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- Title
FAITHFUL ATTRACTION.
- Authors
KESSLER, HERBERT L.
- Abstract
Beauty's power was a constant theme in medieval discourse. Whereas God had created the cosmos and its adornments, sensual attraction potentially led to self-gratification that distracted from spiritual redemption. As Hugh of Saint-Victor put it, "attracted by the desire for temporal goods [the wanderers in this world] are unable to find the love for those things that are eternal" The Virgin Mary's beauty was an exception. So appealing that it had attracted God himself, it served as an aesthetic semaphore on the path of those seeking to the Paradise sacrificed when Eve had succumbed to temptation and sinned. Extolled in a twelfth- and thirteenth-century devotional poetry through chains of metaphors of mundane beauty -- sunrise, white ivory, stars, flowers, etc. -- the Virgin's suavitas singularis was conveyed in art through rich hues, intricate ornaments, and precious materials, understood to reflect an inner beauty painted by "God, the celestial artist." Identified with ecclesia, it provided a glimpse of the promised glory and, at the same time, a shield against God's own blinding splendor. As the Cantigas de Santa Maria put it: "Because of our sinful nature, we would never have seen the face of God, who is our light and day, without you (Mary), who is our dawn."
- Subjects
GOD; MARY, Blessed Virgin, Saint; NATURE (Aesthetics); DE Zamora, Juan Gil; MAGNUS, Albert
- Publication
Codex Aquilarensis, 2019, Vol 35, p59
- ISSN
0214-896X
- Publication type
Article