de la Lectio Divina la base de la prière monastique. Elle sera reprise ensuite par Jérôme, Bède le Vénérable, Scot Erigène, Hugues de Saint-Victor, Richard de Saint-Victor, Alain de Lille, Bonaventure et s’imposera à Saint Thomas d’Aquin et Bernard de Clairvaux.
Bakker prend soin de préciser ces quatre niveaux de lecture :
- Le sens littéral est celui qui est issu de la compréhension linguistique de l’énoncé. Il raconte les faits et la « petite histoire » tout en replaçant l’écrit dans le contexte de l’époque ;
- Le sens allégorique. Vient du grec allos, autre, et agoreuein, dire. L’allégorie en énonçant une chose en dit aussi une autre. Ainsi l’allégorie explique ce que symbolise le récit ;
- Le sens moral ou tropologique (du latin tropos signifiant « changement »), en cherchant dans le texte des figures, des vices ou des vertus, des passions ou des étapes que l’esprit humain doit parcourir dans son ascension vers Dieu, nous indique les leçons que chacun peut en tirer pour sa propre vie dans le présent ;
- Le sens anagogique (adjectif provenant du grec anagogikos c’est-à-dire élévation), est obtenu par l’interprétation des Évangiles, afin de donner une idée des réalités dernières qui deviendront visibles à la fin des temps. En philosophie, chez Leibniz, « l’induction anagogique » est celle qui tente de remonter à une cause première.
Ces quatre sens ont été formulés au Moyen-Age dans un fameux distique latin : littera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia (la lettre enseigne les faits, l’allégorie ce que tu dois croire, la morale ce que tu dois faire, l’anagogie ce que tu dois viser).
La raison pour laquelle j’amène cette question de l’exégèse biblique à niveaux multiples, précise Bakker, c’est que dans le cadre de la vision du monde du Moyen-Age, on estimait que cette interprétation ne s’appliquait pas seulement à la Bible, mais tout autant à la création visible.
Gros plan de la page du livre devant lequel s’agenouille la Vierge dans l’Annonciation qui décore les volets extérieurs du retable de Gand de Jan Van Eyck (1432). En bas de la page, on lit clairement (en rouge) : « De visione dei », le titre de l’œuvre de Nicolas de Cues de 1453.
Nous voilà donc devant un sentiment amoureux de la création ? Pas du tout ! Loin du panthéisme (un péché), il s’agit de « lire », comme l’affirme Hugues de Saint-Victor, « avec les yeux de l’esprit », ce que « les yeux de la chair » ne sont pas capable de voir, un concept que reprendra Nicolas de Cues dans son œuvre de 1543 : Du tableau, ou la Vision de Dieu.
Le paradoxe se trouve ainsi résolu. Car, dans l’allégorie de la caverne évoquée par Platon dans La République, l’homme qui se trouve enchaîné devant une paroi où il ne voit que défiler des ombres projetées sur la paroi de la caverne, en mobilisant son intelligence, in fine se rend capable d’identifier les processus qui les engendrent.
Certes, l’homme ne peut pas « connaître » Dieu de façon directe. Cependant, en étudiant les effets de son action, il peut deviner son intention. C’est donc à travers Hugues de Saint Victor, que le courant augustinien et platonicien qui avait inspiré la Renaissance carolingienne refait surface à Paris.
Pour ce courant, la création comme un tout, du point de vue anagogique, est un reflet du paradis céleste et une référence directe vers l’omnipuissance, la beauté et la bonté divine.
Pour Bakker :
L’ensemble de ces interprétations sont faciles à illustrer avec les œuvres d’Augustin, parce qu’elles ont inspiré tout au long du Moyen-Age les auteurs sur la nature. Augustin aimait beaucoup le monde tel qu’il se présente à nous ; il savait jouir de ce qu’il appelait ‘certains espaces larges et magnifiques de la ville ou de la campagne’, où la beauté vous frappe avec éclat lorsque vous les montrez à un étranger. Mais la création contient également d’innombrables messages ‘moraux’, autant d’occasions pour un observateur pieux et attentif pour réfléchir sur son âme et sa tâche sur Terre. Coup après coup, Augustin souligne cet aspect lorsqu’il parle des phénomènes naturels. Chaque fois, il nous incite à chercher l’invisible derrière le visible, l’éternel derrière le temporel, etc. Ainsi l’harmonie que nous montre la création nous indique la paix qui doit régner entre les hommes. Chaque créature, pris séparément, apparait, pour celui qui veut le voir comme un exemple (négatif ou positif) pour l’homme. Ceci s’applique notamment pour le comportement des animaux, par exemple. Et ce qui concerne la Terre comme un tout, ne négligez pas les creux du paysage, car c’est là que jaillissent les sources.
Hugues de Saint Victor
Hugues de Saint Victor
En France, c’est lors de la Renaissance intellectuelle du XIIe siècle que les centres d’étude scolaires se multiplient (école cathédrale, école d’Abélard, école du Petit-Pont pour Paris, Chartres, Laon…) et qu’une véritable effervescence intellectuelle fait de notre pays un pôle d’attraction. Ainsi, de nombreux étudiants en provenance d’Allemagne, d’Italie, d’Angleterre, d’Ecosse et du Nord de l’Europe partent pour Paris pour y étudier avant tout la dialectique et la théologie.
Hugues de Saint Victor (1096-1141) est d’origine saxonne (ou flamande ?). Vers 1127, il entre chez les chanoines réguliers de Saint-Victor peu après la fondation de ce monastère installé à la lisière de Paris.
Les Victorins se distinguent dès l’origine par la haute place qu’ils donnent à la vie intellectuelle. Les chanoines de cette abbaye ont un regard positif sur le savoir, d’où l’importance qu’ils accordent à leur bibliothèque.
Les maîtres principaux qui ont influencé Hugues sont : Raban Maur (lui-même disciple du conseiller de Charlemagne, l’irlandais Alcuin), Bède le Vénérable, Yves de Chartres et Jean Scot Erigène et quelques autres, peut-être-même Denys l’Aréopagite dont il commente La Hiérarchie céleste.
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Abbaye de Saint Victor à Paris en 1655.
- D’une curiosité intellectuelle insatiable, Hugues conseille à ses disciples de tout apprendre car, dit-il, rien n’est inutile. Lui-même est le premier à mettre en pratique le conseil qu’il donne aux autres. Une partie notable de ses écrits est consacrée aux arts libéraux, aux sciences et à la philosophie, dont il traite en particulier dans un manuel d’introduction aux études profanes et sacrées, demeuré célèbre, le Didascalicon.
Ses contemporains le considèrent comme le plus grand théologien de leur temps et lui donnent le titre glorieux de « nouvel Augustin ». Il influence les Franciscains d’Oxford (Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, etc.) dont l’influence sur le peintre Roger Campin n’est plus à démontrer et Nicolas de Cues s’en inspire.
À la question de savoir s’il faut admirer ou mépriser le monde, Hugues de Saint Victor répond qu’on doit aimer le monde, mais à condition de ne pas oublier qu’il faut l’aimer en vue de Dieu, comme un présent de Dieu, et non pour lui-même.
Pour atteindre cette sagesse, l’homme doit considérer son existence comme celle celui d’un pèlerin qui se détache sans cesse de l’endroit où il réside, métaphore très fertile qu’on retrouvera chez les peintres flamands Bosch et Patinier. « Le monde entier est un exil pour ceux qui philosophent », souligne Hugues.
Maître Hugues pose l’exigence d’un dépassement de la dilectio (amour jaloux et possessif de Dieu) pour la condilectio (amour accueillant et ouvert au partage). Il prône l’idée d’un amour tout agapique tourné vers les autres, et non centré sur soi-même, un amour tourné vers le prochain, l’amour de Dieu augmentant avec l’amour du prochain. C’est tout simplement l’idée de charité chrétienne et de solidarité fraternelle qui est ainsi exprimée.
Hugues énumère cinq exercices spirituels : la lecture, la méditation, la prière, l’action, la contemplation. La première donne la compréhension ; la seconde fournit une réflexion ; la troisième demande, la quatrième cherche et la cinquième trouve. Ces exercices ont pour but d’atteindre la source de la vérité et de la charité et là, l’âme de l’homme est toute « transformée en flamme d’amour », reposant entre les mains de Dieu dans « une plénitude à la fois de connaissance et d’amour ».
Pour le sujet qui nous intéresse ici, c’est surtout sa vision optimiste de l’homme et de la création qui se différencie des clichés que nous retenons du pessimisme médiéval. Car pour lui, la création est un don de Dieu et le chemin vers Dieu passe donc tout autant par la lecture du livre de la nature que par la Bible.
Ainsi, pour lui, l’image que nous en percevons n’est d’abord que révélation ou dévoilement de la Puissance divine, perçue « à travers la longueur, la largeur, la profondeur de l’espace », « à travers la masse des montagnes, la longueur des fleuves, l’étendue des champs, la hauteur du ciel, la profondeur de l’abîme ».
Ainsi, le peintre, lorsqu’il excelle dans la représentation de l’univers physique ne fait qu’augmenter sa capacité à dévoiler la puissance du créateur !
Dévoilement également de la Sagesse à travers la beauté. Pour Hugues, « tout l’univers sensible est un grand livre tracé par le doigt de Dieu », c’est-à-dire créé par la vertu divine et
chaque créature est comme une figure, non pas produit du désir humain, mais fruit du vouloir divin chargé de manifester la Sagesse invisible de Dieu (…) Tout comme un illettré regarde les signes d’un livre ouvert sans connaître les lettres, un homme stupide et bestial ‘qui ne comprend pas les choses qui sont de Dieu’, ne voit dans les créatures que la forme extérieure, mais n’en comprend pas le sens intérieur.
Pour s’élever, Hugues propose à ses disciples de Saint-Victor, à tous ceux capables de « contempler sans relâche », de poser « un regard spirituel » sur le monde. Pour son disciple, Richard de Saint-Victor, la Bible et le grand livre de la nature {« rendent le même son et s’harmonisent pour dire les merveilles d’un monde secret. »}
Denys le Chartreux, clé pour comprendre Van Eyck
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Le théologien Denys le Chartreux (Van Rykel).
Deux siècles après Hugues de Saint-Victor, c’est une même flamme qui anime le théologien Denys le Chartreux (1401-1471), originaire du Limbourg belge. Sous le titre La beauté du monde : ordo et varietas, Bakker lui consacre tout un chapitre de son livre. Et vous allez comprendre pourquoi.
Avant d’entrer chez les Chartreux de Roermond aux Pays-Bas, Denys, est formé dans l’esprit des Frères de la vie commune à l’école de Zwolle aux Pays-Bas et achève sa formation à l’Université de Cologne.
Avec Jean Gerson (1363-1429) et Nicolas de Cues (1402-1464), et ce malgré un style beaucoup plus bavard et parfois confus, Denys le Chartreux compta au nombre des auteurs les plus lus, les plus copiés puis les plus édités, quand l’imprimerie en vint à supplanter le laborieux travail des moines copistes. D’ailleurs, le premier livre publié en Flandres, ne fut autre que le Miroir de l’âme pècheresse de Denys le Chartreux, imprimé en 1473 par l’ami d’Erasme de Rotterdam, Dirk Martens.
Au monastère de Roermond au Pays-bas, Denys écrit 150 œuvres dont des commentaires sur la Bible et 900 sermons. Après en avoir lu un, le pape Eugène IV, qui vient d’ordonner à Brunelleschi de parachever la coupole du dôme de Florence, exulta : « L’Eglise mère se réjouit d’avoir pareil fils ! ».
En tant que savant, théologien et conseiller, Denys était très influent. « Nombre de gentilshommes, de clercs et de bourgeois viennent le consulter dans sa cellule à Ruremonde où il ne cesse de résoudre doutes, difficultés et cas de conscience. (…) Il se trouve en relations fréquentes avec la maison de Bourgogne et sert de conseiller à Philippe le Bon », confirme l’historien néerlandais Huizinga dans son Déclin du Moyen-âge.
Selon Bakker, ayant rédigé une série d’œuvres d’orientation spirituelle, Denys, remplit le rôle de confesseur et de guide spirituel du souverain chrétien Philippe le Bon , duc de Bourgogne, et par la suite, de celui de sa veuve.
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Denys le Chartreux, chaire de la Cathédrale de Laon.
Denys le Chartreux est un ami, admirateur et collaborateur du cardinal Nicolas de Cues.
Ensemble, ils suivent à Cologne les cours du théologien flamand Heymeric van de Velde (De Campo) qui les initie à la théologie mystique du moine platonicien syrien connu sous le nom du Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite et à l’œuvre de Raymond Lulle et d’Albert le Grand.
Lorsqu’en 1432, Nicolas De Cues décline la chaire de Théologie que lui offre l’Université de Louvain, c’est De Campo qui, à sa demande, accepte cette fonction.
Politiquement, de 1451 à 1452, c’est Denys le Chartreux que choisit Nicolas de Cues, alors légat apostolique, pour l’accompagner durant plusieurs mois lors de sa tournée en pays rhénan et mosellan pour y faire appliquer, à la demande du pape, le renouveau spirituel qu’il promeut.
Bakker note que Denys a une prédilection pour la musique. Il recopie et illumine de sa main des partitions et donne des instructions sur la meilleure interprétation possible des psaumes. Sa préférence va à des psaumes qui font l’éloge de Dieu. Et pour faire l’éloge du créateur, Denys trouve des images et des paroles qu’on verra rebondir dans l’imagination des peintres de l’époque.
Cependant, pour Denys, la beauté de Dieu signifie quelque chose de plus profond qu’une simple attractivité visuelle. « Pour toi (seigneur), ‘être’ équivaut à ‘être beau’ ». Rappelons que la vue, dans la philosophie chrétienne, est le sens primordial et celui qui résume tous les autres.
Dans les psaumes de Denys, deux notions prévalent. D’abord, celle de l’ordre et de la régularité. On les retrouve dans les corps célestes qui déterminent le rythme des jours et des années. Mais la Terre elle-même obéit à un ordre divin. Et là Denys cite le Livre de la Sagesse de Salomon (11,20) affirmant : « Tu as tout ordonné avec mesure, nombre et poids ».
Ensuite, il y a l’idée de multiplicité et de diversité. Sur les phénomènes climatiques, c’est-à-dire des phénomènes purement « physiques », Denys affirme par exemple,
Dans le ciel, seigneur, tu génères des effets multiples de pression et de souffle, tels que des nuages, des vents, des pluies (…) et différents phénomènes : des comètes, des couronnes lumineuses, des vortex, des étoiles tombantes (…), du givre et de la brume, de la grêle, de la neige, l’arc en ciel et le dragon volant.
Pour Denys, tout cela n’a pas été créé pour rien mais pour pénétrer l’homme de la réalité divine, sa grandeur infinie, son omnipuissance et son amour pour l’homme.
Faites en sorte seigneur, écrit-il, que dans les effets de votre laboriosité universelle, nous vous percevions et que par l’amour dont elle témoigne, nous nous enflammions et que nous nous éveillions à honorer votre grandeur.
Sur Dieu et le beau, Denys écrit un véritable traité d’esthétique théologique sous le titre De Venustate Mundi et pulchritudine Dei (De l’attractivité du monde et de la beauté de Dieu).
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Retable de Gent (Belgique) ou l’Agneau mystique, peint par Jan Van Eyck.
La cour de Philippe le Bon, duc de Bourgogne. Miniature de Rogier Van der Weyden.
En lisant ce qui suit, c’est tout de suite le retable de Gand, l’Agneau mystique, ce grand polyptyque peint par Jan Van Eyck qui nous vient à l’esprit.
Sachant que ce peintre était au service (peintre et ambassadeur) du même Philippe le Bon, duc de Bourgogne, dont Denys le Chartreux fut le confesseur et guide spirituel, on est en droit de croire que ce texte s’est imposé dans l’esprit du peintre dans l’élaboration de son œuvre.
Denys le Chartreux :
De même que toute créature participe à l’être de Dieu et à sa bonté, de même le Créateur lui communique aussi quelque chose de sa beauté divine, éternelle, incréée, par quoi elle est en partie rendue semblable à son Créateur et participe quelque peu à sa beauté. Autant une chose reçoit l’être, autant elle reçoit le bon et le beau. Il existe donc une beauté incréée qui est la beauté et le beau par essence : Dieu.
Autre est la beauté créée : le beau par participation. De même que toute créature est appelée être dans la mesure où elle participe à l’être divin et lui est assimilée par une certaine imitation, de même toute créature est dite belle dans la mesure où elle participe à la beauté divine et lui est rendue conforme. De même que Dieu a fait toutes choses bonnes parce qu’il est bon par nature, de même il a fait toutes choses belles parce qu’il est essentiellement beau.
(…) Le fils unique de Dieu, vrai Dieu lui-même, a pris notre nature et est devenu notre frère. Par lui, notre nature a reçu une dignité de majesté indicible. Dieu a de plus orné les âmes des bienheureux qui sont dans la patrie céleste, de sa lumière et de sa gloire, et les a élevés à la vision béatifique, immédiate, claire et bienheureuse de sa Divinité toute pure. En contemplant la beauté incréée et infinie de l’essence divine, elles sont transformées à son image d’une façon surnaturelle et ineffable. Elles sont remplies et débordent de cette participation, de cette communion de bonté, lumière et beauté divines, au point d’être entièrement ravies en lui, configurées à lui, absorbées en lui. Elles atteignent ainsi une beauté telle, que les splendeurs du monde entier ne sauraient être comparées à la beauté de la plus petite d’entre elles.
Retour au peintre
Ce dernier paragraphe évoque immédiatement la partie supérieure du polyptyque de Jan Van Eyck à Gent.
On a du mal à mesurer l’effet que ce tableau a pu susciter chez les croyants : ils y voyaient non seulement Adam et Eve, élevés au même niveau que Dieu, la Vierge et Saint-Jean Baptiste, mais y découvraient, alors que moins d’un pour cent de la population européenne ne savaient lire et écrire, l’image d’une ravissante jeune femme lisant la Bible. Son nom ? Marie, mère de Jésus !
La partie inférieure de la même œuvre met en scène un autre évènement majeur : la réunification, suite aux différents conciles œcuméniques, de tous les chrétiens, qu’ils soient d’Occident ou d’Orient et jusque là divisés par des querelles subalternes, autour de la quintessence de la foi chrétienne : le sacrifice du Fils de Dieu pour libérer l’homme du péché originel.
Sont regroupés en chœurs autour de l’évènement tout ce qui comptaient dans l’univers : les trois papes, les philosophes, les poètes (Virgile), les martyrs, les ermites, les prophètes, les justes juges, les chevaliers chrétiens, les saints et les vierges.
Le tout présenté dans un paysage transformé par un véritable « Printemps » chrétien. Van Eyck n’hésite pas à représenter, avec moult détails de toute la splendeur de leur microcosme, une bonne cinquantaine d’espèces végétales au moment où elles offrent leurs plus belles fleurs et feuilles.
Littéralement, cela fait apparaître la richesse de la création dans toute sa variété; allégoriquement, cela représente le créateur comme sève de la vie; moralement, c’est le sacrifice du fils de Dieu qui redonnera vie à l’église des chrétiens; et enfin, anagogiquement, cela nous rappelle que nous devons tendre à nous unir au créateur, source de toute vie, bien et sagesse.
Une fois de plus, ce n’est que chez Denys le Chartreux, dans le passage de conclusion de son {Venestate Mundi et pulchritudine Dei} que l’on trouve un éloge aussi passionné de la beauté du monde visible, y compris une référence au fameux {« vert foncé des prés »} si typique de Van Eyck :
{Démarrons par le plus bas, les éléments de la terre. Dans quelles longueur et largeur immensurables elle s’étend loin devant nous ; comment sa surface est ornée d’innombrables espèces et sortes d’individus de choses merveilleuses. Regardez les lis et les roses et autres fleurs de belles couleurs émettant leurs odeurs adorables, les herbes guérissantes qui poussent sur le vert foncé des prés et à l’ombre des forêts, la splendeur des arbres et des champs luxuriants, des hauteurs de montagnes, de la fraicheur des arbres, des étangs, des ruisseaux et des rivières s’étalant jusqu’à la mer au lointain ! A quel point Il doit être beau en lui-même, Celui qui a tout créé ! Regardez et admirez la multitude d’animaux, comment ils brillent dans la variété de leurs couleurs ! Aux poissons et oiseaux se réjouit l’œil et s’adresse notre éloge du Créateur. Dans quels beauté et lustre se drapent les grands animaux, le cheval, l’unicorne, le chameau, le cerf, le saumon et le brochet, le phénix, le paon et l’épervier. Qu’Il est élevé, celui qui a fait tout cela !}
Avec ce que nous venons de lire et de dire, le spectateur peut enfin savourer en pleine confiance et sans modération cette beauté, car il ne s’agit de rien d’autre que la prégustation de la sagesse divine !
Avec ce que nous venons de lire et de dire, le spectateur peut savourer en pleine confiance cette beauté, car il ne s’agit de rien d’autre que la prégustation de la sagesse divine !
Bibliographie :
- Boudewijn Bakker, Landschap en Wereldbeeld. Van Van Eyck tot Rembrandt, Thoth, 2004 ;
- Patrice Sicard, Hugues de Saint-Victor et son école, Brepols, 1991.
- Denys le Chartreux, Vers la ressemblance, textes réunis et présentés par Christophe Bagonneau, Parole et Silence, 2003.
Le mont des oliviers
« Le Mont des Oliviers », Karel Vereycken. Peinture à l’œuf, tempera, huile et glacis. D’après une gravure de Rembrandt. Cadre ancien.