Dormition (art)
Dormition ( Latin for “asleep”) or the death of the Virgin describes a certain type of image in art history that depicts the death of Mary among the apostles .
background
Most of the stories and pictorial themes with Mary as the main character lack any biblical basis - so do the themes of the death of Mary and the Ascension . Probably the 5th or 6th century, however, comes from a group of writings called Transitus Mariae , which presents alleged themes of her life and death. It then took a few centuries for these legendary tales to be incorporated into medieval art.
history
The image type of the Entombment of Mary has only been known since the Middle Ages . The oldest known representations in the form of ivory tablets come from Byzantine art of 10/11. Century and were probably made in Constantinople . In Western Europe they appear about 200 years later almost simultaneously in Romanesque apse frescoes and in the portal sculpture of Gothic cathedrals and again about 150 years later - i.e. H. especially in the times of the plague - they were mostly painted on walls or found in the painted or carved picture cycles of altars .
presentation
Typical figures accompanying the dormition are the apostles - sometimes reading from a scroll or reading from books or lighting incense; by them and a few other people Mary is placed on the pillows of the deathbed . In some depictions, John presents a death candle , or Peter holds a whisker. Shortly afterwards, the Assumption and Coronation of Mary, usually shown separately, take place .
Development in art
Numerous depictions of death, the Ascension and the coronation of Mary are known from the high and late medieval times. In the early renaissance, however, the representations became rarer and the great artists of the high and late renaissance devoted themselves to other subjects. In the art of the Baroque and Rococo , the pictorial theme hardly occurs.
See also
literature
- Leopold Kretzenbacher : Death candle and palm branch ritual at the "Mary's death". On the Apocrypha in words and pictures in the koimesis, dormitio, assumptio of the Mother of God between Byzantium and the medieval West . Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-7001-2846-0 (Meeting reports of the OeAW / Philosophical-Historical Class; 667).
- Konstantin von Tischendorf : Apocalypses apocryphae Mosis, Esdrae, Pauli, Iohannis item Mariae dormitio. Additis Evangeliorum et actuum Apocryphorum supplementis. Olms, Hildesheim 2001, ISBN 3-487-01182-4 (reprint of the Leipzig 1866 edition).
- Gertrud Holzherr: The representation of the Mary's death in the late Middle Ages . Dissertation, University of Tübingen 1971.
