Transfiguration of Jesus in Christian art

The Transfiguration of Jesus
Transfiguration of Jesus
The Transfiguration of Jesus is an event reported in the New Testament in which Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant upon a mountain. The Synoptic Gospels describe it, and 2 Peter 1:16-18 refers to it....

has been an important subject in Christian art

Christian art

Christian art is sacred art produced in an attempt to illustrate, supplement and portray in tangible form the principles of Christianity, though other definitions are possible. Most Christian groups use or have used art to some extent, although some have had strong objections to some forms of...

, above all in the Eastern church, some of whose most striking icon

Icon

An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...

s show the scene.

The Feast of the Transfiguration

Feast of the Transfiguration

The Feast of the Transfiguration of Jesus is celebrated by various Christian denominations. The origins of the feast are less than certain and may have derived from the dedication of three basilicas on Mount Tabor...

has been celebrated in the Eastern church since at least the 6th century and it is one of the Twelve Great Feasts of Eastern Orthodoxy, and so is widely depicted, for example on most Russian Orthodox iconostases. In the Western church the feast is less important, and was not celebrated universally, or on a consistent date, until 1475, supposedly influenced by the arrival in Rome on August 6th 1456 of the important news of the breaking of the Ottoman Siege of Belgrade

Siege of Belgrade

The Siege of Belgrade or Siege of Nándorfehérvár occurred from July 4 to July 22, 1456. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II was rallying his resources in order to subjugate the Kingdom of Hungary. His immediate objective was the border fort of the town of Belgrade...

, which helped it to be promoted to a universal feast, but of the second grade.

The subject typically does not appear in Western cycles of the Life of Christ
Life of Christ
The Life of Christ as a narrative cycle in Christian art comprises a number of different subjects, which were often grouped in series or cycles of works in a variety of media, narrating the life of Jesus on earth, as distinguished from the many other subjects in art showing the eternal life of...

, except for the fullest, such as Duccio's Maestà

Maestà (Duccio)

The Maestà, or Maestà of Duccio is an altarpiece composed of many individual paintings commissioned by the city of Siena in 1308 from the artist Duccio di Buoninsegna. The front panels make up a large enthroned Madonna and Child with saints and angels, and a predella of the Childhood of Christ...

, and the Western iconography can be said to have had difficulty finding a satisfactory composition that does not merely follow the supremely dramatic and confident Eastern composition, which in Orthodox fashion has remained little changed over the centuries.

Iconography

The earliest known version of the standard depiction is in an apse

Apse

In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...

mosaic at Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai

Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai

Saint Catherine's Monastery lies on the Sinai Peninsula, at the mouth of a gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai in the city of Saint Catherine in Egypt's South Sinai Governorate. The monastery is Orthodox and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site...

dating to the period of (and probably commissioned by) Justinian the Great. This very rare survival of the Byzantine iconoclasm shows a standing Christ in a mandorla with a cruciform halo, flanked by standing figures of Moses

Moses

Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...

on the left with a long beard, and Elijah on the right. Below them are the three disciples named as present in the Synoptic Gospels

Synoptic Gospels

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are known as the Synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence, and sometimes exactly the same wording. This degree of parallelism in content, narrative arrangement, language, and sentence structures can only be...

: Saints Peter

Saint Peter

Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...

, James, son of Zebedee and John the Evangelist

John the Evangelist

Saint John the Evangelist is the conventional name for the author of the Gospel of John...

.

The Gospel accounts (Matthew 17:1-9, Mark 9:2-8, Luke 9:28-36) describe the disciples as "sore afraid", but also as initially "heavy with sleep", and waking to see Jesus talking with Moses and Elijah, and emitting a bright light. The disciples are usually shown in a mixture of prostrate, kneeling, or reeling poses which are dramatic and ambitious by medieval standards and give the scene much of its impact. Sometimes all appear awake, which is normal in the East, but in western depictions sometimes some or even all appear asleep; when faces are hidden, as they often are, it is not always possible to tell which is intended. Methods of depicting the bright light emitted by Jesus vary, including mandorlas, emenating rays, and giving him a gilded face, as in the Ingeborg Psalter

Ingeborg Psalter

The Ingeborg Psalter is a late 12th century illuminated Psalter now housed in the Musée Condé of Chantilly, France.It was created about 1195 in northern France for Ingeborg of Denmark, wife of King Philip II of France...

. In the East the voice of God may also be represented by light streaming from above onto Christ, while in the West, as in other scenes where the voice is heard, the Hand of God more often represents it in early scenes.

The Sinai image is recognizably the same scene as found on modern Orthodox icons, with some differences: only Christ has a halo, which is still typical at this date, and the plain gold background removes the question of depicting the mountain setting which was to cause later Western artists difficulties. The shape of the apse space puts the prophets and disciples on the same ground-line, though they are easily distinguished by their different postures. But there are other early images which are less recognisable, and whose identity is disputed; this is especially the case where the disciples are omitted in small depictions; a 5th century ivory casket in Brescia

Brescia

Brescia is a city and comune in the region of Lombardy in northern Italy. It is situated at the foot of the Alps, between the Mella and the Naviglio, with a population of around 197,000. It is the second largest city in Lombardy, after the capital, Milan...

and a scene on the wooden doors of Santa Sabina

Santa Sabina

The Basilica of Saint Sabina at the Aventine is a titular minor basilica and mother church of the Roman Catholic Dominican order in Rome, Italy. Santa Sabina lies high on the Aventine Hill, beside the Tiber, close to the headquarters of theKnights of Malta....

in Rome may show the Transfiguration with just three figures, but, like many early small depictions of miracles of Christ, it is difficult to tell what the subject is.
A different, symbolic, approach is taken in the apse mosaic of the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe

Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe

The Basilica of Sant' Apollinare in Classe is an important monument of Byzantine art near Ravenna, Italy. When the UNESCO inscribed eight Ravenna sites on the World Heritage List, it cited this basilica as "an outstanding example of the early Christian basilica in its purity and simplicity of its...

in Ravenna

Ravenna

Ravenna is the capital city of the Province of Ravenna in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy and the second largest comune in Italy by land area, although, at , it is little more than half the size of the largest comune, Rome...

, also mid 6th century, where half-length figures of Moses (beardless) and Elijah emerge from little clouds on either side of a large jewelled cross

Crux Gemmata

A crux gemmata is a form of cross typical of Early Christian and Early Medieval art, where the cross, or at least its front side, is principally decorated with jewels...

with a Hand of God

Hand of God

Hand of God may refer to:* Act of God, in religious or legal contexts* Hand of God , a motif in Jewish and Christian art* Hamsa or Khamsa, a hand-shaped protective amulet in Islamic and Jewish folklore also known as " helping hand"...

above it. This scene occupies the "sky" over a standing figure of Saint Apollinaris

Saint Apollinaris

Saint Apollinaris of Valence , born in Vienne, France, was bishop of Valence, France, at the time of the irruption of the barbarians...

(said to have been a disciple of Saint Peter) in a paradisal garden, who is flanked by a frieze-like procession of twelve lambs, representing the Twelve Apostles. Three further lambs stand higher up, near the horizon of the garden, and looking up at the jewelled cross; these represent the three apostles who witnessed the Transfiguration.

In more vertical depictions of the standard type the scene resolved itself into two zones of three figures: above Christ and the prophets, and below the disciples. The higher was stately, static and calm, while in the lower zone the disciples sprawl and writh, in sleep or in terror. In Eastern depictions each prophet usually stands as secure as a mountain goat on his own little jagged peak; Christ may occupy another, or more often float in empty air between them. Sometimes all three float, or stand on a band of cloud. Western depictions show a similar range, but by the late Middle Ages, as Western artists sought more realism in their backgrounds, the mountain setting became a problem for them, sometimes leading to the upper zone being placed on a little hummock or outcrop a few feet higher than the apostles, the whole being set in an Italian valley. Two compositions by Giovanni Bellini

Giovanni Bellini

Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...

in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

and the Museo Correr

Museo Correr

The Museo Correr is the civic museum of Venice, located in the Piazza San Marco, and is entered by the ceremonial stairway in the Ala Napoleonica at the western end of the Piazza opposite the church of San Marco at the other end...

in Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

illustrate the rather unsatisfactory result.

One solution was to have Christ and the prophets floating well above the ground, which is seen in some medieval depictions and was popular in the Renaissance and later, adopted by artists including Perugino and his pupil Raphael

Raphael

Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...

, whose Transfiguration
Transfiguration (Raphael)
The Transfiguration is considered the last painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael. It was left unfinished by Raphael, and is believed to have been completed by his pupil, Giulio Romano, shortly after Raphael's death in 1520...

in the Vatican Museums

Vatican Museums

The Vatican Museums , in Viale Vaticano in Rome, inside the Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and...

, his last painting, is undoubtedly the most important single Western painting of the subject, although very few other artists followed him in combining the scene with the next episode in Matthew. This is "the first monumental representation of Christ's Transfiguration to be entirely free of the traditional iconographic context", though it can be said to retain and re-invent the traditional contrast between a mystical and still upper zone and a flurry of very human activity below. The floating Christ inevitably recalled the composition of depictions of his Resurrection and Ascension, an association which Raphael and later artists were happy to exploit for effect.

The so-called Dalmatic of Charlemagne in the Vatican, in fact a 14th or 15th century Byzantine embroidered vestment, is one of a number of depictions to include the subsidiary scenes of Christ and his disciples climbing and descending the mountain, which also appear in the famous icon by Theophanes the Greek

Theophanes the Greek

Theophanes the Greek was a Byzantine Greek artist and one of the greatest icon painters, or iconographers, of Muscovite Russia, and was noted as the teacher and mentor of the great Andrei Rublev.-Life and work:Theophanes was born in the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople...

(above).

Interpretation

Most Western commentators in the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

considered the Transfiguration a preview of the glorified body of Christ following his Resurrection. In earlier times, every Eastern Orthodox monk who took up iconogrophy had to start his craft by painting the icon of the Transfiguration, the underlying belief being that this icon is not painted so much with colors, but with the Taboric light

Tabor Light

In Eastern Orthodox theology, the Tabor Light is the light revealed on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration of Jesus, identified with the light seen by Paul at his conversion.As a theological doctrine, the uncreated nature of the Light of...

and he had to train his eyes to it.

In many Eastern icons a blue and white light mandorla may be used. Not all icons of Christ have mandorlas and they are usually used when some special breakthrough of divine light is represented. The mandorla thus represents the "uncreated Light" which in the transfiguration icons shines on the three disciples. During the Feast of the Transfiguration

Feast of the Transfiguration

the Orthodox sing a troparion

Troparion

A troparion in Byzantine music and in the religious music of Eastern Orthodox Christianity is a short hymn of one stanza, or one of a series of stanzas. The word probably derives from a diminutive of the Greek tropos...

which states that the disciples "beheld the Light as far as they were able to see it" signifying the varying levels of their spiritual progress. Sometimes a star is superimposed on the mandorla. The mandorla respresents the "luminuous cloud" and is another symbol of the Light. The luminous cloud, a sign of the Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit (Christianity)

For the majority of Christians, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and is Almighty God...

came down on the mountain at the time of the Transfiguration and also covered Christ.

The Byzantine iconography of the Transfiguration emphasized light and the manifestation of the glory of God. The introduction of the Transfiguration mandorla intended to convey the luminescence of divine glory. The earliest extant Transfiguration mandorla is at Saint Catherine's Monastery in Mount Sinai and dates to the sixth century, although such mandorlas may have been depicted even before. The Rabbula Gospels also show a mandorla in its Transfiguration in the late sixth century. These two types of mandorlas became the two standard depictions until the fourteenth century.

Byzantine Fathers often relied on highly visual metaphors in their writings, indicating that they may have been influenced by the established iconography. The extensive writings of Maximus the Confessor

Maximus the Confessor

Maximus the Confessor was a Christian monk, theologian, and scholar. In his early life, he was a civil servant, and an aide to the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius...

may have been shaped by his contemplations on the katholikon

Katholikon

A Katholikon or Catholicon is the major temple of a monastery, or diocese in the Eastern Orthodox Church. The name derives from the fact that it is the largest temple where all gather together to celebrate the major feast days of the liturgical year. At other times, the smaller temples or...

at Saint Catherine's Monastery - not a unique case of a theological idea appearing in icons long before it appears in writings. Between the 6th and 9th centuries the iconography of the transfiguration in the East influenced the iconography of the resurrection, at times depicting various figures standing next to a glorified Christ.

Iconography

Interpretation

See also