Transcript: Bible and Art Reframed, S1 E1
Theme: Doorways and Thresholds
Joost 0:00
Welcome to Bible and Art Reframed. My name is Joost Joustra, and I'm an Art Historian.
Michelle 0:05
And I'm Michelle Fletcher, and I'm a Biblical Scholar. Together we run the Visual Commentary on Scripture, featuring over 1000 images and commentaries written by experts from around the world. It's the internet's premier place for Bible and art. Thank you for tuning in to Bible and Art Reframed, where we choose some of our favorite works from across the site and bring them together to explore unexpected themes that pop up in the Bible. And don't forget to click on the link in the episode description, so you can check out the images that we're chatting about today. So, what are we talking about today Joost?
Joost 0:38
Well, Michelle, today we are looking at doorways and thresholds, and that can mean a lot of things. But when we started thinking about this subject, I had to think of an essential feature of doorways, and doorways are often framed. Now, what else is often framed? Michelle, you want to have a guess?
Michelle 0:58
It's a difficult one, Joost, you’re putting me on the spot, but I'm wondering if you might be leaning towards artworks.
Joost 1:04
Works of art, indeed, are often framed, and frames are a feature of both doorways and works of art, especially paintings. Now, that made me think there is a famous art theorist of the 15th century called Leon Battista Alberti, and he wrote a treatise called On Painting, which is very, very famous, and in it he actually compares paintings to windows. So we're not talking doorways, but windows, windows that, like doorways, can open up to another World, and I think that's a useful comparison when talking about this subject.
Michelle 1:41
I love it as a framing narrative. Ha!
Joost 1:44
ha ha.
Michelle 1:44
What better way to be able to bring some ideas from the Bible together and to look at artworks from the Visual Commentary on Scripture? So, kicking us off, we're going to take a look at a painting by Millais from the 1860s which has a really beautiful doorway at its center, and an even more beautiful woman stood in front of that doorway.
Joost 2:07
Yeah, and this woman we're looking at is Esther, and it really focuses on her and her beautiful red hair and her wonderful yellow dress, and she's standing just outside a blue curtain that covers up a doorway. And when I first looked at this painting, I got the sense she's about to step up onto a stage or something like that, and maybe Michelle, that relates to the Bible passage.
Michelle 2:34
Well, it's literally really theatrical. It does have this sense of a big reveal about to happen, and actually it's drawing on the book of Esther, Esther chapter five specifically. Esther is a Queen in the Persian Empire, and she's resident in its winter capital, Susa. And it says that she is coming before the King, and she's entered into the inner courtyard, and is stood on the threshold going towards the King's chamber. And in the chapter before, we're told anybody that comes to this position is liable to be killed because they haven't been invited by the King into this area, but Esther's got even more at stake than her own life. We're told that actually she is standing there on behalf of the entire Jewish nation, who a man named Haman has actually come about trying to destroy. And so she's standing there, about to go to the King to actually petition for her own people.
Joost 3:31
So in this painting, Esther is about to perform, and we really feel like we're backstage with her, and she's about to open that curtain, cross that doorway, cross that threshold, and she has to perform. But she doesn't have to perform for just anything, she has to perform for a matter of life and death. This is a very, very precarious situation.
Michelle 3:56
It's the ultimate breath intake, isn't it? Before you pass through that doorway, before you come onto the stage, she is stood there, she's getting her hair ready, and she's about to don her crown.
Joost 4:09
Then we're looking at the second work of art we're discussing this week, which is a painting. And as a Dutchman, I can say this word, but a painting by Ludolf Backhuysen, who was famous for painting seascapes. We're looking at a very, very - again, I'm using the word precarious - sea, because we're caught in the middle of a storm. And this painting is cataloged by the National Gallery in Washington, DC, as ‘ships in distress of a rocky coast’, and indeed they are in distress. You can see that some other ships have already clashed on the rocks and have sunken, indeed. So this is a very, very precarious situation,
Michelle 4:50
And we might wonder how we might want to connect this one to the Bible, but on the site we use this to think about the book of Job, the book of Job being the ultimate wisdom text - which makes us consider actually, the precarity of each of our states of life. Job's a man who's really rich, he's got masses of livestock and lots of sons and daughters, he's been a busy boy, and in one day they're all taken away from him. And at the end of the first chapter of the book he says, The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, and that's very much caught up with the essence of this 17th century composition, isn't it?
Joost 5:23
I think that notion of Job of giving and taking away is very applicable here, because 17th century Dutch people who had these paintings in their homes often had a set of these paintings, one showing a stormy sea and one showing a calm sea, a sea where nothing could happen but good things. So, there's an idea of giving and taking away.
Michelle 5:48
And did you know that they were also hung over doorways in some houses? Yes? I'm not making that up…
Joost 5:54
No, you're not making that up. We know that from inventories, and these things actually show up in other paintings as they're painted above doorways.
Michelle 6:04
So as we’re moving through from one state to the other, we're literally being reminded of the precarity of the situation. I have a little fact about this, because when we change from one floor surface to the other, that's when the majority of slips and trips are recorded in health and safety in the workplace, so every time we move from one state to the other, we're in a precarious situation.
Joost 6:23
I'll be sure to remember that when I leave my office after this recording.
Michelle 6:27
You don't want to be too busy looking at the painting to bring yourself into a state of precarity. But seriously, it is a wonderful way of remembering the fact that no matter how much we make plans, no matter how much we get into our own sense of worth or stability, that the Bible, in the book of Job and other wisdom literature, makes it really clear that these things are not stable and that disaster can come at any point. And so we're going to look at something else that explores these concepts of wisdom and how to make good decisions in our own lives.
Joost 6:54
We just looked at two paintings, so you could say two-dimensional images, but now we're looking at a three-dimensional object made by a Brazilian artist called Hélio Oiticica in 1960. And although it's not a painting, it's a sculpture of sorts, it makes me think of paintings because it has very strong horizontal and vertical lines and strong primary colors, especially yellow, and it actually made me think of the paintings by Mondrian that you might know. But here we're looking at a work of art that is a sculpture, but also something you can participate in. You can step inside this work.
Michelle 7:36
It reminds me of my nightmare in hotels, where you have those multi-platform wardrobes and you end up pulling one, and the next bit's open, and then you close one, and then the other one's opened up, but that is actually the essence of why we can connect it to the biblical text, because we want to think about the idea of what it is to pass through a doorway, and how sometimes it isn't actually quite as easy as it might seem. In Matthew chapter seven and Luke 13, Jesus teaches his disciples about the idea of the wide and the narrow gate or door, and this idea of passing through a gate, which is harder to get through, is what he encourages his followers to do. And this artwork that involves this constantly changing setup of doorways can help remind us that this isn't a one off event, but something that we have to make decisions about all the time in life. In the Greek, it talks about this idea of agon, which is where the word agony comes from in English: a struggle. We have to constantly decide to enter through the narrow gate to push against other people to really continue to try and make good decisions on a daily basis.
Joost 8:46
That is a lovely reading of this work of art and Bible passage, Michelle. When I look at it again, it also makes me think of reading the Bible more broadly, because this work by Oiticica allows anyone who steps in to reconfigure it to its own setup, which means that it's not the same work of art for everyone who enters it. It changes all the time, and I think that's how we read the Bible as well. We don't necessarily go into it one way, but we come at it from different angles and re-reconfigure it to suit the current situation we are in.
Michelle 9:23
And actually the Bible comes from ta biblia, which means the books. So the idea that you can pick up one book from within it or another book and then bring that into dialog, just like we can do with different artworks through different hangs, is indeed the way that we might want to read it. And that takes us on to our next work, which is actually from the book of Revelation, which at the time this work was made was often read with another book from the Hebrew Bible, the Song of Songs, which is a marriage song that is a very different idea that we find in the book of Revelation - this idea of the end of time where God's people will enter into a marriage with Him. And we're looking at a manuscript from the 1200s called the Getty Apocalypse. So, Joost, tell us a little bit more about it.
Joost 10:10
Well, I'm always a bit afraid to talk about the book of Revelation in your presence, Michelle, because you're quite the expert, but at least I know how to look at this manuscript. It's commonly known as the Getty Apocalypse. So that apocalyptic element is very prominent in this manuscript. It is a 13th century manuscript that's now housed in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, as the title indicates, and on every page it shows a scene illuminated at the top of the page from the Book of Revelation. Then it has two columns of text underneath. On the left we read in black a part of the Bible text, but in red on the right is a commentary from a contemporary monk called Baron Gaudis. But perhaps the most striking feature of this manuscript is the depiction of the figure of John in every margin on every page.
Michelle 11:09
John’s our seer in the book, he's the guy that gets to tell us what he has seen from God in heaven,
Joost 11:15
indeed. And John in this manuscript takes on a very special role, because especially on the page we're looking at right now, he seems to be peeking in through a peephole. So we talked about doorways, we talked about windows, but here we actually have a very different type of engagement with the image, as John is our intermediate, almost as if he's interpreting the image for us,
Michelle 11:41
He looks through this door, quite little peephole, should I say, quite a lot in the manuscript, and actually in one of them, the eagle's head pops out through the door into his face, really making the message very, very clear to him. But this particular folio that we're looking at has a mandala in the middle with Christ enthroned.
Joost 12:00
Do you know what a mandala is? By the way?
Michelle 12:01
it's an almond in Italian.
Joost 12:04
Exactly.
Michelle 12:05
Two circles that crossover to give us a nice little glow around a holy figure.
Joost 12:10
So, a mandala, in some ways, is another doorway that opens us to it up to the viewer, but it's a doorway that always indicates a supernatural vision of sorts,
Michelle 12:20
A door in a door. And we've got John looking through this tiny little window to see this enthroned figure, and it's connected to Revelation chapter four, where we're told that John, in the spirit, is taken up to heaven, and he sees a door that's open in heaven to see this vision through, and so John is able to actually have this privileged view of what's going on in heaven brought up into the throne room, rather like Esther standing on the threshold of the throne room. Here it's the heavenly throne room with Christ, or God the King seated on the throne. And here he's peeping through this little doorway. But what's really interesting, Joost, as you were saying about the idea of him being the seer and looking in through the edge, but we, as the viewer, aren't looking in from the edge, we're actually seeing the whole scene. So, John, this apocalyptic prophetic seer, can only see part when he had the vision, but in the manuscript we're viewing inside the frame, and that really ties in with the commentary text that goes alongside, it's quite a positive apocalyptic commentary. If an apocalyptic commentary ever can be positive.
Joost 13.27
That's nice for once.
Michelle 13.30
Exactly. And it's got this idea that this is coming to fulfillment, and that we're living in a good state now. So it's a manuscript that reflects our own position as the viewer within the text.
Joost 13:40
Yeah, and I think it's just as much a commentary on revelation as it is a commentary on the act of seeing and how we perceive things, and the role of doorways and thresholds in that process,
Michelle 13:53
And our final work is actually what I can only describe as a great big door itself.
Joost 14:00
Right? Quite a fancy door. I have to say,
Michelle 14:02
A giant tympanum set above the west portal of the cathedral in Autun.
Joost 14:08
And yeah, we know it's the west portal because we had to check this on Google Earth yesterday.
Michelle 14:13
We might have had a little tour to see it, which is excellent, but this is from the 1100s and it shows one of the most iconic Christian traditions, which is the Last Judgment, which draws on both Matthew chapter 25 and Revelation chapter 20, where in Matthew 25 Jesus says that at the end of time the sheep will be put to his right and the goats will be put to his left. There's this sense of separation that will happen, and that's what we see going on in this stone relief.
Joost 14:46
And that little Google Earth exercise we did actually reminded me of something as well, because as I was approaching the church and this doorway on Google Earth, I was reminded of the fact. Imagine that you are a medieval peasant living somewhere in or outside Autun, but approaching this massive church that has been built there in the 12th century and ascending those stairs through that doorway and being confronted with such a powerful image of judgment. That must have been quite an experience every time when you cross that threshold.
Michelle 15:22
And there's also that sense in the relief that actually those who are coming on a pilgrimage to visit the purported bones of Lazarus are part of this scene. We can see one person with a cross of Jerusalem, a little pilgrimage badge, and another one with the shell of Santiago, Saint James, and so there's this idea that the people who are looking up at it, who are coming on pilgrimage to this holy place, are also caught up in this scene of judgment as they're passing through a door. And it is the doorway, the ultimate threshold, which is that of the end of life passing into the next life. And we see within the relief actually the different people facing this situation, and those who are still alive, and who are going through the quotidian action of going through a door, are moved into a far more highly charged situation.
Joost 16:11
And perhaps appropriately, my favorite figure in this relief, and in this context, is Saint Peter. Who is there helping, lifting up the souls to heaven, but what is he holding in his right hand? Of course, an oversized key, that key…
Michelle 16:27
It’s enormous isn’t it, it’s huge!
Joost 16:30
Yeah, and it seems an appropriate sized key for opening the doors of heaven,
Michelle 16:34
Although there's a tiny little door actually up just above him. So we've got a little door, like John's door in the previous manuscript, where we are able to see the place in the kingdom that these people might have in the afterlife. But it's also important to remember that the actions of people is actually what's at the center of the last judgment. It's not about how good you've been, but it's how you've behaved in relation to other people, and so this sense of a community is really important, and the sense of opening doors is also there. Jesus says in Matthew 25 have you fed people? Have you given people something to drink? Have you invited the stranger in? And so the idea of a door being opened up to people in this life, so that people can pass through into the next life, is what is also in the center of this scene,
Joost 17:23
That's a beautiful summary, Michelle. So, to summarize everything we've been talking about today, we started with a painting of Esther being confronted with a very important moment in her life, and thinking about that moment just as she passes through a doorway. We've been looking at more metaphorical interpretations of journeying through doorways and thresholds with Backhuysen's ships in distress on a rocky coast, also a painting that might have actually been hung over a door. We have looked at Hélio Oiticica’s conceptual and adjustable idea of doorways and thresholds in that conceptual artwork from the 1960s and we've looked at a medieval manuscript, the Getty Apocalypse, with the figure of John peeking through a doorway and commenting on the act of seeing - before ending, perhaps appropriately, with a real doorway, that great relief above the cathedral doors of St. Lazarus in Autun, Burgundy,
Michelle 18:26
And I just wanted to finish really with the words of Nigerian philosopher Bayo Akumalafe, because I think it really speaks powerfully to what we've seen. He says that thresholds are moments of poetry where we are faced with something so monumental that language shrinks away, and here we've seen how the Bible presents these different issues through the idea of threshold, huge charged moments where life is at stake, where death is faced, but artworks have been able to help us think more about that, and to fill in the place of doorways and thresholds, and to think more about these very quotidian actions that also reverberate with eternal themes.
Joost 19:05
Michelle, may I ask you something?
Michelle 19:07
I always love a question, Joost.
Joost 19:09
If you were to take one of these five works of art home, which one would you choose?
Michelle 19:14
I think that I would actually go for the Backhuysen, because I really love the idea of every single time I pass through a doorway to bring to mind the fact that life is fragile and uncontrollable, and that you have to live with what's thrown at you. I think that's the essence, in many ways, of what the Bible shows through the history of the Jewish nation, is that things happen and you carry on and you push through, and you continue to believe that there can be something good, so that would be my choice.
Joost 19:45
That's a great choice, but I grew up in the Netherlands, so I was surrounded, surrounded by these seascapes. I'm not going to pick that one.
Michelle 19:53
Come on, what should I have chosen?
Joost 19:55
Well, if it was me, I would have taken that manuscript, the Getty Apocalypse. Yes, because it's not just that one page, it's page after page of this illuminator taking the figure of John and putting him in these positions outside the narrative, reflecting on the act of looking, and as an art historian, I really like that active reflection on the art of looking.
Michelle 20:18
As an art historian, you've also managed to cheat by choosing lots and lots of different pictures, so well done.
Joost 20:23
Yeah, I'm sure it's not fair, but just this time.
Michelle 20:26
Wonderful. Well, that was our discussion of doorways and thresholds. If you've enjoyed this, please subscribe and leave a review. And as we've already said, don't forget to click on the link in the episode description, because you can see these works that we've been discussing in beautiful high resolution on the Visual Commentary on Scripture. Find out more for yourself and see more doorways and thresholds that we have on the site. Please do tune in next time. We look forward to speaking to you again.