Pereda 2013 Fountain of Life-libre

PEETERSLeuven Walpole, MA

2013

FICTION SACRESPIRITUALIT ET ESTHTIQUE

DURANT LE PREMIER GE MODERNE

Edit par

Ralph DEKONINCKAgns GUIDERDONI

Emilie GRANJON

Art & Religion 1

TABLE DES MATIRES

Introduction par Ralph Dekoninck et Agns Guiderdoni . . . . . . . . 1

I. Figura

Les viandes peintes. Imaginaire, spirituel et figur . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Florence DUMORA

Persuader par la plus haulte induction de figure : fonction rfor- matrice des images dans la potique de George Chastelain . . . . . 37 Virginie MINET-MAHY

Le plaisir des images, entre thorie profane et thorie sacre : de lambi- valence la sacralisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Franois LECERCLE

Divines manipulations. loges et critiques de limage proslyte (XVIe XVIIe sicles) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Jan BLANC

Epistemology and style. The balancing of art and religion in the je ne sais quoi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Maarten DELBEKE

II. Lectio divina

Eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear: Literal Sense and Spiritual Vision in the Fountain of Life . . . . . 113 Felipe PEREDA

La bonne prire et la mauvaise prire : Le dcor de la chapelle Saint- Sbastien, dite Sainte-Caire (Venanson, A.-M.) peint par Giovanni Baleison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Colette NATIVEL

Between being, seeming and saying. The Vera Effigies in Spain and Hispanic America during the Baroque . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Fernando QUILS

Sbastien Bourdon, peintre protestant pour lglise catholique . . . . . 201 Frdric COUSINI

VI TABLE DES MATIRES

Expliquer la peinture sacre dans la France du XVIIe sicle : la mdiation de lcrit, ses modalits et ses enjeux, entre pastorale et esthtique 227 Anne LE PAS DE SCHEVAL

III. Theoria

The pact between space and gaze. The narrative and the iconic in Noli me tangere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 Barbara BAERT

Les allgories dans les uvres chrestiennes et les Divins Eslancemens damour de Claude Hopil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Clment DUYCK

Mise en mots et mise en image de la progression spirituelle. Vers une nouvelle approche du portrait dvotionnel dans la peinture flamande de la fin du Moyen ge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289 Ingrid FALQUE

Au carrefour des regards : le thologien et la mystique. Virgilio Cepari sj et Maria Maddalena de Pazzi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 Silvia MOSTACCIO

Une voye de laict vers Dieu : la conversion romanesque par limage 337 Nancy ODDO

EYES THAT THEY SHOULD NOT SEE, AND EARS THAT THEY SHOULD NOT HEAR:

LITERAL SENSE AND SPIRITUAL VISION IN THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE*

Felipe PEREDA

Abstract: Long considered the work of Van Eycks atelier, if not a late pastiche of the masters work, the Fountain of Life (Madrid, Prado) has usually been disregarded by modern scholars. Reconsidering the historical context of its production, this article attempts to interpret the panels composition and iconography as a refined example of visual exegesis. While taking into account its polemical anti-Jewish iconography, we show that the confrontation of the Church and the Synagogue play a fundamentally hermeneutic role in the altarpiece. The discourse, then, is not only one of confrontation between two communities and their religions, as is often clai-med, but rather one that imagines the overcoming of this opposition in the transition from a literal reading of Scripture to a spiritual vision of its meaning, a metapictorial device that thematises vision as a privileged site in religious experience.

Rsum : Longtemps considr comme le travail de latelier de Van Eyck, voire mme comme un pastiche tardif, la Fontaine de la vie (Madrid, Prado) est habituellement nglige par les chercheurs modernes. Reconsidrant son contexte historique de production, cet article tente dinterprter la composition et liconographie du tableau comme un exemple sophistiqu dexgse visuelle. Pre-nant en compte son iconographie polmique anti-juive, nous souhaitons montrer que la confron-tation de lEglise et de la Synagogue joue un rle fondamental dans le retable. Le discours nest plus alors seulement celui de laffrontement entre deux communauts et leur religion, comme on laffirme souvent, mais plutt un discours qui imagine le dpassement de cette opposition dans le passage dune lecture littrale de lEcriture une vision spirituelle de sa signification, procd mtapictural qui thmatise la vision en tant que lieu privilgi de lexprience religieuse.

Blindness unrelated to sin is considered a natural defect. As Aristotle says in the Ethics, no one rebukes someone who is born blind; rather, they take pity on him.

* This article forms part of a larger project, On Images Borders: Methodological Consid-erations and Sources for the Study of Religious Images in the Old Regime, Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (HAR2008-04324). Earlier work was conducted at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington D. C., thanks to a Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellowship (2007-2008). An earlier version of this paper, From Literal to Spiritual Reading: Reflections on the Spanish Context of Van Eycks Fountain of Life was presented at a conference at the Catholic University of Louvain, 18-20 September 2008. I am grateful to Alejandro Vergara, of the Prado Museum, for giving me access to the museums graphic and photographic archive. My gratitude also goes out to Mara Cruz de Carlos, Luc Dequeker, Bart Fransen, Reindert Falkenburg, Eleazar Gutwirth, Marcia Kupfer and David Nirenberg for their suggestions, aid and comments. My special thanks to Susan Jones for sharing with me her unpublished reflections on the painting.

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[Yet] the blindness of which the prophet speaks [Jer 8; Is 45] is not a natural defect but a voluntary one, the result of weakness or malice of free will1.

In an important review published in 1957, the historian Otto Pcht found a connection between two of the most important works of 15th century Spanish painting. One was imported: the Fountain of Life, or the Fountain of Grace (fig. 1); the other was a miniature in a famous manuscript, the Alba Bible,

1 P. DE SANTA MARA, Scrutinium Scripturarum, Mainz, 1478, f 95. The text was written in 1434.

Fig. 1. Jan van Eyck, and workshop, Fountain of Life, (Museo del Prado, Madrid).

LITERAL SENSE AND SPIRITUAL VISION IN THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE 115

completed in Toledo in 14342 (fig. 2). In his opinion, the master who created the former (Jan van Eyck?) was the model for the Spanish miniature3. Although

2 O. PCHT, Review of Josua Bruyn, Van Eyck problemen: De Levensbron, het werk van een leerling van Jan van Eyck, in Kunstchronik 12 (1959), p. 254-258. See also his later observations on the question in Van Eyck and the Founders of Early Netherlandish Painting (London, 1994, p. 128-134) in which he confirms his previous observations.

3 Like the image of God in the Fountain of Life, the miniature at the start of the Alba codex features Alfonso de Guzmn, master of the Order of Calatrava, presiding over a complex three-level architectural fiction. If we compare the two works more closely than Pcht could, we find other formal similarities, especially iconographic similarities that are difficult to explain as coincidences: the forced perspective of the throne in the upper level; and in the middle level, at the base of the towers, the two friars display phylacteries just as the angel hidden in one of the towers does. Furthermore, in the foreground, the division between Jews and Christians is repre-sented in parallel bands, the procession of the Jews (the object of acts of mercy by the Chris-tians) above and the Christians just below. On the Alba Bible see S. FELLOUS, La Biblia de Alba.

Fig. 2. Biblia de Alba, fol. 25 v. (Palacio de Liria, Madrid, Coleccin de los duques de Alba). Photo: author.

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the analogies that Pcht found between the two were purely formal and were met with marked skepticism by other scholars, which we will not dispute here there are coincidences between the images that strike us as more than merely compositional. While the Flemish panel dramatizes in the foreground the confrontation of Church and Synagogue, identifying the latter by the enor-mous written phylacteries they are desperately clutching, in the manuscript illustration, it is the offering of a book to his patron that illustrates Rabbi Mos Arragels submission to his master. Thus the relationship of the Jews to Scripture plays a fundamental role in both the retablo and in the miniature. While Mos Arragel, with his gesture, indicates the labor he performed for his lord in translating the Old Testament from Hebrew to Castilian, the rabbis in the Fountain of Life either unroll enormous scrolls at their feet written in pseudo-Hebrew or they carry the scrolls with expressions of anguish. Each in singular fashion illustrates the relationship of the Israelites to Scripture.

As visual representations, however, the role that Mos Arragel and the rabbi play in their respective paintings is paradoxical, and in some ways the contrary of their relationship to Scripture. In the case of the Guadalajaran rabbi, though he translated the text, he refused to do the illustrations, calling upon the words of Maimonides to argue that he was prohibited from doing so (an argument presented extensively in one of the books prologues). Arragel prefered to let two friars, a Franciscan and a Dominican, do the illustrations. They appear in the miniature holding phylacteries in a manner similar to that of the angels in the Fountain of Life who are sheltered in the towers guarding the entrance to paradise. In the Fountain, meanwhile, the rabbi in the foreground is blind-folded with a white cloth; he is blind not only to the texts but to the beauty of paradise that the painter displays before him.

These two themes the close and in some ways privileged relationship to Scripture and the sentence of blindness mark two of the most important commonplaces with which medieval Christianity represented the Jewish people. In the Fountain, however, to see and to read, to read and to see, are intrinsi-cally intertwined. In the following pages, we will attempt to show that the Fountains synagogue, typical of a longstanding figurative tradition that

Toledo 1422-1433. De cmo rab Mos Arragel interpreta la Biblia para el gran maestre de Cala-trava, Paris, 2001, p. 70 and p. 309 (f 25 v). For a recent and persuasive study of the collabo-ration between Arragel and Christian illustrators see M. KUPFER, Abraham Circumcises Himself: A Scene at the Endgame of Jewish Utility to Christian Art, in H.L. KESSLER and D. NIRENBERG (ed.), Judaism and Christian Art, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, p. 143-182.


reached a high point of complexity and sophistication with this panel, plays a fundamentally hermeneutic role. It teaches us to read correctly so as to be able to fully see. The discourse, then, is not only one of confrontation between two communities and their religions, as is often claimed, but rather one that imagi-nes the overcoming of this opposition in the passage from a literal reading of Scripture to a spiritual vision of its meaning, a metapictorial device that the-matizes vision as a privileged site in religious experience4. In the final part of this essay we will explore the relationship of the Fountain to the context of its Spanish patronage, in order to show how this discourse is indebted to the polemical framework in which the painting might have been commissioned.

1. A retablo in search of an author: Historiographic notes

Otto Pchts important contribution to the study of the Fountain of Life was a response to the first monograph about the panel, published that same year by the Dutch scholar Josua Bruyn, who was interested both in the painter and in the iconography5. Bruyn placed the retablo in the ideological and political con-text of its patronage. The Fountain is mentioned for the first time as a dona-tion by Henry IV of Castile to the El Parral monastery in Segovia in 14556, leading Bruyn to hypothesize not only that the panel illustrated the anti-Semi-tism that was growing throughout Castile but also that the panels iconography had been imposed by one of the kings preachers7. As a result, Bruyn believed

4 On this phenomenon in the visual culture of early modernity, see B.L. ROTHSTEIN, Sight and Spirituality in Early Netherlandish Painting, Cambridge, 2005, especially p. 20-48. On the iconographic topos described in this article, see H.L. KESSLER, Pictures Fertile with Truth: How Christians Managed to Make Images of God without Violating the Second Commandment, in The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 49/50 (1991-1992), p. 53-65; id., Medieval Art as Argu-ment, in L.H. Kessler (ed.), Spiritual Seeing. Picturing Gods Invisibility in Medieval Art, Phila-delphia, 2000, p. 56-63. See also J.F. HAMBURGER, Body vs. Book: The Trope of Visibility in Images of Christian-Jewish Polemic, in D. GANZ and T. LENTES (ed.), Kultbild 1. sthetik des Unsichtbaren. Bildtheorie und Bildgebrauch in der Vormoderne, Berlin, 2004, p. 112-145; id., The Medieval Work of Art: Wherein the Work? Wherein the Art?, in J.F. HAMBURGER and A-M. BOUCHE (ed.), The Minds Eye. Art and Theological Argument in the Middle Ages, Princeton, 2006, p. 374-412, especially p. 398-401. For the subsequent era, see W.S. MELION, The Medita-tive Art. Studies in the Northern Devotional Print 1550-1625, Philadelphia, 2009, p. 5-8.

5 J. BRUYN, Van Eyck Problemen (De Levensbron-Het werk van een leerling van Jan Van Eyck), Utrecht, 1957.

6 P. DE MADRAZO, El Triunfo de la Iglesia sobre la Sinagoga, cuadro en tabla del siglo XV atribuido a Van Eyck, in Museo Espaol de Antigedades, vol. 4, 1875, p. 1-40.

7 The Dutch historians thesis was that the retablo commemorated the consecration of the Segovian synagogue in 1412, which in turn was the result of an alleged profanation ritual that

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the retablo was a late production, and its obvious reliance on the mystic lamb of God was the result of the anonymous masters having taken motifs from Bruges and adapted them in a new, Castilian context. The same line of think-ing, though lacking the iconographic interpretation, has been taken by most researchers until now: the panel emerged from Van Eycks workshop8 as a pas-tiche created in the 1440s or even the 1450s using various of the masters motifs9. Of particular interest in this respect is the recent work by Susan Jones,

put an end to a period of relative harmony between Jews and Christians in Segovia. The inci-dent was publicized by Henry IVs preacher Alonso de Espina, a Franciscan, in his Fortalitium fidei, a foundational text of Spanish inquisitorial ideology. For chronological reasons explained below, Espina had nothing to do with the painting despite his interest in religious imagery. See F. PEREDA, Las imgenes de la discordia. Poltica y potica de la imagen sagrada en la Espaa del 400, Madrid, 2007. On the Franciscan, see B. NETANYAHU, Alonso de Espina. Was he a new Christian?, in Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 43 (1976), p. 107-165, in which he corrects the notion that Espina was a converso. A. MEYUHAS GINIO, De bello iudaeo-rum. Fray Alonso de Espina y su Fortalitium Fidei, Fontes Iudaeorum Regni Castellae, VIII, Sala-manca, 1998; id., La forteresse de la foi. La vision du monde dAlonso de Espina, moine espagnol (?-1466), Paris, 1998; S. MCMICHAEL, Was Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah? Alphonso de Espina s Argument Against the Jews in the Fortalitium Fidei (ca. 1464), Atlanta, 1994. Espinas work was completed at least two decades after the creation of the panel. Leslie Ann Blacksberg, though she excludes Espina as a source for chronological reasons, retains the explanatory model in Between Salvation and Damnation. The Role of the Fountain in the Fountain of Life, in B. BAERT and V. FRAETERS (ed.), Het Wellende Water. De bron in tekst en beeld in de middeleeuwse Nederlanden en het Rijnland, Louvain, 2005, p. 157-73.

8 That is the opinion of most Spanish writers. Elisa Bermejo (La pintura de los primitivos flamencos en Espaa, I, Madrid, 1980, p. 47-50) considers it an original workshop piece, though she moves the date up to ca. 1430, coinciding with the painters return to the Netherlands. See also C. PEMAN, Juan Van Eyck y Espaa, Cdiz, 1969, p. 95-96; M. L. GOMEZ NEBREDA, Una pintura del Monasterio Jernimo de Santa Mara del Parral en el Museo de la Trinidad: La Fuente de la gracia de la escuela de Van Eyck, in La Orden de San Jernimo y sus Monasterios 1/5-9 (1999), p. 503-525 and id., Pinturas de Segovia en el Museo del Prado: estudio de las pinturas de las instituciones eclesisticas desamortizadas de Segovia que formaron parte del Museo de la Trinidad, Segovia, 2001, p. 34-47.

9 See E. DHANENS, Hubert and Jan Van Eyck (London, 1980, p. 255) who dates it to the 1450s; T.-H. BORCHERT, Van Eyck, Cologne, 2008, p. 71; and H. SCHLIE, Bilder des Corpus Christi. Sakramentaler Realismus von Jan van Eyck bis Hieronymus Bosch, Berlin, 2002, p. 32-34. The recent study by S. Jones (The Use of Patterns by Van Eycks Assistants and Followers, in D. COOL, S. FOISTER and S. JONES ed., Investigating Jan Van Eyck, Turnhout, 2000, p. 197-207) demonstrates the coincidence with, for example, the Virgin with Saint Barbara and Saint Elizabeth (Frick Collection), made for Jan Vos after 30 March 1441 and, therefore, probably made after Jan Van Eycks death. The motif of the Valencian tilework which appears in both works also appears in one of the pages of the Turin Book of Hours that recently resurfaced; it is attributed to the masters collaborator identified by Anne van Buren as the Master of the Berlin Crucifix; see J. MARROW, Une page inconnue des Heures de Turin, in Revue de lArt 135/1 (2002), p. 67-76. For the after-life of Van Eycks workshop after the masters death.


who has shown that the painter used workshop stock motifs that coincide with signed works by the master, leading one to think that the painter was directly involved with Van Eycks workshop or, put another way, with a posthumous workshop that continued producing works of Van Eyck, that is once the master was gone10. A further advantage of a later chronology is that it separates Van Eyck from a painting whose quality is far inferior to his great signed works, both in terms of technique and of composition. Its rigid division into two opposing levels that are rudely interrupted by a wall, and the lack of perspecti-val proportion of the figures in each of the levels is both backward and anoma-lous for him, a problem that could be explained if the work were a later echo of the master or, in the worst of cases, mute testimony of the impact of his workshop throughout Mediterranean Europe11.

Otto Pchts alternative hypothesis has not gone away, however. In the opin-ion of the Vienese historian, the panel was a reproduction of a lost original12 painted by Van Eyck when he went to the Iberian Peninsula13. That line of thinking, extensively developed by Volker Herzner14, took a new turn recently

10 S. JONES, The Virgin of Nicholas van Maelbecke and the Followers of Jan Van Eyck, in M.W. AINSWORTH (ed.), Petrus Christus in Renaissance Bruges. An Interdisciplinary Approach, New York, 1995, p. 85-95. See also Joness doctoral dissertation: The Workshop and Followers of Jan van Eyck, Ph. D. diss. Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 1998.

11 T.-H. BORCHERT, Introduction: linfluence de Jan Van Eyck et de son atelier, in id. (ed.), Le sicle de Van Eyck. Le monde mditerranen et les primitifs flamands 1430-1530, Bruges, 2002, p. 8-32.

12 See especially C. STERLING, Jan van Eyck avant 1432, in Revue de lart 33 (1976), p. 7-59; F. WINKLER, Die Stifter des Lebensbrunnens und andere Van Eyck-Fragen, in Pantheon 7 (1931), p. 188-193; L. VON BALDASS, Jan Van Eyck, London-New York, 1952; M.J. FRIEDLNDER, Early Netherlandish Painting. The Van Eycks. Petrus Christus, t. I, Leyden, 1967, p. 69-70. Pchts arguments also convinced Lotte Brand Philip (The Ghent Altarpiece and the Art of van Eyck, Princeton, 1971, p. 11 and followings).

13 Carl Justi was the first scholar to link the panel and the trip to Spain; see C. JUSTI, Estu-dios de arte espaol, s.l., 1908, p. 258-269. For Jan van Eycks only documented trip to the Portuguese court, see J. PAVIOT, La vie de Jan Van Eyck selon les documents crits, in Revue des Archologues et Historiens dArt de Louvain 23 (1990), p. 83-93. He was in Portugal from Decem-ber 1428 to October 1429, during which time he also probably joined the members of embassy, who made a brief pilgrimage to Santiago and met with John II and the king of Granada. A contemporary manuscript chronicling the events can be found in W.H.J. WEALE, Hubert and John Van Eyck. Their Life and Work, London, 1908, p. lv-lxxii. There is, however, no documen-tary evidence that the painter left Lisbon. On the travel and the relation to the comission, see also B. FRANSEN, Jan van Eyck, el gran pintor del ilustre duque de Borgoa. Su viaje a la Penn-sula y la Fuente de la Vida, in De Van Eyck a Rubens. La senda espaola de los artistas flamencos en el Museo del Prado, Madrid, 2009, p. 105-125.

14 V. HERZNER, Jan Van Eyck und der Genter Altar, Worms, 1995, p. 51-111.

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with the publication of dendrochronological, or tree-ring dating studies, which showed that oak used as a support for the retablo was cut before 1422 and most likely painted after 142815. Though boards of wood can sit for years in a work-shop before being used, seem excessive. Thus one must conclude not only that the Prado retablo was created by Van Eyck but also that its material execution was a product of the masters workshop, probably sometime in the late 1420s or 1430s16.

The impact of these conclusions on the study of the composition and inter-pretation of the retablo have yet to be explored. The new chronology makes sense given its similarity to that of the paintings sources and its immediate iconographic repercussions, but the panels new status as an original makes it difficult to attribute the works anomalies to the errors of a sloppy copyist. As Pcht realized, the retablos iconography is directly related to Central European models developed in the context of challenges to Church authority at the coun-cils of Constance (1414-1418) and Basel (1431). As with the Fountain of Life, the iconography of the living cross, to which this motif is generally linked, replaced the more traditional female personifications of the Church and the Synagogue with a more dramatic confrontation between their representa-tives on Earth, identifying the enemies of the Church, particularly Hussites and Jews, as mortal enemies of the Sacrament and, therefore, of the ecclesiastical

15 A more precise chronology is impossible, given the available information. But the theory of a later dating in the 1440s or even the early 1450s, widely held among both those who think the panel is a pastiche and those who think it is an original, now faces serious challenges. The recent dendrochronological study moves the date back considerably, at least to the 1430s, mak-ing it likely the panel is not a mere collection of Eyckian motifs but rather a complex, original creation by workshop masters. An excerpt of Peter Kleins work has appeared in P. SILVA MAROTO, Le dessin sous-jacent de deux peintures eyckiennes du Muse du Prado: Le Triomphe de lglise sur la Synagogue, cole de Van Eyck, et Saint Franois recevant les stigmates, du Matre dHoogstraten, in La peinture ancienne et ses procds. Copies, Rpliques, Pastiches. (Le dessin sous-jacent et la technologie dans la peinture, colloque 15, Bruges, 11-13 septembre 2003), Louvain, 2006, p. 42-50. The earlier dating (earlier even than the Ghent altarpiece) has been accepted by A. SOUDAVAN, Decoding Old Masters: Patrons, Princes and Enigmatic Paintings of the 15th century, London, 2008, p. 95 and followings and by V. HERZNER, Genter Altar und Wasser des Lebens, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 200/3 (2008), p. N3, who changed his mind after first maintain-ing the panel was a copy of a lost original. I am grateful to Bart Fransen for the latter reference. The new dating would support Pchts intuition that the frontispiece of the Alba Bible reflected the panel, a theory that had been rejected by critics who agreed on the later dates.

16 In the opinion of Susan Jones, the date in the late 1420s or 1430s suggested by the den-drochronological study accords with that of ca. 1425-1435 for the Three Marys at the Tomb (Rotterdam); Jones previously had pointed to formal similarities between the two works (authors letter, 31 August 2009).


body17. The closest example to the Prado painting is a Lower Rhenish panel in the Art Institute of Chicago (fig. 3)18. Also of interest is a similarly dated German drawing that could be the only surviving testament of a lost panel, perhaps with the same iconography as the former19. The remarkable coincidences

17 A. TIMMERMANN, The Avenging Crucifix: Some Observations on the Iconography of the Living Cross, in Gesta 40/2 (2001), p. 141-160. See also D.E. KATZ, Slaying Sinagoga in Estense Ferrara, in The Jew in the Art of the Italian Renaissance, Philadelphia, 2008, p. 69-98.

18 C. M. NIELSEN (ed.), Devotion and Splendor. Medieval Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, 2005, p. 76-77. Nielsen dates it to 1420s or 1430s Cologne and links the emperors presence to his collaboration in the Council of Constance. See also Martha Wolffs entry in Northern European and Spanish Paintings before 1600 in the Art Institute of Chicago. A Catalogue of the Collection, S.F. JONES, R.G. MANN and J. BERG SOBR (ed.), New Haven, 2008, p. 391-396, with the same chronology.

19 Anonymous German, ca. 1420, Leipzig, Museum der Bildenden Knste, Inv. NI 8102. See J. BRUYN, op. cit., p. 16-18 and V. HERZNER, Jan Van Eyck und der Genter Altar, op. cit.,

Fig. 3. Master of Saint Veronica, active Cologne, c. 13951420,| Christ on the Liv-ing Cross, 1420/30. Photography The Art Institute of Chicago.

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between these two works and the group of heretics / Jews in the Parral panel reveal linkages between the panel and this figurative past and, by extension, with the ideological context from which the iconography emerged, notably the affirmation of the church in the face of conciliar challenges.

There is a marked contrast between the obvious care with which the painter depicted the Jews in the foreground, in our opinion the most remarkable part of the retablo, and a defect that led some scholars to think the panel was a copy of a lost original. Despite the prominence of the phylactery inscribed in Hebrew that the rabbi is presenting, the text is completely illegible; it is either false or erroneous. The work has three large titles or texts: one on the phylactery at the rabbis feet, another on the banner behind his head, and a third being waved furiously before our eyes by a stout individual. Pseudo-Hebrew inscriptions are relatively common in Van Eycks work, but they are always incoherent, and in none of his works do they stand out like they do in the Fountain of Life20. As Volker Herzner recently observed, the paradox of these illegible texts is pre-cisely their prominence in the foreground21. Surprisingly, a second version of the work, previously in the Palencia Cathedral but today in Oberlin (Ohio)22 displays perfectly correct and legible excerpts from the Psalms that refer typo-logically to the Eucharist23. How can we explain this paradox?

In the following pages we will reconsider those characteristics of the painting that led it to be marginalized as a workshop product or even as a copy of a lost original. In fact, we argue, these characteristics are essential for understanding

p. 60-62. The drawing was first published and compared to the Fountain of Life by F. BECKER, Handzeichnungen alter Meister in Privatsammlungen, Leipzig, 1922 (non vidi).

20 See J. PAVIOT, Les inscriptions grecques et hbraques dans les tableaux eyckiens, in Revue belge darchologie et dhistoire de lart 75 (2006), p. 53-73.

21 V. Herzner (Jan Van Eyck und der Genter Altar, op. cit., p. 70-71) developing the argu-ments of Otto Pcht and Charles Sterling.

22 A third, far inferior, copy is in the Segovia Cathedral and has been dated ca. 1560. C. HERRERO, Arte Flamenco en Segovia, Exhibition catalog, Segovia, 1981, p. 44-47.

23 Psalm 111 in the rabbis phylactery, Psalm 105: 1 in the banner behind him, and Psalm 4: 8-9 held by the stout man. J. BRUYN, op. cit., p. 75, note 4. See also www.oberlin.edu/amam/Spanish_FountainofLife.htm. The work hung in the cathedral of Palencia (where it was described by A. Ponz in 1780) until it was seized by French troops in 1813. Though it was repeatedly (even recently) described in published works as a Spanish copy ca. 1500, in fact, as Fernando Collar has shown, it was by Cristbal de Velasco, whose monogram is on the paint-ing. It was painted in the 1590s for Garca de Loaysa y Girn ( 1599), bishop of Burgo de Osma and tutor of the future Philip III, whose heraldry can be seen in the upper part of the panel. The intellectual standing of the patron would explain why the inscriptions are correct. F. COLLAR DE CACERES, Una pintura, un pintor y un arzobispo. En torno a una copia de la Fuente de la Vida, in Estudios Segovianos 91 (1994), p. 756-776.


the works narrative and stylistic essence. They are a fundamental component of the painting and probably were the result of interactions between painter and patrons. Rather than seeing them as errors by a careless copyist or a work-shop artist, we will use them as a means for studying the panel from the point of view of what we consider a sophisticated exercise in visual exegesis24.

2. Literal readings and spiritual sense in the Fountain of Life

A fountain occupies the center of the Prado painting, organizing it vertically and horizontally. The fountain marks the axis that is echoed by the tabernacle above, and it also radically divides those who sit on the left and those who sit on the right of the Holy Father. At his feet sits a lamb. The crystal-clear waters of the river emerging from beneath his throne carry the precious sacramental load throughout Paradise. The painting precisely and literally represents the words of Saint Johns vision in the last chapter of the Apocalypse procedentem de sede Dei et Agni (Rev 22: 1) to which end the painter has ingeneously designed the throne such that a little arch is built into the Valencian tile floor-ing, allowing the water to flow.

The Fountain is very closely related to the Ghent altarpiece, so much so that many scholars see in it only a compilation of Eyckian motifs. But its iconogra-phy contains other motifs that appear to indicate concrete circumstances, patron-age, and time. In the foreground, two groups of people attract our attention. To the right of the fountain (our left) there are a dozen or so people who are perfectly individualized to represent the temporal hierarchy of the Church Mili-tant. First among them is the figure of the pope, usually identified as Martin V ( 1431), though he could also be Eugene IV (1431-1447)25. Then we see a cardinal, a bishop, the Holy Roman-German emperor Sigismund ( 1437)26, a tonsured cleric, five representatives of the nobility, and a king, sometimes

24 On the concept of visual exegesis see A. ESMEIJER, Divina Quaternitas: A Preliminary Study in the Method and Application of Visual Exegesis, Amsterdam, 1978; W. KEMP, The Narra-tives of Gothic Stained Glass, Cambridge, 1997; B. MOHNHAUPT, Beziehungsgeflechte. Typolo-gische Kunst des Mittelalters, Berlin, 2000; C.G. HUGHES, Art and Exegesis, in C. RUDOLPH (ed.), A Companion to Medieval Art: Romanesque and Gothic in Northern Europe, Oxford, 2006, p. 173-192.

25 There is a resemblance with the print of a vanished portrait by Jean Fouquet (1447). 26 There is a resemblance with the drawing attributed to Pisanello, hypothetically done on

the occasion of the popes visit to Rome for his 1431 coronation. But the figure in the panel looks notably older than the one in the drawing.

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identified as John II of Castile ( 1454)27. Finally, the person in red on the left, dressed in the same manner as the individual in the panel of the Knights of the Mystic Lamb traditionally identified as Hubert van Eyck28, presents us with a problem, as he ostentatiously wears a collar of the ephemeral Order of the Knotted Cane (knoestigen Stock)29. The serene stance of all the figures as they gaze steadily at the water spilling from the fountain creates an ensemble laden with solemnity.

On the opposite side, twelve figures present a very different picture. Seized with desperation, some rend their garments while others collapse on the floor writhing with pain and rage. At least six are Jews, judging both from the pseudo-Hebrew script and from their pointed (horned) caps. Standing out among them is the High Rabbi, leader of the Synagogue, whose elegance and wealth eclipses that of all other figures in the painting. He is dressed in a splen-did violet ephod with a breastplate covered with precious stones. The artist portrayed him just as he is falling to the floor, seeking in vain the support of his neighbors arm. The banner he had been brandishing triumphant has broken and fallen on the head of a man behind him, who gazes up at heaven in terror. (fig. 4).

The association of Jews and inscribed phylacteries is a commonplace of medieval iconography, but its significance can be variable and even contra-dictory depending on the context. While phylacteries in the hands of the prophets may contain or symbolically indicate the prophetic word, the attribute can be extended to all Jews, illustrating the Israelites paradoxical and even con-tradictory role for the Christian church.

One example illustrates the problem: in a ceremony celebrated in some Castilian churches until the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition, Jews who lived in the local aljamas (Jewish districts) would join with the rest of the dio-cese in receiving a new bishop. The rabbi would give him a scroll signifying the Torah, and the bishop blessed it as the law of the Old Testament, after which

27 C. PEMAN, op. cit., p. 83-84, though the resemblance can be established only on the basis of portraits done nearly fifty years after his death. The image might therefore be a purely ideal-ized one and not of any specific person. One possible portrait of John II is the donor in the Virgen de la Misericordia, part of the retablo of the Santa Clara monastery in Palencia (now in the National Archeological Museum), which does indeed resemble the king in the Fountain.

28 The oral tradition is first reflected by Lampsonius (1572), and printed in the portrait by Theodor Galle. See J. GRAHAM, Inventing Van Eyck. The Remaking of an Artist for the Modern Age, Oxford, 2007, p. 28-32.

29 The order existed only from 1406 to 1430. There is wide disagreement on the relation-ship between the order and the paintings chronology.


Fig. 4. Jan van Eyck, and workshop, Fountain of Life (Museo del Prado, Madrid). Detail.

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he tossed it over his head and the rabbi picked it up30. The ceremony eloquently illustrated the paradoxical status of the Jews in Castile. They were people of the book recall the example of Mos Arragel in the frontispiece of the Alba Bible which made them witnesses of faith, but at the same time they were theo-logically and politically subordinate in Christian society.

The basis for this consideration goes back to St. Augustine, particularly to the oft-cited passage in the City of God (XVIII. 46) in which the bishop of Hippo, using an exegesis of Psalm 59 slay them not, lest my people forget sketched out the idea that Jews were witnesses of Christs prophecies31. In his opinion, the survival of the Jews in Christian society was fundamental because they were custodians of the books and writings that demonstrated that the Messiah was not an invention of the Christians but rather the fulfillment of a promise that had first been made to the people of Israel, though for the most part they did not heed the prophets messages. In the words of St. Bernard, the Jews became living Letters of the Law, true relics (Rom 11) of the past whose function was to remember both the true existence of the historical Jesus and his mission of salvation32.

But beyond their testimonial status, the Jews also played what some scholars have termed a hermeneutic role. They showed Christians the proper way to read Scripture, or at least how not to read it. In the same passage of the City of God cited above, Augustine said that only some Jews had been able to under-stand the words of the prophets; the large majority, fulfilling the prophecy, were blinded (excaecati) to the evidence that Jesus was the Messiah referred to in those same texts (Psalm 68). Their blindness was a sign of disgrace that con-firmed the validity of the Christian interpretation of the prophecies, but it also proved the inadequacy of an interpretation, such as that of the Jews during the life of Jesus, that remained trapped in the literal nature of words, incapable of comprehending their meaning.

30 This was how the new bishop of Palencia, Fray Alonso de Burgos, possibly a converso, was received in 1485; see M. HOYOS, Historia del Colegio de San Gregorio, t. I, Madrid, 1928, p. 26.

31 AUGUSTINE, City of God, XVIII, 46. 32 J. COHEN, Slay them not: Augustine and the Jews in Modern Scholarship, in Medieval

Encounters 4 (1998), p. 78-92; id., Living Letters of the Law. Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christi-anity, Berkeley, 1999, especially, p. 19-65; P. FREDRIKSEN, Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei: Augus-tine on Jews and Judaism, in Journal of Early Christian Studies 3/3 (1995), p. 299-324; and id., Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism, New York, 2008. Both authors refer to the well-known thesis of B. BLUMENKRANZ, Augustin et les jufs: Augustin et le judasme, in Recherches Augustiniennes 1, 1958, p. 225-241) shifting attention from the historical relation-ship of Augustine and the Jewish community to the creation of a hermeneutic instrument.


Using St. Pauls understanding of Judaism as the literalism of those who cling to dead letters rather than embrace the spirit in Pauls powerful metaphor, for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life (2 Cor 3: 6; see Rom 2: 27) Augustine went one step further and constructed a theory of language according to which an ambiguous expression in Scripture (ambigua signa) may conceal metaphorical meaning attainable only if we transcend the material nature of words33. Therefore a correct reading is more than an intel-lectual exercise, it is an instrument of conversion that makes men free and spiritual. By the same token, to read carnally means to be blinded, a slave to ones body and distant from the liberating impetus of the spirit34.

The fragile balance between the principle that Jews were necessary relics and the principle that they must be condemned for their literalism was bound to break. Beginning in the 13th century, growing dialectical confrontation between Jews and Christians led to greater knowledge about Judaism and to greater authority being placed in the Talmud, which increasingly strengthened Jews identification with and bondage to the letter35. An indication of the deep-rootedness of this attitude can be found not in literature but in the arts. During the late Middle Ages, Hebrew or pseudo-Hebrew inscriptions frequently were used to stigmatize Christs Jewish killers; in Flanders, for example, inscriptions decorate the executioners tunics36. In addition to using inscriptions as a distinctive sign of Christs killers, artists developed more sophisticated devices that revealed the Jews to be custo-dians of writing they were incapable to understand because they were trapped in the carnality of letters. These often elaborate demonstrations of visual exege-sis are particularly common as exegetic guides for the reading of biblical texts.

In a scene from the Bible moralise studied recently by Sara Lipton (NB, Cod. 1179, f 108 d), for example, the image of the Jews carrying

33 AUGUSTINE, De doctrina christiana, in Obras de San Agustin, Madrid, 1959, vol. XV, 3.5.9; D. NIRENBERG, Figures of Thought and Figures of Flesh: Jews and Judaism in Late-Medieval Spanish Poetry and Politics, in Speculum 81 (2006), p. 398-426. Nirenbergs works on Christian hermeneutics have inspired my arguments. See too, The Judaism of Christian Art, in Judaism and Chrsitian Art, op. cit., p. 387-497.

34 B. STOCK, Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpreta-tion, Cambridge, 1998, p. 204.

35 Jeremy Cohen (in The Friars and the Jews. The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism, Ithaca, 1982) attributes this to the appearance of the mendicant orders. For an explanation rooted in communication culture, see B.M. BEDOS, Les Juifs et lcrit dans la mentalit eschatologique du Moyen Age chrtien occidental (France 1000-1200), in Annales HSS 5 (1994), p. 1049-1063.

36 R. MELLINKOFF, Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages, t. I, Berkeley, 1994, p. 104-108.

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phylacteries is typologically compared with that of Absalom, his hair tangled and caught in the branches of a tree because of his ambition. The scroll carried by the Jews reads VANUM, VACUI37. Logically, the words do not refer to the content but rather to the owners reading of the content. In another copy of the Bible moralise (NB, Cod. Vind. 2554, f. 47) the same scroll is empty, which is no less eloquent38 (fig. 5).

Very often, Hebrew or pseudo-Hebrew inscriptions fill this space. In a French miniature in, once again, the City of God, the writing identifies not only the Jews but all enemies of God39. And, to conclude this brief overview with an example we will return to below, the letters of Christ and the devil are inter-twined on the capital of a 14th century English psalter, the former written in Latin, the latter in pseudo-Hebrew40 (fig. 6). The opposition of Latin in Christs hands and Hebrew in those of the devil presents not only the identification of evil with literalism Jewish and diabolical but the disjunction between he who clings to the material sign and he who spiritually understands the language of the Psalms.

37 S. LIPTON, Images of Intolerance: The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible Mor-alise, Berkeley, 1999, p. 62-65.

38 R. HAUSSHERR (ed.), Biblia Moralizada. Codex Vindobonensis 2554, Madrid, 1992 (fac-simile).

39 BNF, Ms. fr. 22912, f 178 v, recently published by M. KUPFER, lettres plus vrayes: Hebrew Script and Jewish Witness in the Mandeville Manuscript of Charles V, in Speculum 83 (2008), p. 58-111.

40 Amesbury Abbey psalter (Psalm 52); R. MELLINKOFF, op. cit., t. II, fig. 4, p. 13.

Fig. 5. Bible Moralise. sterreichische National-biblio thek, Cod. Vind. 2554, f. 47.


The identification of Jews and Scripture thus is more complex and ambiva-lent than a simple exposition of their prophetic role. Pseudo-Hebrew inscrip-tion could be more than an attribute of Jews in the figurative arts, it could represent a hermeneutic principle that counterposes the purely literal signifi-cance of the Bible and its prophetic significance or, in exegetic terms, that counterposed the letter to the spirit.

From that perspective, the representation of the group of Jews and heretics in the Fountain of Life is seen in a different light, which would explain not only the importance of the writing and the desperate acts of those carrying the banners but, above all, the fact that they are all illegible. There have been efforts to translate these texts, and some scholars have claimed to decipher them, but in fact it is an impossible task. The calligraphy is far more elegant and neat than in other contemporary painting, and many of the letters of the alphabet are

Fig. 6. Amesbury Abbey Psalter. Oxford, All Souls College Library. Ms. 6, f. 62

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written correctly. Others, however (like, for example, a backwards S) are prod-ucts of the painters imagination41. Though the letters are much more precise than other pseudo-Hebrew inscriptions produced in Van Eycks workshop, they are nonetheless completely illegible.

The identification of the Jews in Fountain of Life with writing is even closer than that, however, and it has an impact on how they are depicted. In the foreground, the elegant High Rabbi stands out among all the other figures. He appears to have tripped, and he would fall were it not for the aid of his kneeling colleague, but the imbalance does not detract from his elegance. It has been said that nowhere in previous medieval iconography do we have such a detailed and documented representation of this imaginary biblical personage. Attired in luxurious robes adorned with beautiful embroidery, his left hand has dropped the long text that begins to unroll at his feet. The trim of his robes filled with meaningless inscriptions and the endless scroll of writing show him to be like one of those Pharisees bound to the law who, according to Matthew (Matt. 23:5), decorated the trim of their magnificent gowns (magnificent fimbrias) and lengthened the texts on their phylacteries (dilatant phylacteria42). It could not be more fitting.

There is, however, no description of the high rabbis attire in Matthew 23. The fact that medieval iconography does not include descriptions of his ritual robes might be explained by the difficulty of the passage in Exodus 39 where a very detailed description is found. Not until the middle of the previous century do we find the most popular of Christian exegetes, Nicholas of Lyra, using drawings to clarify the original texts ambiguity. Following the precedent of Jewish writers, Lyra used drawings along with the Postillae litterales, the best-known scriptural commentary of the time43. These show a close resemblance to the Fountains reconstruction.

41 I am grateful to Inmaculada Rodrguez Torn for her insight into the Hebrew inscriptions. 42 The Greek term (filacteria), preserved in the Vulgate, refers to texts that orthodox Jews

placed on their foreheads and forearms. (Ex 13: 9; Dt 6: 8). 43 On Nicholas of Lyra, see H. LABROSSE, Sources de la biographie de Nicolas de Lyre, in

tudes franciscaines 16 (1906), p. 383-404; id., Biographie de Nicolas de Lyre, in tudes francis-caines 19 (1907), p. 489-505 and 593-608; id., uvres de Nicolas de Lyre, in tudes franciscaines 19 (1908), p. 41-52, p. 153-175 and p. 368-379 (on the Postillae); and id., uvres de Nicolas de Lyre, in tudes franciscaines 35 (1923), p. 171-187 and p. 400-432. See also C.-V. LANGLOIS, Nicolas de Lyre, frre mineur, in Revue dHistoire Littraire de la France 36 (1927), p. 355-400. More recently, P.D.W. KREY and L. SMITH (ed.), Nicholas of Lyre. The Senses of Scripture, Leiden, 2000; D. COPELAND KLEPPER, The Insight of Unbelievers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in the Later Middle Ages, Philadelphia, 2007. On the illustrations, including previous bibliography, see F. PEREDA, Le origini dellarchitettura cubica: Alfonso de Madrigal,


It is well known that the Franciscan made good use of Jewish commentarists (especially Rashi) for his glosses on the Old Testament, though on this point the writers would be of little or no help. In his commentary on Exodus 39, he considered Rashis description to be useless, preferring Flavius Josephus, who had written earlier about the destruction of the temple44. There are many illus-trated manuscripts by Nicholas of Lyra, which were particularly popular in Castile during the first half of the 15th century45. Though he generally supplied the drawings, one concerning the Jewish exegesis, the other the Christian, in this case just one drawing proposes a solution to this little enigma. (fig. 7)

At least one other medieval writer besides Nicholas of Lyra appears to have dealt with illustrating this difficult passage, and he is none other than Mos Arragel, the rabbi who translated the Alba Bible (fig. 8). Though Arragel refused to have anything to do with the illustrations, the fact is, as has been pointed out by Sonia Fellous and Marcia Kupfer46, that many of the illustrations emerge directly from his glosses or might have been orally suggested to the illustrators by Arragel himself47. In this case, the Guadalajaran rabbi pointed in his gloss to the inadequacies of the medieval Jewish commentarists, proposing instead an interpretation based both on the Hebrew text and on a comparison with Chris-tian liturgical robes48.

A comparative analysis of various attempts to interpret the text and images in the Fountain of Life proves that the Flemish painter used Nicholas of Lyras drawings. There is an obvious similarity between the two, starting with

Nicola da Lira e la Querelle Salomonista nella Spagna del Quattrocento, in Annali di Architettura 17 (2005), p. 21-52.

44 According to a Castilian manuscript from the first half of the 15th century, Postillae litera-lis super totam Bibliam, BNM Ms. 262, f 73: in hoc sequi Josephum qui [] mansit in iherusalem tempore quo ad huc stabitur templum [] et immo pluries potuit videre et vidit vestes et ornamenta eorum quam Ra Sa[lomon] qui fuerunt pos[t]ea per mgnum tempus [] aliter visa et audita nar-ratur [].

45 K. REINHARDT, Das Werk des Nikolaus von Lyra im Mittelalterlichen Spanien, in Traditio 43 (1987), p. 321-358.

46 M. KUPFER, Abraham Circumcises Himself, op. cit. 47 S. FELLOUS, La Biblia de Alba, op. cit., p. 245 and followings. 48 [] dize rab Salamon que desta vestimenta non puede verdadera figura [i]maginar pero sy

me dios ayuda yo [i]magino ser aquel que agora llamamos escapulario e lo que viene a los pechos que esto era el pechugar e lo que viene a las espaldas que esto seria el espaldar ya sea que el escapulario es todo lo de delante e de pro [sic] quasy un pedao e el espaldar e pechugar del sacerdote pegavase con objetos el uno con otro a los onbros e con sortijas e todos estos paos son paos de rey [] (Biblia de Alba, Madrid, 1992, f 78 v).

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the appearance of a tiara in the shape of a miter49, and the earlier work is the source of many subsequent errors, particularly that of confusing the ephod and the tunic covering it, turning it into a single garment. The origin of that error

49 The rabbi in the Alba Bible wears a sort of papal tiara, but Lyra identifies the tiara with a miter (BNE, Ms. 262, f 73). On the use of miters on rabbis, see R. MELLINKOFF, Christian and Jewish Mitras: A Paradox Florilegium in Honorem Carl Nordenfalk, Stockholm, 1987, p. 145-158. On the presentation of rabbis as bishops wearing miters, see J.Y. LUACES, Del alfaqu sabio a los pseudo-obispos: una particularidad iconogrfica gtica, in Sharq Al-Andalus 10/11 (1993-1994) p. 731-748.

Fig. 7. Nicholas of Lyra, Postillae Lit-eralis, Ms. 57-5-4, f. 140 v. Biblioteca Colombina (Sevilla). Photo: author.


Fig. 8. Biblia de Alba, fol. 79. (Palacio de Liria, Madrid, Coleccin de los duques de Alba). Photo: Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid.

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can be found in Flavius Josephus but is not in Mos Arragel, who used two drawings precisely to make the distinction visible50.

The Flemish painter, meanwhile, did not merely copy an illustration. Rather, he corrected it on the basis of the biblical text, differentiating the white tunic and the ephod so that the tassels hang from the outer, not the inner garment51. In addition, he dressed the high rabbi with a full-length white tunic and simpli-fied its decorations bells and pomegranates, according to the biblical text leaving just the bells, which can be recognized through the vertical openings of the tassels that translate the word tintinabula from the text52.

Of more interest and precision is the way in which the colors were chosen. One of the most attractive aspects of Exodus 39 is the colors of the garments. First, the rabbis ephod is violet and is easily distinguished from the garments worn by the other Jews. Second, we have the colors of the twelve precious stones that decorate the breastplate hanging from his shoulders. According to the rules of Leviticus, a breastplate should measure a square palm, into which twelve gems should be set, each with its own name53. Although it is impossible to match the twelve gems described in Exodus with known minerals, there can be no doubt that the painter was trying to replicate the list. Thus it is signifi-cant that we see a green stone (emerald?) in the first row, red and blue in the second (carbuncle and sapphire?), and a transparent stone (crystal?) and a black stone (onyx?) in the fourth and last.

Finally, the violet stone placed by Flavius Josephus (the first stone in the third row) is the same color as the ephod. The painter clearly separated it from the blue of the Virgins cape, using it only on the emperors cape on the other side of the panel. Violet Hyacinthus in the Vulgate was a priestly color in the Old Testament, associated with royalty and nobility (Ex 2: 6) but it is also

50 Nicholas of Lyras drawings follow those of Flavius Josephus in distinguishing the full-length blue tunic (tunica hyacinthina) from which pomegranates and bells hang. The Vulgate superhumeral is worn over the tunic. Lyra identifies it with the ephod, in the center of which he has placed the Essen from the logion, or oracle. F. JOSEPHUS, Jewish Antiquities, t. III, Cam-bridge, 1927, p. 150-174 (Loeb Library, Josephus IV).

51 The illustration in Fountain of Life is in this sense closer to the Vulgate text than Nicholas of Lyras speculations.

52 Another possibility is that it is based on Num 15: 38, which says vittas hyacintinas were hanging. In Hebrew this appears as , translated as fringes. See L.A. SCHOKEL, Diccionario bblico hebreo-espaol, Madrid, 2008, p. 637.

53 The list in Ex 39 is slightly different. In rows, from top to bottom: (1) sardius, topazius, smaragdus; (2) carbunculus, sapphirus, iaspis; (3) ligurius, achates, amaethystus; (4) chrysoli-tuss, onychinus, berilus. The translation of these terms in the various editions of the Bible are extremely varied.


associated with the Jews (Num 15: 38)54. Christian exegetists were well aware of this, and they interpreted it as a celestial prefiguration55. Thus the use of the color is another indication of the painters attention to iconographic precision.

3. Visual exegesis: from the letter to the spirit

The painters remarkably precise representation of the high rabbi in the Foun-tain of Life therefore can be seen as a sort of literal exegesis illustrating both the pharisaic magnificence of the Jews and their manner of literally or carnally reading Scripture.

But the characterization of the Jews as literalists, I will argue, goes beyond the representation of their rabbi. It structures the entire painting. The work is starkly divided in the middle by a wall separating the celestial kingdom from the plane on which the Church and Synagogue confront one another. The divi-sion is not merely formal. It is also iconographic and, as we said at the start of this article, it is surprisingly archaic. On the top level we have the intemporal image of divine majesty presiding over the eternal kingdom56. Just below, we find ourselves in historical time; the figures are outside Paradise, awaiting con-templation of the heavenly kingdom. Most are depicted as portraits, and many exhibit exaggerated passion. A thin stream of water runs beneath the throne, wending its way through the center of the garden before escaping through a passage in the wall, invisible to us, and then reappearing with its precious eucharistic burden to deposit it in the fountain. The separation of the two

54 Hyacinth corresponds to the Hebrew tekhelet, translated in the Septuagint as iakintos. Only recently was the origin of the pigment discovered. The color is closer to blue than to vio-let; the latter error comes from the Greek translation. B. DOV HERCENBERG, La transcendance du regard et la mise en perspective du tekhllet (bleu biblique), in Revue dhistoire et de philosophie religieuse 78/4 (1998), p. 387-411. On the color blue in the Bible, see M. PASTOUREAU, Bleu. Histoire dune couleur, Paris, 2006, p. 19-23. Unfortunately we do not know which pigments were used for this color, though we can assume azurite was the base.

55 In his allegorical reading of the text, Nicholas of Lyra saw jacinto as being derived from the color of the sky (filiis coloris coeli), which enabled him to interpret the Jews garments as the Christian figure in the celestial conversation. Biblia cum comento, Lyon, 1528, f 290. On the eschatological meaning of this representation, see below.

56 On the fundamental distinction between present and future eschatology in medieval mon-umental art see P.K. KLEIN, Programmes eschatologiques, fonction et rception historiques des portails du XIIe s. Moissac Beaulieu Saint-Denis, in Cahiers de Civilisation Mdivale 33/4 (1990), p. 317-349. By the same author, Introduction: The Apocalypse in Medieval Art, in R.K. EMMERSON and B. MCGUINN (ed.), The Apocalypse in the Middle Ages, Ithaca, 1992, p. 159-199.

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realms is probably one of the least fortunate features of the panel because it creates a hierarchized composition at odds with the realism of the individual figures. The slight proportional difference between the figures in the lower and upper levels gives us a subtle impression of depth, but the perspectival dimin-ishment is quite clearly insufficient. That, along with the fact that paradise takes up more than half the panel, prevents a sense of depth from minimizing the hierarchical importance of the Deesis.

This compromise allows the painter to reconcile pictorial realism and an older structure or composition that is reminiscent of the imagery of an architec-tural portal. The sources for this arrangement are not found in 15th century painting and are a far cry from the unified pictorial composition favored by the new generation of early Netherlandish painters in these years. To find a similar composition one must go back in time to monumental Romanesque sculpture, which Van Eyck studied carefully, as is well known57, or even to paleochristian mosaics, the compositions ultimate source58.

We know from infrared analysis that this decision, which could be regarded as unfortunate, was in fact a correction of a previous one. Instead of the wall, there had been a gallery of open arches that would have offered a far more convincing construction from the point of view of pictorial coherence59. After considering that possibility, the painter finally opted for a solution that was closer to his medieval reference and which allowed him to clarify the general sense of the image.

In addition to the stream of water, another element in the panel breaks the clean division into the kingdoms of Heaven and Earth. The garden of paradise is protected by two angular towers, inside of which are a group of angels dressed in multicolor tunics. On the left, the angels chant while reading a codex, while in the right tower one angel holds a large phylactery. In his left hand he holds an inscribed scroll, while with his right hand he points in the direction of the

57 S. HOPPE, Romanik als Antike und die baulichen Folgen. Mutmassungen zu einem in Verges-senheit geratenen Diskurs, in N. NUSSBAUM and al. (ed.), Wege zur Renaissance. Beobachtungen zu den Anfngen neuzeitlicher Kunstauffassung im Rheinland und den Nachbargebieten um 1500, Cologne, 2003, p. 88-131.

58 G. BANDMANN, Ein Fassadenprogramm des 12. Jahrhunderts und seine Stellung in der christ-lichen Ikonographie, in Das Mnster 5 (1952), p. 1-31, pointed to the importance of models such as the Constantine mosaics in St. John of Lateran and St. Peters, particularly for the composi-tion of the Mystic Lamb. That line of thinking is developed by Volker Herzner with regard to the Fountain of Life; in his opinion, the composition proves Van Eyck made a pilgrimage to Rome in 1426: V. HERZNER, Jan Van Eyck und der Genter Altar, op. cit., p. 98.

59 P. SILVA MAROTO, op. cit.


writing and the fountain below. The phylactery is the only element spanning the two spaces, and as it unfurls it almost touches the pseudo-Hebrew banner just below the angel.

The meeting between Gothic Latin writing and Hebrew reminds us of the Amesbury psalter capital we referred to earlier. Here too, infrared analysis con-firms that the decision was a conscious one and that the original composition also included a phylactery like the one held by the angel in the other tower. A color layer had first been painted, but the phylactery was finally covered over with a book, so that no element other than the unfurled scroll on the right-hand side would connect the panels two levels.

The words from the Song of Songs are perfectly legible on the phylactery: Can. Fons [h]ortorum, puteus aquarum viventium (Cant 4: 15) (A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters) which in the Song of Songs is followed with, and streams from Lebanon, just as the stream of water in the painting crosses the garden until it reaches the fountain. As the angel so obviously indicates, the verses refer to the fountain crowned with a clearly eucharistic tower that divides the panel in two60. But the fountain is not just a fountain; it is also a well, the result, as once again infrared analysis reveals, of the painter having changed his mind. Originally there had been a circular structure, more like a well, but later this became an hexagon, more like a fountain, which preserved the baptismal and, by extension, ecclesiological connotations of the form61.

The text was very carefully chosen. As is well known, in the Middle Ages, the Song of Songs posed almost insurmountable problems for literal interpretation. Even Nicholas of Lyra rejected a literal exegesis, instead arguing that the para-bolic (i.e. allegorical) meaning of the Song is contained within the category of literal meaning62. Lyras double literal meaning could thus make room for his allegorical reading and allowed the Franciscan to recover the most traditional exegesis of the Songs, that which saw the epithalamic poem as a declaration of love by Christ (sponsus) to his spouse, the Church, an interpretation that goes

60 Eucharistic towers begin appearing precisely in the 1430s. A. TIMMERMANN, Ein mercklich kstlich und werckl sacrament gehews. Zur architektonischen Inszenierung des Corpus Christi um die Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts, in A. MORAHT-FROMM (ed.), Kunst und Liturgie: Choranlagen des Sptmittelalters ihre Architektur, Ausstattung und Nutzung, Stuttgart, 2003, p. 207-230.

61 See the fundamental article by P.A. UNDERWOOD, The Fountain of Life in Manuscripts of the Gospels, in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 5 (1950), p. 41-138.

62 M. DOVE, Literal Senses in the Song of Songs, in P.D.W. KREY and L. SMITH (ed.), op. cit., p. 129-146; D. COPELAND KLEPPER, op. cit., p. 34.

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back to Gregory the Greats commentary, the most important medieval source for the exegesis of the Song of Songs63.

From the 1430s to the 1450s, while the Council debated theses undermining Romes authority, the allegorical reading of Song of Songs attracted new atten-tion. This might explain its presence in the verses we are studying. Take, for example, Juan de Torquemadas Summa de Ecclesia64, the principal ecclesio-logical work of the 15th century and the work that was most fundamental in defending the ideology that would end up defeating the conciliarist theses dur-ing the reign of Eugene IV65: Torquemada began the encyclopedic work in Basel in the 1430s and finished it a decade later in Rome. The work starts off by defining the Church in opposition to the synagogue and then comments on sixteen metaphors used by the Scripture to refer metaphorically to the Church66. Terms drawn from the Song of Songs take up the first two chapters, in which the Church is described first as an enclosed garden (Hortus conclusus), a walled garden protected on all four sides from its enemies or a fortress whose walls are guarded by angels. But it is also a sealed fountain (fons signatus), from the fourth song, and the puteus aquarum viventium, the well of moving water that guards the hidden mysteries that are revealed only with the grace of the Spirit67.

63 E.A. MATTER, The Voice of My Beloved: The Song of Songs in Western Medieval Christian-ity, Philadelphia, 1992, p. 86-111; D. TURNER, Eros and Allegory: Medieval Exegesis of the Song of Songs, Kalamazoo, 1995, p. 215-255.

64 J. DE TORQUEMADA, Summa de Ecclesia, Rome, 1489. 65 T.M. IZBICKI, Protector of the Faith: Cardinal Johannes de Turrecremata and the Defense of

the Institutional Church, Washington, 1981. 66 Torquemadas metaphors are a collection of older terms used here to defend the definitions

of the Church against those advanced above all by Lollards and Hussites. K. BINDER, Wesen und Eigenschaften der Kirche bei Cardinal Juan de Torquemada O. P., Innsbruck, 1954, p. 41.

67 J. DE TORQUEMADA, op. cit., t. I, p. xxii. De rationibus propter quas ecclesia sancta dei Vinea dicta sit, et Ortus, fons et puteus aquaraum viventium: Dicitum autem Hortus Conclusus in undique clausus: non expositus bestiis, non avibus, non furibus, non hostibus. Et dicitur clausus propter duplicem clausuram de qua dr. Isa xxvi. Urbs fortitudinis nostrae Syon Salvator, ponetur in ea, murus secundum divinitatem defendens et muniens eam interius, et antemurale, secundum humanitatem vel antemurale, i.e angelorum custodia qui muniant eam exterius. Consequentia eccle-sia legitur etiam fons nominata, unde Cant iv dicitur fons signatus, et hoc duplici ratione. Primo propter abundantiam irrigantis doctrine, unde Glo. Cant. iv ecclesia fons dicitur, quia doctrina salu-tari abundat, unde proximos irrigat []. Secundo quia ex ea copia multarum salutarium aquarum in salutem redundat fidelium. Emanat quidem ab ista fonte primo aqua baptismi, a qua abluitur peccatum originale, ratione cuius dicitur Zach. xiii. Erit fons puteus domui David et habitantibus Ierusalem in abblutionem peccatoris et menstruate []. Item nominata legitur puteus aquarum viventium, unde loco supra nominato ita subiungitur. Puteus aquarum viventium que fluunt impetu de libano. Appellatione autem putei ecclesia describitur ratione profunditatis ministeriorum eius,


Notwithstanding the inscriptions role in clarifying the metaphorical mean-ing of some of the compositional elements, its function is more than that of iconographic prothesis. As with other works from Van Eycks workshop, the text is not superimposed on the images, like other titles so characteristic of medieval art68, but rather it is an integral component of the composition69. The banner does not merely identify a motif. Rather, it is placed strategically so as to create a visual opposition betwen the allegorical meaning of a spiritual read-ing of the Song of Songs and the dead letters in the lower half. The Hebrew characters below are inseparable from the mediums (the banner, the scrolls) on which they are written; those of the angels, however, are sung to music that fills paradise. While the Hebrew writing is on a physical object, the pennant, which emphasizes the materiality of the linguistic sign, the words of the angel appear in Latin on a scroll, a conventional sign identified with oral speech70. So in this sense as well, angelical speech is presented in sharp contast to the mute letters of the Jews.

These two discourses are distinguished by their language and by the physical object that holds them. The subtle diagonal placement of the words from the Song of Songs establishes an itinerary of reading that connects the composi-tions two levels and even shows us how to make that journey. The inscription is like a hermeneutic gesture that contrasts the literal and historical meaning of the dead letter with the living (viventium) meaning of the parabolic meta-phor. It is not a semiotic instrument but a semantic reference; it does not tell us how to read the painting but, rather, how to transcend it71.

4. Jews and the end of time

unde glo. sic dicit. Puteus dicitur propter oculta mysteria quae solis sanctis revelatione sancti spiritus panduntur. Et dicitur puteus aquarum propter divina eloquentia que de invisibilibus divine gratis thesauris procedunt [].

68 C.B. KENDALL, The Allegory of the Church: Romanesque Portals and their Verse Inscriptions, Toronto, 1998, in which the author emphasizes the function of texts in Romanesque (as opposed to Gothic) architecture owing to their ability to affirm the present reality of the sign.

69 A. ACRES, Rogier van der Weydens Painted Texts, in Artibus et Historiae 21 (2000), p. 75-109, especially p. 102. On Van Eycks use of texts, see also P. PHILIPPOT, Texte et image dans la peinture des Pays-Bas aux XVe et XVIe sicles, in Bulletin des Muses Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique 30/37 (1985), p. 75-86; and C. HARBISON, Physical Format and Verbal Inscription, in Jan van Eyck. The Play of Realism, London, 1991, p. 129-142.

70 M. CAMILLE, The Book of Signs: Writing and Visual Difference in Gothic Manuscript Illu-mination, in Word and Image 1 (1985), p. 133-148.

71 P. RICOEUR, La metfora viva, Madrid, 2001, translation by A. Neira Calvo, especially p. 104.

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While the angel, its gesture, and the phylacterys content invite us to abandon writing and embrace the spiritual meaning of Scripture, the high rabbi not only turns his head in the opposite direction but his eyes are completely blindfolded. Critics traditionally have interpreted his gesture as a sign of shame or disgrace, and the interpretation of the Fountain is no exception. As we have already seen in the oft-mentioned monograph by Josua Bruyn, the Dutch scholar related this image to emerging anti-Semitism in Castile, and the eucharistic motif to the accusation of ritual desecration that contemporary sources attrib-uted to the Jews72.

Medieval art is full of evidence of hostility toward the Jews73, and that is true for Castilian art as well74. Nevertheless, figurative strategies are varied and go beyond demonization75. In order to correctly understand the significance of this group of people in the Fountain, the misleading attribute of the blindfold, and

72 On ritual desecration and the fine arts, see M. RUBIN, Gentile Tales: The Narrative Assault on Late Medieval Jews, Philadelphia, 1999; and M. B. MERBACK, Fount of Mercy, City of Blood: Cultic Anti-Judaism and the Pulkau Passion Altarpiece, in The Art Bulletin 87/4 (2005), p. 589-642.

73 Among the most important works on the construction of the image of the Jew in medieval Europe, see B. BLUMENKRANZ, Le juif mdival au miroir de lart chrtien, Paris, 1966; W.S. SEIFERTH, Synagogue und Kirche im Mittelalter, Munich, 1964; E.M. ZAFRAN, The Iconography of Anti-Semitism: A Study of the Representation of the Jews in the Visual Arts of Europe 1400-1600, Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1973; R. MELLINKOFF, Outcasts, op. cit.; H. SCHRECKEN-BERG, Christliche Adversus-Iudaeos-Bilder. Das Alte und Neue Testament im Spiegel der christlichen Kunst, Berlin, 1999; D. HIGGS STRICKLAND, Saracens, Demons and Jews: Making Monsters in Medieval Art, Princeton, 2003, p. 94-155.

74 M. MELERO MONEO, Eucarista y polmica antisemita en el retablo y frontal de Vallbona de les Monges, in Locus Amoenus 6 (2002-03), p. 22-39; P. RODRIGUEZ BARRAL, Eucarista y anti-semitismo en la plstica gtica hispana, in Boletn del Museo e Instituto Camn Aznar 97 (2006), p. 279-347; id., Contra caecitatem iudaeorum: el tpico de la ceguera de los judos en la plstica medieval hispnica, in Ilu. Revista de Ciencias de las Religiones 12 (2007), p. 181-207; id., El recurso al judo deicida: un punto de encuentro entre el drama y las artes visuales en la Valencia de la Edad Media final, in J.L. SIRERA (ed.), Estudios sobre teatro medieval, Valencia, 2008, p. 57-174; id., La dialctica texto-imagen. A propsito de la representacin del judo en las Cantigas de Santa Mara de Alfonso X, in Anuario de Estudios Medievales 37/1 (2007), p. 213-247; id., La imagen del judo en la Espaa medieval. El conflicto entre cristianismo y judasmo en las artes visuales gticas, Barcelona, 2009; J. MOLINA FIGUERAS, La imagen y su contexto. Perfiles de la iconografa antijuda en la Espaa Medieval, in Els jueus a la Girona, Girona, 2008, p. 29-82; C. ESPI, Jews Desecrating a Crucifix: A Passio Imaginis Altarpiece in Mallorca, in Iconographica, 8 (2009), p. 80-94. Id., Recrucificando a Cristo. Los judos de la Passio Imaginis en la isla de Mal-lorca, Mallorca, 2009.

75 For an overview of the question of medieval images of Jews see M.B. MERBACK, Introduc-tion, in Beyond the Yellow Badge: Anti-Judaism and Antisemitism in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, Leiden, 2008, p. 1-29.


the complex and careful gestural repertoire of the Jews, we should first distin-guish among these strategies and then seek their origin in monumental art.

Unlike other non-Christian minorities, Jews were linked to Christians not only in their origin but also in their destiny. Therefore, medieval art did not just depict Jews on the margins of Christian society; it also represented them as part of their own salvational history. In this alternative framework, Jews did not stand for the opposite of Christian values; on the contrary, transcendence from Judaism was envisioned as an eschatological surrender, the ultimate relin-quishment.

Some of the most important testimonies of this belief can be found in mon-umental allegories of the Church and the Synagogue flanking the entrances to Central European cathedrals76. As Otto von Simpson made clear in his classic article, these sculptures do not represent Christianitys victory over the Jews but the Jews voluntary submission before the Christian Messiah. Their symmetri-cal prominence at the cathedrals entrance, their gestural language (more on which below), and the contemporary literary sources with which they can be linked, all point to the same apocalyptic reconciliation whose most likely source is the exegesis of the Song of Songs. Authors such as Honorius Augustodunen-sis used nuptial language to discover the metaphor of the reconciliation of Church and Synagogue, both converted to the love of their spouse (Christ)77. Christian exegetists in this manner showed their victory over Judaism not in the

76 On this iconographic and literary theme, see also P. WEBER, Geistliches Schauspiel und kirchliche Kunst in ihrem Verhltnis erlutert an einer Ikonographie der Kirche und Synagoge, Stutt-gart, 1894 (non vidi); J. PARKES, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue: A Study in the Origins of Antisemitism, London, 1934; M. SCHLAUCH, The Allegory of Church and Synagogue, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 14 (1939), p. 448-464; F. PFAUM, Der alle-gorische Streit zwischen Synagoge und Kirche in der europischen Dichtung des Mittelalters, in Archivum Romanicum 18 (1934), p. 243-340; W. SEIFERTH, Synagogue and Church in the Middle Ages: Two Symbols in Art and Literature, New York, 1970, especially p. 1-17. On theater and literary sources, see H. LIEBESCHUTZ, Synagoge und Ecclesia. Religionsgeschichtliche Studien ber die Auseinandersetzung der Kirche mit dem Judentum im Hochmittelalter, Heidelbert, 1983, p. 167-280; G. LUTZ, Die Darstellungen von Ecclesia und Synagoge und das geistliche Spiel im spten Mittelalter, in Poznanskie Towarzystwo Przyjaci Nauk 109 (1991), p. 45-52. On exege-sis, see F. OHLY, Synagoge und Ecclesia. Typologisches in Mittelalterlicher Dichtung, in Schriften zur Mittelalterlichen Bedeutungsforschung, Darmstadt, 1977, p. 312-337.

77 O. VON SIMSON, Le programme sculptural du transept mridional de la cathdrale de Stras-bourg, in id. (ed.), Von der Macht des Bildes im Mittelalter. Gesammelte Aufstze zur Kunst des Mittelalters, Berlin, 1973, p. 77-100. Similarly, see B. NICOLI, Orders in Stone: Social Reality and Artistic Approach. The Case of the Strasbourg South Portal, in Gesta 41/2 (2002), p. 111-128; N. ROWE, Idealization and Subjection at the South Faade of Strasbourg Cathedral, in M.B. MERBACK (ed.), Beyond the Yellow Badge, op. cit., p. 179-202.

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form of a dispute but rather as the fulfillment of an ultimate harmony between the Old and the New Laws that would be celebrated at the end of time. While this strategy also lead to the final defeat of Judaism, it emphasized the continu-ity between them. The proper framework for understanding this monumental imagery is, therefore, eschatology78. This hoped-for reconciliation comes from the Scripture. St. Paul prophesized the salvation of the Jewish People (Rom 11: 25-26): and so all Israel shall be saved he wrote to the Romans in one of the most enigmatic passages of Christian eschatology. The Christian exegetic tradi-tion interpreted Pauls affirmation in ecclesiological terms, not from a radical messianic perspective79 but rather as the promise that the universal Church would be restored at the end of time80, a model of the pilgrimage Church81. Just as Christian theology defended the complementary nature of the Old and New Law, recognizing Jews as blind carriers of a torch that shed light they were unable to benefit from, so too it awaited the final reconciliation of the two peoples at a moment beyond space and time82.

The group of Jews and Gentiles in the Fountain of Life is testimony to this same conviction. One of the most original features of the panel is the narra-tivization of the image of the Synagogue. The twelve figures on the right com-prise a varied repertoire including several true portraits which unfortunately are nearly all impossible to identify. In addition to the high rabbi, at least three others are clearly Israelites, given that they are wearing the pointed cap, the Judenhut83. Two are dressed in the unmistakably hateful color of yellow, and

78 J. COHEN, Synagoga conversa: Honorius Augustodunensis, the Song of the Songs, and Christian-itys Escathological Jew, in Speculum 79 (2004), p. 309-340; E. MONROE, Fair and Friendly, Sweet and Beautiful: Hopes for Jewish Conversion in Synagogas Song of Songs Imagery, in M.B. MERBACK, op. cit., p. 33-61.

79 G. AGAMBEN, El tiempo que resta. Comentario a la Carta a los Romanos, translation by A. Piero, Madrid, 2006.

80 On the millenarian tradition from Joaquim de Fiore to Francesc Eiximenis, see R.E. LERNER, The Feast of Saint Abraham. Medieval Millenarians and the Jews, Philadelphia, 2003.

81 The ancient and medieval exegesis of this passage has been reconstructed by J. COHEN, The Mystery of Israels Salvation: Romans 11:25-26 in Patristic and Medieval Exegesis, in Harvard Theological Review 98/3 (2005), p. 247-281. See also P. KREY, The Old Law Prohibits the Hand and not the Spirit: The Law and the Jews in Nicholas of Lyras Romans Commentary of 1329, in P.D.W. KREY and L. SMITH (ed.), op. cit., p. 251-266.

82 Psalm 75: 1. See B. BLUMENKRANZ, Augustin et les jufs: Augustin et le judasme, op. cit., p. 234.

83 R. MELLINKOFF, The round, cap-shaped hats depicted on Jews in BM Cotton Claudius B. iv, in Anglo-Saxon England 2 (1973), p. 155-165.


one desperately rips his clothing to shreds84. This does not mean that all the figures are Jews, only that they are judaizing (Gal 2: 14) in that they remain tied to the letter and distant from the correct interpretation of Scripture; thus, the heretic Jan Huss, whose features are recognizable in the stout figure who furiously waves a phylactery in the center of the composition, had been accused by his contemporaries of judaizing85.

The theme of Jews presence at the Second Coming can also be found in monumental Romanesque sculpture86, but in the Fountain of Life the Jews behavior is a precise dramatization of the gestures which, according to St. Paul, would precede their conversion. The first and most obvious of these is the way in which they fall to the ground with exaggerated gesticulations, dorsum incurva, curving their backs, just like the apostle had prophesized87.

The high rabbis behavior also has been carefully calculated. As has been recently observed, body language is the most eloquent feature of the allegorical images of the Synagogue, visualizing as it does both rejection and the possibility of redemption. If in some cases there is an unstable feminine figure, this is probably an evocation of the renunciation of Jerusalem (Lam 1: 8); in other cases her body gently turns as if she were returning (revertere, Song 6: 12) when the definitive conversion takes place88. In the Fountain of Life, the painter has turned the allegory into a narration, making the gesture even more trans-parent. The rabbi has lost his balance and fruitlessly seeks the support of the Jew to his left, who tries to keep him upright. The broken staff is the prophetic

84 M. BARASCH (Gestures of Despair in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art, New York, 1976) shows that in the late Middle Ages the gesture loses its purely negative connotation and becomes an expression of pain.

85 J. VACKOVA, Soucasn Metodick prstupy ke Gentskmu Oltari, in Umen 5/22 (1974), p. 432-453 (with a summary in English); id., Early Netherlandish Painting Commenting the Con-temporary Historical Reality in Bohemia, in J.A. CHROSCICKI (ed.), Ars Auro Prior. Studia Ioanni Bialostocki Sexagenario Dicata, Warsaw, 1981, p. 179-226, which connects Husss presence and the panels iconography to Husss conviction during the Council of Constance.

86 P.K. KLEIN, Et videbit eum omnis oculus et qui eum pupugerunt. Zur Deutung des Tympa-nons von Beaulieu, in P. BJURSTROM, N.-G. HOKBY and F. MUTHERICH (ed.), Florilegium in Honorem Carl Nordenfalk Octogenarii Contextum, Stockholm, 1987, p. 123-144, relies on the exegesis of Rev 1: 7, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him (et plangent se super omnes tribus terrae).

87 Rom 11: 10: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway (Obscurentur oculi eorum, ne videant, et dorsum illorum semper incurva), citing Psalm 69: 24.

88 H. VON SCIURIE, Ecclesia und Synagoge an den Domen zu Strassburg, Bamberg, Magdeburg und Erfurt. Krpersprachliche Wandlungen im gestalterischen Kontext, in Wiener Jahrbuch fr Kunstgeschichte 46/47 (1993-94), p. 679-687 and p. 871-874.

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sign that he does not trust in the true God89. His half-open mouth and the fearful expression on his face portend immediate collapse. The Jews trip before falling (offenderunt ut caderent), again resminiscent of Pauls question in his Letter to the Romans about the Jews ultimate destiny which was none other than complete restoration90.

But the most important of the characterizations on display is clearly blind-ness, a feature inseparable from the Jewish people and to which Paul referred repeatedly with his references to relics and testimony (Rom 11: 8, 11: 10, 11: 25-26): According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear; unto this day91. The reference in the Fountain of Life to this passage by Paul could not be more explicit. Not only does the rabbi hide his eyes behind the blind-fold, but a little behind him, at the top of the group, another of the Jews covers his ears with his hands. He is as close as possible to the scroll being unfurled by the angel which, as we said earlier, evokes the spiritual chanting of the chorus of angels in opposition to the dead sign of the written word. It is easy to inter-pret the gesture: if the other Jews cannot understand Scripture, he cannot hear it, much less listen to the music being played behind him.

In Pauls argument and, by extension, in all medieval Christian exegesis, blindness was a complex and in some ways ambivalent sign because it was intrinsically connected to the promise of redemption. The blindness of Israel is necessarily historical and temporal; it points to the present but also bears the promise of returned vision at the end of time. The image is therefore not one of indelibility but of transitory loss of sight92. In this fashion, the veil is more than a figure of blindness; rather, it necesarily becomes a hermeneutic meta-phor for the words of Paul:

89 Is 36: 6; 2 Kings 18: 21. I am grateful for the advice of Eleazar Gutwirth. 90 Rom 11: 11-12: I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? [Dico ergo:

Numquid sic offenderunt ut caderent?] God forbid; but rather that through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? [ quanto magis plenitudo eorum?].

91 Dedit illis Deus spiritum compunctionis: oculos ut non videant, et aures ut non audiant, usque in hodiernum diem (Rom 11: 8). See Is 29: 10.

92 M. BARASCH, Blindness. The History of a Mental Image in Western Thought, New York, 2001, p. 85-91; id., The Veil: Representations of the Secret in the Visual Arts and How the Hidden Becomes Visible, in id. (ed.), The Language of Art: Studies in Interpretation, New York, 1997, p. 266-287 and p. 288-301.


And not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished [Ex 34: 29-35]: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away [2 Cor 3: 13-16] [our emphasis].

What is covered in the Old Testament, St. Augustine would say, is recovered or uncovered in the New93. By the same token, the rabbis covered eyes portend the return of sight in an immediate moment here represented in the top section of the panel.

5. Two modes of vision and their languages of representation

As we have suggested, the opposition between literal and spiritual meaning provides the iconographic and compositional structure of the panel. It is a discourse that proposes transcendence of the carnal nature of the letter for the attainment of illumination of spiritual grace. The angel perched on one of the towers invites us to read Scripture spiritually but also to cross the wall that divides the composition in two radically separated areas. A division like this is nothing new in the history of representation; on the contrary, it is based on a long tradition of typological representations94.

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