June 2nd
2010
11:30 AM
Posted by:
Brian Collins
I heard it would be gruesome.
The Santa Maria della Concezione Church displays, in macbre detail, the bones of over 4,000 friars collected between 1528 and 1870. The remains are fashioned into exuberant Baroque and Rococo decorations. Yes, creepy. Still, I was raised Catholic, so I planned my Sunday morning to visit it.
After I arrived, and on my way down to the crypt, I passed the first chapel.
And that’s when I saw him, Michael the Archangel, floating gloriously above the altar. Painted in 1636 by Guido Reni, he is triumphant. Powerful. His foot placed firmly on Satan’s neck.
Michael had been honored and invoked as the protector of mortals for generations. He had been celebrated as a warrior and leader of the forces of heaven over the powers of evil.
in the 1600’s much of Northern Europe was being reshaped by the Protestant Reformation. Italy, however, remained staunchly Catholic. Recognizing the need for change and reform, the Catholic Church answered the Reformation with its own Counter-Reformation. Where Protestant sects protested the use of art in a church setting, the Catholic Church, which had been the greatest patron of the arts for centuries, re-affirmed the importance of painting in propagating personal faith by funding work that was realistic and yet believably illusionistic. Commissions for churches exploded in 17th century Italy - and nowhere more so than in Rome.
When l looked up at this image I was spellbound, but not by the beauty or drama of this piece. What hooked me was what Michael was wearing - a blue bodysuit and a flowing, bright red cape.
I knew I had seen this image before. But where? I had never been to this church or even knew of this painting.
Suddenly I remembered a different story of a protector from another realm. He also wears a blue body suit and bright red cape. He is a defender of mortals and celebrated as a leader against the forces of evil.
| In the 1940’s Joseph Campbell started writing about timeless principles embedded in the structure of powerful stories. In his most famous work, and one of my favorite books, “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”, Campbell identified these underlying patterns in the different myths and spiritual traditions across the cultures of the world. In so doing so he developed a standardized system and language which made it possible to reveal, understand and communicate the underlying structures of these important narrative traditions. Carl Jung, in 1966, called the images that we see after waking from our dreams “archetypal.” He also coined the term “collective unconscious” for the level of awareness from which this potent imagery springs. He believed it was common to all human beings. According to Jung, the archetypes, or archetypal potentials for image-making found in the collective unconscious provide the basis for worldwide myths, imagery and symbols. Myth follows certain clearly identifiable tendencies and takes form in similar shapes because humanity at all times and places shares common, unconscious banks of experience. Jung also described archetypes as ‘imprints of possibility’ which are available for everyone to understand. Whether in a 10¢ comic book for depression-weary Americans or on the Via Veneto for 17th century Italians, the same archetype was summoned to inspire hope in a world turning upside down. |