Fig Leaf Fashion
Just some entertainment today. On the left, Man at origin. On the right, Man at completion. But fig leaf fashion never seems to go out of style. 🙂 A ceiling in Spoleto, Italy, for those who need to know.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
The first weekend in November I will be speaking at the NCS retreat in upstate New York. There are two different sessions. The first is for men only. We will be studying the Hebrew idea of community and its importance for personal restoration.
The second is for couples. It starts on Saturday night. That conference will concentrate on the work in Guardian Angel and continue with a practical workshop for those who attend.
I have been informed that there are still open spots for these sessions, so if you want to attend, CLICK here for the information.
I’m a little curious about your wording, “for those who need to know,” (regarding the location of the photo.)
Wondering why you chose the word, “need,” instead of “want,” or “curious” to know. The word “need” makes it kind of sound like there’s something annoying about those who are intrigued with knowing the location of some of your pictures. Am I TOTALLY overthinking this? ?
I personally love knowing the location of your photos so I can know if it’s a place I’ve traveled or plan to some day. I’m often frustrated when you don’t offer the location. It feels like a tease. Just saying…❤️
Nothing sinister implied. Some people love the images. Others need (want) to know where they are.
“sinister???” I’ll leave that one alone. ? But, this little ceiling in Spoleto, Italy certainly generated some interesting comments.
Yes it did. And not what I expected. But when a penis is involved, we all kind of stumble over our culture.
??
A little humor ☺, but maybe serious at the same time. It is nice that you show us the pictures, but I bet seeing it is a whole other ballgame. Thanks
Its bittersweet to look at these images.
On one hand there’s the expression of church doctrine captured at the time by an artist. This was created during the Inquisition, and is featured in a chapel dedicated to the doctrine of the Assumption of the body of Mary, and the images of support include evidence of indulgences.
On the other hand, they show the gifting of the artist to make depiction of specific personages and their attributes for the purpose of edification. Would the artist, under the guidance of church leadership and a patron, be in a position to make personal expression on personal biblical understanding – probably not. Probably because their own understanding and what they did was based on that doctrine. And how are we different?
So I enjoy deciphering the imagery.
I think I recognize 2 figures – Adam (with an apple) and Moses (with a tablet and almond sprig). Noah and Melchizedek are attributed to be the other 2. Neither of whom I recognized without research.
After discovering they were the other 2 figures, I see Noah’s attributes (unclothed and leaning on a grape vine) and Melchizedek (what seems to be a banner and column and cup or vase). And I can understand Noah’s, but I’m not certain of Melchizedek’s.
They are painted on a vault of a chapel in a cathedral. Each of those has its own significance.
I see Elsha and Elijah on one side, which would easily be used as support in the iconography of the Assumption doctrine.
It’s fun to tie what art history I know to the biblical accounts I know, in spite of the use of doctrine I don’t accept.
I do thank you, Skip, for these images. I hope someone with more knowledge of other panels in the vault can contribute.
Thank you, Pat, for your very insightful explanations of the painting on the cathedral ceiling in Spoleto, Italy.
Something so beautiful created at such a dark time in church history. I don’t know very much about it except torture comes to mind.
That is beautiful. Thank you for the explanations.
Could it be that a lot artists of that period who painted such even religious paintings were inclined toward same-sex attraction, not having at least chosen bigger fig leaves for covering the male anatomy? And what about the religious authorities of the day, approving such scantily clad images for their supposed places of the worship of God? What was going on with these people? Maybe the same things that are going on with many of those of the same professions even in this day, and not only in the Catholic church.
But many will say, “But, oh, it is ART!” I say, “ART thou sure thou ART pure in how thou doest definest ART?”
They also certainly didn’t depict what the scriptures say was a sewing together of fig leaves to make “loin coverings”. The loin is “the part of the body on both sides of the spine between the lowest (false) ribs and the hipbones and, literary, the region of the sexual organs, especially when regarded as the source of erotic or procreative power”.
Maybe the main thing they failed to do, however, was to not more rightly depict in their paintings the symbolic significance of this aspect of the post-fall biblical account by not depicting Adam with even larger genitalia with even larger sewn-together fig leaves, to cover the shame of the magnitude of the erection of Adam’s disobedient pride that was raised up against the Most High Elohim.
So is this being a bit distastefully tongue-in-cheek? Imagine that! Don’t we know now what goes on behind closed doors, even in such “houses of worship”. Worship? Yes. But worship of what, is the question. The creature or the Creator? If the former, how low can one go? So shamefully so, don’t we all know.
[Regarding your conference, the location is actually not in Upstate New York, as it will be across the state line into Massachusetts. May YHVH bless your ministry to those men and couples. Shalom.]
Hi Jerry and Liza, I’m sorry but I don’t get it. From where do you extrapolate that “genitalia with even larger sewn-together fig leaves, to cover the shame of the magnitude of the erection of Adam’s disobedient pride that was raised up against the Most High Elohim“
Adam and Eve did not fall for sex, as far as I understand the fall happened after Adam changed the commandment that G-d gave him. Eve was mislead by him but, where do you see the massive erection and pride against the most high Elohim?
See Skip’s TW, “Privacy Issues”, October 2, 2009.
I read it and I see Skip’s point of Adam fencing himself from G-d, still Adam’s sin was pride, disobedience but not sexual.
I have read theories about Eve being made out of the male organ and not from a rib…also that Eve had sex with the serpent, but is late and that is another story.
Good night 🙂
Virtually all the additions to the text, including the ones you list, originate in legend and are much, much later. They might be useful in some regard, but they are hardly biblical in perspective or content.
No mention of Adam’s sin as being sexual was made nor intended to be inferred. The artistic critique was about the lack of or inaccurate use of symbolism – a larger fig leaf to more rightly represent a more earnest effort to cover a more significant degree of shame Adam might have felt for the greatness of his sin of prideful disobedience that was raised up against Elohim.
I’m with Lucy on this one. You seem to have imported a lot of post-Puritan thinking into the text.
Not all “post-Puritan” thought is unbiblical. Also, there’s no artistic suggestion here to paint a fig leaf to cover the whole body up to to the neck, only more of the groin, and for the dual purpose of symbolically depicting the greatness of Adam’s sin and shame. Other comments were about the possible obsessive sexuality of some artists and religious leaders, and maybe also of some “art” enthusiasts.
OK
The human body is a beautiful work of art, both female and male. I don’t think we should be ashamed of it. A painting or sculpture is different than a photo or magazine that exploits and turns the body into something vulgar. The sexual objectifying of women and men is ugly, and it is rampant.
Beautiful. Thanks for providing some details.