Abstract

In the Middle Ages, the image of a sunbeam passing through glass or crystal was a popular metaphor for explaining Mary’s perpetual virginity. One of the most frequently repeated quotations that employs this metaphor has long been attributed to the twelfth-century Cistercian abbot St Bernard of Clairvaux, which might suggest that the emergent Gothic style contributed to its contemporaneous propagation in text and image. However, this much-repeated quotation is in fact the commentary of a seventeenth-century Dominican scholar, who mixed a widespread medieval trope with Bernard’s own discourse. A reevaluation of the use of the sunbeam motif in text and image suggests that, whereas it was commonly used to explain the Virgin Birth in literature, in visual art it was more frequently associated with the Incarnation. Furthermore, as I argue, the translation of the motif from text to image appears to have been catalyzed by a materially focused affective piety and the devotional texts of late medieval mystics such as the Meditationes vitae Christi and St Bridget of Sweden’s Revelations.

摘要

在中世纪，阳光穿过玻璃或水晶的形象是解释玛丽永远童贞的流行比喻。长期以来，使用这个比喻的最常重复的引语之一一直归因于 12 世纪的西多会修道院院长克莱尔沃的圣伯纳德，这可能表明新兴的哥特式风格有助于其在文本和图像上的同时传播。然而，这段被多次重复的引述实际上是一位 17 世纪的多米尼加学者的评论，他将一个广为流传的中世纪比喻与伯纳德自己的话语相结合。对文本和图像中阳光图案的使用进行重新评估表明，虽然它在文学中通常用于解释处女的诞生，但在视觉艺术中它更常与化身联系在一起。此外，正如我所说，Meditationes vitae Christi and St Bridget of Sweden's Revelations。