Black Madonna

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Black Madonna of Częstochowa (15th century)
Virgin of Candelaria ( Tenerife )

The image or statue of a Madonna whose face is black is called the Black Madonna in religious art and Marian veneration . This can either be attributed to black painting or the use of black wood or stone. Black Madonnas were and are revered by large parts of the faithful as particularly miraculous.

In Brazil , the blackness is associated with the dark skin color of the native population and interpreted as a representation of the Virgin Mary of a black population.

history

origin

The opinion that used to be more common that the dark color was due to subsequent influences such as the old age of the wood or the sooting caused by lighting candles in front of the devotional image is wrong according to the current state of knowledge. A selective blackening, which only affects the face and hands, but not, for example, the clothing, does not seem plausible, at most it would be conceivable that the other parts of a picture or sculpture would later be painted over and thus become light again. In individual cases z. For example, it is said that the blackening of silver mountings or frames through oxidation gave the name "black picture", but this is not a general explanation, as it also only affected parts of a picture of Mary.

The biblical reason for the black color was taken from the Song of Songs: “I am dark, but beautiful” ( Hld 1.5  EU ). The corresponding passage in the Vulgate reads: " Nigra sum sed formosa ". This quote can also be found as an inscription on some Black Madonnas, although it is usually not clear whether the inscription was added later. In the Greek Septuagint the passage reads: “ , melaina eimi ego kai kale ”, which can be translated as “I am black and beautiful”. Changing the conjunction of and about but were some learned discussions. In the Hebrew text the conjunction is simply we , but both kai and we can be translated as “and” or “but, nevertheless”. In Christian exegesis the passage was related to the soul as the bride of God, therefore Mary.

In the 20th century, attempts were made to trace the black color back to the ancient black goddesses as possible forerunners of the Black Madonna. It has been proven that the type of the black goddess was the basis of many ancient cults. For millennia, fertility , mother, and earth goddesses have been worshiped, some of whom were black (see Alma mater , Great Mother ). The cult of the goddesses Cybele , Astarte , Isis and Ishtar was widespread in the triangle Anatolia - Egypt - Mesopotamia . From there the tradition continued on the one hand in a westerly direction with Artemis , Demeter and Ceres , on the other hand in an easterly direction with the black goddess Kali . It is possible that the goddesses Freya and Ana , worshiped in the Germanic and Celtic world - the latter is particularly associated with St. Anne in Brittany - were models of the Black Madonnas. In the end, research does not regard the Christian Black Madonnas as the cult of Mary as a separate, independent phenomenon, but rather as part of this general, millennia-old tradition.

Romanesque

The oldest known representations of Black Madonnas are sculptures mainly made of wood, rarely made of stone, and come from the Romanesque art epoch. They appeared almost suddenly in large numbers in many places. There are still no clear research results as to the reasons for this phenomenon. A widespread hypothesis is that the first Black Madonnas may have been brought in large numbers from the Middle East to Europe, more precisely France, as part of the Crusades. The Knights Templar is said to have played an important role . All of these Black Madonnas were made before the 13th century.

Black Madonna in the Maria Einsiedeln Chapel in Rastatt - late Gothic "replacement" for a Romanesque miraculous image destroyed by fire (2005)

All Romanesque Black Madonnas have similar characteristics. They are approx. 70 cm high, are shown sitting upright, with large eyes staring into the distance. Your hands or fingers are often excessively long. You are holding a forward-looking child on your knee. The child performs the gesture of blessing or holds a ball in one hand, which can be the globe or an apple. The face is not that of a small child, but of a grown man. The statues appear strange and fascinate many viewers.

Baroque

The later Black Madonnas, e.g. B. those of the Baroque , are mainly shown standing, in different sizes. Many of the old Black Madonnas were destroyed in the Huguenot Wars and during the French Revolution, so that today only more or less good copies can often be seen.

present

The Black Madonnas can be found more frequently in France , with a focus on central France (above all Auvergne) and Provence , with radiations as far as the Pyrenees . The Black Madonnas of France are the best researched so far, so that the essential basic literature in France has been published in French (see literature ). The Black Madonnas of Italy have so far hardly been explored.

The phenomenon of the Black Madonnas is still not fully explored. This and the fascination that they radiate to many today's viewers also makes the Black Madonnas an attractive topic for border sciences and esotericism.

One of the most widespread representations of a Black Madonna is that of Loreto . It was imitated in numerous so-called Loreto chapels .

Others

See also

literature

  • Jean-Pierre Bayard: Déesses mères et vierges noires. Répertoire des Vierges noires par département. Éditions du Rocher, Monaco 2001, ISBN 2-268-04048-8 .
  • Ean Begg: The Unholy Virgin. The riddle of the Black Madonna. Ed. Tramontane, Bad Münstereifel 1989, ISBN 3-925828-10-9 .
  • Roland Bermann: Réalités et mystères des vierges noires. 2e éd. rev. et augmentée. Editions Dervy, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-84454-066-X .
  • Jacques Bonvin: Vierges noires. La réponse vient de la terre. Dervy, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-84454-057-0 .
  • Sophie Cassagnes-Brouquet: Vierges noires. Éditions du Rouergue, Rodez 2000, ISBN 2-84156-223-9 .
  • Daniel Castille: Le mystère des vierges noires. Virgini pariturae ( Demons et merveilles ). JMG, Agnières 2000, ISBN 2-912507-35-9 .
  • Sigrid Früh, Kurt Derungs (Ed.): Black Madonna in Fairy Tales. Myths and tales of the black woman ( Librino ). ed.amalia, Bern 1998, ISBN 3-905581-07-8 .
  • Sigrid Früh, Kurt Derungs (Ed.): The Black Woman. Power and Myth of the Black Madonna (= Unionsverlag-Taschenbuch 265). Unionsverlag, Zurich 2003, ISBN 3-293-20265-9 .
  • Jacques Huynen: L'énigme des vierges noires. 2e éd. Éditions Garnier, Chartres 1994, ISBN 2-908974-01-0 .
  • Ursula Kroell: The Secret of the Black Madonnas. Voyages of discovery to places of power. With photos by Roland Kroell. Kreuz-Verlag, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-7831-1660-0 .
  • Wojciech Kurpik: Częstochowska Hodegetria. Wydawnictwo Konserwatorów Dzieł Sztuki u. a., Łódź-Pelplin 2008, ISBN 978-83-7380-610-8 .
  • Raymond W. LeMieux: The black madonnas of France. Carlton Press, New York NY 1991, ISBN 0-8062-4037-7 .
  • Małgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba: The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe. Tradition and Transformation. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque NM 2007, ISBN 978-0-8263-4102-0 .
  • Brigitte Romankiewicz: The Black Madonna. Backgrounds of a symbolic figure. Patmos, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-491-72483-X .
  • Émile Saillens: Nos vierges noires. Leurs origines (= Connaissance de l'homme 1). Les éditions universelles, Paris 1945.
  • Margrit Rosa Schmid: I am black and beautiful. The secret of the black Madonna (= SJW Schweizerisches Jugendschriftenwerk SJW-Nr. 2180). Schweizerisches Jugendschriftenwerk, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-7269-0512-X .
  • Franz Siepe : Questions about the veneration of Mary. Beginnings, early Middle Ages, Black Madonnas. Mantis, Graefelfing 2002, ISBN 3-928852-22-1 .
  • Thierry Wirth: Les Vierges noires. Symboles et Réalités ( Spiritualités ). Editions Oxus, Escalquens u. a. 2009, ISBN 978-2-84898-119-2 .

Movie

  • Margrit Rosa Schmid: The Pilgrimage to the Black Madonna Documentary, 30 minutes. Film and video production Margrit R. Schmid, Zurich 2003.

Web links

Commons : Black Madonnas  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ernst Wackenroder: The Art Monuments of the Bitburg District (= The Art Monuments of the Rhine Province; Vol. 12, 1). Schwann, Düsseldorf 1927, p. 204.
  2. ↑ Andreas Mielke: Nigra sum et formosa: Afrikanerinnen in the German literature of the Middle Ages. Texts and commentaries on the image of the African in literary imagology. helfant edition, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-929030-11-X .