28-10-2021, 09:47 PM
It is an extreme coincidence that you bring up this three year old thread now. I am preparing a new blog post with Cary, and just a few days ago she sent me the following comparison:
She noticed that if you turn the bottom left rosette so that the text is "right way up", its resemblance with Hildegard's "egg cosmos" becomes clear. An irregular shape in the middle, surrounded by an oval with stars, surrounded by scallop shapes, surrounded by flames/rays of light.
This prompted me to search the forum for what had been written about Hildegard images. Marco wrote a very helpful post about this very image You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which I definitely recommend. He also linked to the explanation of the allegory You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I am definitely not a Hildegard specialist, but my impression after heaving read these explanations is that she started from religious/devotional concepts and shapes her universe in such a way to allegorically align with them. Her religion is not shaped to explain the cosmos - rather, her cosmos takes a form that supports her religion.
There are some striking similarities between this Hildegard image and the bottom left rosette, like the oval 'cosmos'. But of course this cannot be a literal Hildegard illustration, because every detail matters in her work. The Sun stands for Christ, the Moon for the Church and so on. Those things are absent in the VM image. But it's certainly got a Hildegard vibe.
The Hildegard image this thread is about is another one with VM echos, as I apparently wrote before (I had forgotten all about this thread). Here is another oval and another blobby thing, the first two days of Creation:
So there may be something about separation of light and darkness and shapeless matter. Or maybe not... much hinges on the identification of the blob thing. Is it earth? An ugly flower representing the Sun? Pole star? I still find it very unclear.
She noticed that if you turn the bottom left rosette so that the text is "right way up", its resemblance with Hildegard's "egg cosmos" becomes clear. An irregular shape in the middle, surrounded by an oval with stars, surrounded by scallop shapes, surrounded by flames/rays of light.
This prompted me to search the forum for what had been written about Hildegard images. Marco wrote a very helpful post about this very image You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which I definitely recommend. He also linked to the explanation of the allegory You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. I am definitely not a Hildegard specialist, but my impression after heaving read these explanations is that she started from religious/devotional concepts and shapes her universe in such a way to allegorically align with them. Her religion is not shaped to explain the cosmos - rather, her cosmos takes a form that supports her religion.
There are some striking similarities between this Hildegard image and the bottom left rosette, like the oval 'cosmos'. But of course this cannot be a literal Hildegard illustration, because every detail matters in her work. The Sun stands for Christ, the Moon for the Church and so on. Those things are absent in the VM image. But it's certainly got a Hildegard vibe.
The Hildegard image this thread is about is another one with VM echos, as I apparently wrote before (I had forgotten all about this thread). Here is another oval and another blobby thing, the first two days of Creation:
So there may be something about separation of light and darkness and shapeless matter. Or maybe not... much hinges on the identification of the blob thing. Is it earth? An ugly flower representing the Sun? Pole star? I still find it very unclear.