As I mentioned in the last post, I get impatient to add color. This is one reason I don’t do a true grisailles. Today I broke out the cerulean blue.
There are several women named Mary in the New Testament. There is, of course, Mary the Mother of Jesus, Mary from the fish drying and exporting town of Magdala near Galilee (Mary Magdalene), and our Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus, from Bethany on the eastern slope of the Mount of Olives. There is also Mary the mother of James and Joses, and Mary the wife of Cleophas. In Acts there is mention of a Mary the mother of John Mark, and another Mary is mentioned in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, who is probably none of these, since she lived in Rome.
Of all this confusion about Marys, the Mary in this painting is most likely to be confused with Mary Magdalene, and there’s not much I can do about that, other than to advocate literacy. But I should at least be sure that no one confuses her with Mary the Mother of Jesus. As my wife and I selected fabric for the costumes, there was some discussion of giving her a blue dress. This wouldn’t confuse my Mormon audience, or Protestants generally. But I knew that since at least the late middle ages, Mary the Mother of God has traditionally been depicted in blue. It is prevalent enough in my knowledge of art history that I thought it was a Catholic mandate.
But I was wrong.
While the dark blue dress or mantle actually dates to the Byzantine era (circa 500 A.D.) denoting an empress, some northern masters (Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling, Lucas Cranach, Jan van Eyck) depicted her in a red robe. Red is also associated with royalty, but also portends suffering, possibly foreshadowing the suffering of her Son. Raphael always gave her a red robe with a blue mantle. Eastern icons often showed her in a greenish-blue inner garment, with a red outer garment.
We wanted the sisters from Bethany to be dressed with slight differences from one another. I thought it would be okay to give her a blue head wrap, but not a blue robe, to avoid comparison to the more prominent Mary.
But I had another symbol up my sleeve. I thought it would be great to have Mary loosen or drop her head covering, as she sets aside her women’s role to sit with the men. I see now that having her do that, the cloth no longer looks like a head covering. It’s a mantle— a blue mantle, like the Virgin Mary’s. How confusing.
A Jewish friend who was going to model as a disciple in the photo shoot, but ended up having to cancel for scheduling reasons, agreed to look into some traditions for me. He emailed a friend of his who is an observant Jew, living in Jerusalem. I wanted to know if Jewish women would have had their heads covered indoors, with male guests in the house. The reply came back after the photo shoot.
Indeed, I learned, the women would have their heads covered, and so would the men, but not for reasons of modesty. “We cover our heads to remind us that there is always something greater than ourselves; that G-d is over us.”
We took no shots with Mary’s head covered.
I’m going to take the position that she is caught in a moment where she has forgotten herself. She was attending to the expectation that she and her sister serve their guests, but at some time became engrossed in what was being discussed, and sat down. In the process of making herself comfortable—too comfortable, in Martha’s opinion— her head covering has slipped back. I’m using some artistic license, of course, but I think it fits with the message.
When Martha complains about Mary neglecting her duties, Jesus quiets her, saying that “Mary has chosen the better part.” The message is that the things of the Spirit are ultimately more important than temporal necessities. Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus breaks with tradition repeatedly to excuse lapses in strict observance, where greater moral lessons can be taught.
That’s my rationalization for my scholarly errors, and I’m sticking to it.
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