Or Keeping One’s Halo While Losing One’s Head
Back to saints. Given that one of the essential acts of sainthood is an untimely and occasionally gruesome demise, usually in a vigorous and imaginative fashion, the question arises ; what happens to the halo when the head is lopped off ?
A cephalophore (from Greek κέφαλι (kephalē) ‘head’ + modern Latin -phorus, from Greek φοράω (-phoros, -phoron) ‘bearing, bearer”) is a person carrying his or her own head, having picked it up after a beheading. Saint Denis is the most famous. He managed the seven miles between Montmartre (it was downhill, admittedly) to his burial place, all the while preaching to the populace. Saint Aphrodisius (accompanied by his camel in many cases), when angry pagans chopped off his head for proselytising, picked it up and carried it to the chapel he had built in Béziers, France. (The camel’s fate is unrecorded, but since Aphrodisius was originally from Alexandria, the camel was just likley too much fun for illuminators to abandon, or only with regret, and occasionally remains, an anachronistic dromedary far from his desert home.) Paul of Tarsus’ head proclaimed “Jesus Christus” fifty times as soon as it hit the ground. Saint Gemolo picked up his own head, clambered back on his horse, and rode off to meet his uncle atop a small mountain before he finally died. Saint Ginés de la Jara, decapitated in southern France, picked up his head and threw it into the Rhône (shades of Orpheus ?) where it was floated hundreds of miles along the coast to Murcia, in Spain, to be venerated there as a relic.
Other cephalophores : Albinus (beheaded by the Arians at Mainz, his companions Theonistus, Tabra, and Tabratha fled, and were finally, they were martyred at Roncade), Emygdius (stood up, carried his own head to a spot on a mountain where he had constructed an oratory), Justus of Beauvais (picked up his severed head and continued to preach), Juthwara (a spring of water appeared at the spot where her head was cut off), Lucian of Beauvais (picked up his own head and walked towards the town of Beauvais, crossed the river Thérain at Miauroy, stopped within a quarter mile of town and died there, thus indicating his burial spot), Nectan (picked his head up and walked back to his well before collapsing and dying, foxgloves springing up wherever his blood fell), Nicasius of Rheims (decapitated in mid-psalm ; his head, falling to the ground, continued the recitation, adding, “Vivifica me, Domine, secundum verbum tuum”), Nicasius, Quirinus, Scubiculus and Pientia (the following night, picked up their own heads and walked to an island on the river Epte, where they were buried), Osyth (stood up after her execution, picking up her head walked with it in her hands to the door of a local convent), Quiteria (climbed a mountain and stopped in the place where she wanted to be buried), Theonistus (picked up head), Winefride (head rolled downhill; where it stopped, a healing spring appeared) and Wyllow (carried his head for half a mile to St Willow’s Bridge, where a church was later built in his honour).
Here is a small selection of cephalophores and other stray occiputs.
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A. Giovanni Baronzio, The Beheading of Saint Columba, 1340’s. Off with the head, off with the halo.
B. Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, by Antonio di Francesco, 1370-80.
C. The halo accompanies the head, as it does in this tempera on wood by Sano di Pietro (b. 1406, Siena, d. 1481, Siena) at the bottom of a generous cascade of blood.
D. Weltgerischtaltar, Stephan Lochner, 1435. Saint Paul’s halo remains attached.
E. Fra Angelico, San Marco Altarpiece: Beheading of Cosmas and Damian, about 1438-1440. Tempera on panel, 36 x 46 cm, Paris, Musee du Louvre
The haloes come off with the heads.
F. Fra Angelico, Burial of Saint Cosmas and Saint Damian, about 1438-1440.
Tempera on panel, 37 x 46 cm, Florence, Museo di San Marco.
Heads and haloes put back on for burial.
G. Anonymous German Master, c 1460. Saint George Altarpiece
H. Anonymous Flemish Master, c. 1500-10, Scenes from the Life of Saint George.
I. Saint Felicitas, from the Nuremberg Chronicles, early 16th century. Saint Felicitas is said to have been a rich and pious Christian widow who had seven sons. She converted many pagans to Christianity, arousing the wrath of pagan priests who complained to Emperor Marcus Aurelius, pretending the gods demanded the sacrifice of Felicitas and her children. The Emperor acquiesced to their demand and all eight had their heads cut off.
J. Tieopolo, usually better known for his chubby putti and hoary classical renderings of Neptune, takes an uncharacteristically gruesome view of the beheading of Saint John. The halo is gone and forgotten, theatrics and gore take its place.
K. Bas-relief of Saint Miliau, Saint Guimileau, Brittany. Saint Miliau, the “good and pious prince”, a descendant of the kings of Brittany, was decapitated in 792 by order of his brother. (Praying to Saint Miliau will heal ulcers and rheumatism.)
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Saint John the Baptist of course appears at Herod’s Feast, but on a platter.
A. The Feast of herod, Giotto, Peruzzi Chapel, 1320
B. The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist and Salome Presenting his head to herod, Bernardo Martorelli, first half of the 15th century.
C. The Martyrdom of Saint John and the Feast of Herod, by the Master of the Life of Saint John, Italian, 1300 – 1350. Here, only a half slice of the halo remains.
D. The Feast of Herod [detail] Giovanni di Paolo, 1453, tempera on panel, National Gallery, London.
E. Benozzo Gozzoli, the Dance of Salome. Here, Saint John loses not only his head (left) but also his halo (right).
F. The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, from a medieval psalter.
G. The Feast of Herod, from the Petites Heures du Duc de Berry, 14th century.
H. The Feast of Herod, Spinello Aretino, last half of the 14th century. An unusual solution – the halo remains behind John’s head, but appears almost as a second platter.
I. The Feast of herod, Italian, early 15th century
J. The Beheading of Saitn John the Baptist, Italian, 14th century
K. The Feast of Herod, by Peter Paul Rubens. By the 16th century, emphasis has shifted from decorous surprise to the shock of having a human head on a platter presented during a feast. The halo has largely disappeared.
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The immensely popular Saint Denis also gives rise to a variety of options.
A. Saint Denis, from the left portal of Notre Dame, holding his head. The angels don’t seem particularly troubled and continue to address his head in polite terms.
B. Jean Manoel, Calvary and the Martyrdom of St Denis, 1414.
C. Robert Gaugin (1433-1501), Frontispiece for the « Compendium de origine et gestis Francorum, » a 180-leaf history of France, printed in Paris in the second week of 1500. Saint Denis holding his head, with the halo nicely framing the blood still discretely spurting from his neck. Saint Remy looks rather worried.
D. A most unusual painting by Léon Bonnat (b. 20 June 1833 in Bayonne, d. 1922 in Monchy-Saint-Éloi, Oise) from the Pantheon in Paris, shows Saint Denis stooping down to pick up his head. The painter has added a very medieval-style halo on the head itself, but has also put a curious glow where the head used to be (not to mention a pretty gruesomely rendered stub of a neck).
E. Coat of arms of the city of Krefeld, designed by Wolfgang Pagenstecher, 1950. (It is based on the first official coat of arms from 1854, which was sanctified by King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, derived from the “Schöffensiegel” of the city from 1463, which already showed St. Denis.)
Saint Denis with two haloes, or when it’s just too hard to decide.
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Some cephalophores present wide selection of solutions.
The three patron saints of the city of Zurich, Regula, Felix and Expertantius, hold their heads in their hands, in some versions with the haloes still attached, in others, with the haloes where their heads used to be. Siblings Felix and Regula, along with their servant Expertantius, were, according to legend, members of Saint Maurice’s legion, stationed in the Valais, in Switzerland. When the legion was to be decimated (one in ten executed as an example), they fled across the Alps to Zurich, where they were captured, tried and executed. They walked 40 paces with their heads in their hands before falling down dead. They were buried where they died.
A. Zurich seal, 1347. The three saints display their heads with their haloes, which appear to be held like upturned platters.
B. Zurich seal, 1225. The same trio, haloes remain in their original places.
C. Stained glass window from Muri, near Zurich, 1517. Saint Regula holds her head in her hands, but the halo remains in place.
D. Coat of arms of the abbess of the Zürich convent. The original is in the manuscript section of the Württemberg National Library in Stuttgart.
E. Detail of same.
F. Altarpiece from the chapel of Saint Moritz, Zurich, 1506, currently in the Zurich Landesmuseum. Christ in animated conversation with the three saints, who have kept their ornately detail haloes atop their necks.
G. Votive image commissioned by Sweder, provost of Göttlikon. The saints were formerly revered in the Grossmünster of Göttlikon.
H. Lamentation with Felix & Regula, 1478, by Hans Waldmann (b. 1435; d. 1489), Zurich Fraumunster.
I. Statues in the church of Saints Felix and Regula, Zogenweiler, near Ravensburg. 17th century (?).
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Saint John seems to bring out the most curious solutions in artists. John as the Precursor or Forerunner of Jesus, with his shaggy garb and archangel’s wings, is a popular figure in Orthodox iconography.
A. A most unusual Russian icon of Saint John the Forerunner holding his own head on a platter. Two heads AND two haloes. (I was unable, much to my regret, to find the date and provenance, but have included it for curiosity’s sake – or how to have your head and hold it too.)
B. Coptic icon of the Baptist contemplating his own head and a half-moon halo.
C. Orthodox Byzantine Saint John in Rilsky monastery (Bulgaria)
D. Russian icon (modern)
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Other situations render haloes awkward at times. Depicting embracing figures is a delicate situation.
A. Descent from the Cross, Church of Agia Marina, Kalopanagiotis, 1300’s. The image shows a distinct (if faint) hierarchy of haloes.
B. Giotto, in is painting The Meeting at the Golden Gate, skilfuly avoids the problem of exactly where to place the haloes respectively to the heads, and unites both, whether intentionally or no, in a heart shape completed by Joachim’s bent elbow.
C. Sassetta, in his Meeting of Saint Anthony and Saint Paul, c. 1440, places heads in front and haloes behind.
D. In this Entombment by Fra Angelico, 1440-1445, Joseph of Arimathea has to crane his neck to see out from behind Christ’s halo.
Stray heads notwithstanding, too many heads with haloes in restricted spaces present problems of their own, rather as if an assembly was intent on keeping wide-brimmed hats but still all wanted to be in the photo.
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Left:
A. Christ Washing the Disciples’Feet, mosaic, c. 1220, San Marco, Venice.
B. The Last Supper, Giotto, 1304. The disciples with their backs to us have their haloes fastened on their faces. (The black may be either from the photograph, or from an alloy turning black over time.)
C. Christ Washing the Disciples’Feet, Giotto, 1304. Giotto puts himself in an uncomfortable position with overlapping haloes and heads, especially on the right.
D. Duccio, Last Supper, Duomo Altarpiece, Florence, 1308 – 1311
More concerned with not cluttering up his composition, Duccio gives his Apostles haloes where they work and scraps them where they are inconvenient.
E. Duccio, in this Washing of the Disciples’ Feet, 1308-1311, presents a solid gold array of overlapping halos, but puts none on the two disciples in the foreground. Judas alone of the back row seems to have no halo.
F. The Last Supper, Lorenzetti, 1320.
G. The Last Supper, Giotto, 1325. In this case, Giotto doesn’t hesitate to mask the faces of the disciples seated behind the tanble with the intrusive haloes of those seated in front.
Right:
A. The Last Supper by Jaum Serra, 1370-1400. One poorly placed Apostle on the left is almost entirely hidden by his companion’s halo ; only the crown of his head is visible.
B, The Last Supper by Sassetta, 1423. Classical haloes for all, though those seated with their backs to the viewer have slightly smaller haloes than their colleagues seated facing forwards.
C. The last Supper by Andrea del Castagno. Translucid haloes for all, with a hint of a cross in Christ’s. John’s halo is a daring elipse.
D. Spanish painter Jaume Baço Jacomart (b. 1411, Valencia, d. 1461, Valencia), in the 1450’s gives everyone (except Judas of course) a traditional halo, with an unusual cross in Christ’s.
E. Communion of the Apostles, Fra Angelico, 1451-53
F. The Last Supper by Jaum Huguet, circa 1470. Flat haloes with deeply incised concentric circles jostle for position.
G. Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles by the Meister des Hausbuches, c. 1475. The Apostles have to crane their necks to peer around the haloes of those in front of them.
H. The Last Supper by the Meister des Hausbuches, c. 1480-85. A similarly uncomfortable arrangement here. (The flat gold haloes likely result from the image being a scan of an older book, where gold-coloured ink was often applied in a separate passage under the press to imitate gilding.)
I. The Last Supper by Roselli, c. 1481, in the Sistine Chapel. Three-dimensional gold discs for the Apostles, with the exception of Judas, who in this case has a dark halo.
J. The Last Supper by Juan de Juares in the 1560’s. Circlets of gold for all present except Judas. The artist (or a follower) also kindly added each Apostle’s name inside his circlet.
K. The Last Supper by Jacopo Bassano, 1542. Here, only Christ keeps a hint of holiness in a diamond-shaped nimbus of rays.
Duccio’s famous Maestà was commissioned by the Siena Cathedral in 1308 and completed it in 1311. The Virgin and Child in majesty surrounded by angels and saints occupies the front panel, crowned by scenes from her life, both front and back. The back of the main panel contains twenty-six scenes from Christ’s Passion. Probably the most important panel ever painted in Italy, it affords a rather unique case-by-case study of the pictorial complication in dealing with a healthy number of haloes in reduced spaces within the framework of one commission. (Some images are repeated in another section.)
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Front:
The front of the Maestà is a straightforward positioning of the actors for a group portrait. The haloes of those in front cover those behind, although all are subordinate to the Virgin’s throne.
Crowning Section & Back
A. The Parting from Saint John. The crowd of apostles displays a halo of haloes, drawn with a compass centred on the forehad or temple of each figure until the available space behind the group is filled.
B. Death of the Virgin. Here, the Apostles have foregone their haloes, but the heavenly host of seraphim all have them. The haloes of those in the fornt row cover the busts of those behind. Christ’s halo passes in front of the angels standing behind him to each side. The Virgin’s halo has been slipped in between her head and the cushion on which she is in repose.
C. Funeral of the Virgin. Less of a problem here; the apostles in the fore have no haloes.
D. Burial of the Virgin. Another group with a border of haloes. One of the mourners (he appearsto have no halo of his own) has his face partly obscured by the halo of the one standing in front.
E. Appearence Behind Locked Doors. Two groups of five apostles, with four haloes for each group.
F. Doubting Thomas
G. Appearence While the Apostles are at Table. Arrangement akin to the Last Supper.
Back Panel
A. Entry into Jerusalem. In the juble of haloes, Christ’s passes in front of th others.
B. Christ Washing the Disciples Feet. Duccio puts haloes only on those disciples whose position doesn’t mask those behind, rendering the identity of Judas rather moredifficult. He is perhaps the disciple with his back to the viewer.
c. The Last Supper. Haloes for those behind the table. John’s halo remains behind Christ’s shoulder while his head passes in front. Judas is likely the send from the left in the front row.
D. Christ Takes Leave of the Apostles.
E. The Agony of the Garden. The apostels huddle against the cold, only those at the summit of the composition have haloes.
F. Christ Taken Prisoner. The retreat of the apostles appears to have reslutedin a confused jumble of haloes.
G : Burial of Christ. With upraised arms and busts bent forward, the mourners’s haloes become almost more an extension of the sky than separate haloes.
H. The Three Marys at the Tomb. The haloes are layered from left to right, thought the middle Mary is behind the other two.
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Some haloes are quite unclassifiable, exceptional by their design, their number or by the choice of the head they occupy.
A. Detail from Fra Angelico’s Last Judgement. The saved are dancing with angels (the sinners are frying unhappily on the other side of the painting) in a meadow. Angels have circular haloes, the redeemed have aureoles.
B. The cherubim in Giovanni Boccati’s Giovanni BOCCATI Virgin and Child with Saints appear to be studiously balancing golden plates on their heads. (The curiously robed and hooded individuals kneeling in the very fore are flagellants.)
C. This angel of the annunciation in a Triptych by Carlo Braccesco comes scooting down from the sky on a celestial bodyboard.
D. Vecchietta (b. ca. 1412, Castiglione di Val d’Orcia, d. 1480, Siena) paints concentric rings with sunrays for this Saint Agatha dated 1461-62. (Yes, those ARE her breasts on the platter.)
E. Girolamo di Giovanni, Annunciation, c. 1461. A variety of three-dimensional haloes, some decorated, some plain, with the two curious ones on the Capuchin monks flanking the Pietà. God, in the upper centre of the Annunciation, leans forward from a fiery nova of crimson cheribim.
F. Some images can become a veritable constellation of haloes, like this Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1448, by Michele Giambono.
G. Virgin and Child by Alessio Baldovinetti, 1460-65. The Virgin’s halo reflects the crown of her head
H. Pieta by Giovanni Martino Spanzotti (active c 1475-1523) . Christ’s head casts a shadow on his halo.
I. Pietà by Jacopo da Montagnana (1440/43 – 1499 Padua). Inscribed transparent haloes.
J. Lorenzo di Credi painted this enigmatic young lady in the late 15th or early 15th century, with what appears to be a black halo in turn framed by a juniper.
K. Saint Christopher is occasionally depicted with a dog’s head. Christophorus Cynocaphaus from the Byzantine Museum of Athens.
L. Byzantine miniature.
M. Russian icon from the 2nd half of the 17th century.
N.Virgin of the Seven Sorrows, by Absalom Stumme, 1499
O. Portrait of a Benedictine Monk by Moretto da Brescia (Brescia c. 1498 – 1554 Brescia). A halo unexpectedly worn by a monk.
P. Saint Crosspatch from a moralizing print by Cornelis Anthonitsz, 1550.
Q. Trinity, hand-coloured woodcut, late 15th/early 16th century. A very unusual depiction of Christ.
The passage from the visual techniques of medieval to humanist iconography can be followed by spotting haloes. Besides the « invention » of perspective or « classical » treatment of the human body, the change can be traced through a variety of attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable – to make haloes a realistic part of the picture. The transformation of the halo signals the end of Medieval Art and the development of Renaissance principles of representation far more clearly than more commonly examined factors, perspective foremost amongst them. It accompanies the abandonment of several levels of lecture for one dominant system centred on the artist himself: what we see – indeed all we see – is from where he stands.
How did the artists of the Renaissance deal with this problem?
As it turns out, in many and varied ways.
Next newsletter:
SAINT’S HALOES AND MOUSE’S EARS PART III
Or Reconciling the Irreconcilable (Or At Least Trying)
OTHERWISE
I currently have the possession, temporarily of course, of a VERY lovely collection of drawings and paintings. Grégoire Villermaux, the last illustrator to have the sketchbook of the Sketchtravel project dropped it off last week in Neuchâtel.
Now I just have to add something to it and pass it along.
Something decent, because there are a LOT of beautiful images in it already.
