#hildegard of bingen

[ohholydyke]

[themeaningthemeaningthe]

my spotify does this every once in a while where it mixes up the picture and the title of a playlist on the home page and i think it’s so funny every time. and i’ve never seen it do this with anything else besides the fake "this is st. hildegard von bingen" that @and-her-saints made that i’ve been listening to to fall asleep every night for the last like 2 years lmao

[cuties-in-codices]

hildegard's vision of the universal man and the cosmic spheres

from an illuminated manuscript of hildegard of bingen's "book of divine works" ("liber divinorum operum"), italy, mid-13th century

source: Lucca, Biblioteca Statale di Lucca, MS 1942, fol. 9r

[discworldwitches]

from hildegard of bingen - the woman of her age by fiona maddocks

[givemearmstopraywith]

I am a person who has neither the strength nor the pride of a lion. I am soft like a fragile rib, but I have been filled with a secret inspiration.

Hildegard von Bingen, Hildegard Von Bingen’s Mystical Visions : Translated from Scivias, translated by Bruce Hozeski.

[apilgrimsprogress]

The soul is kissed by God in its innermost regions. With interior yearning, grace and blessing are bestowed. It is a yearning to take on God’s gentle yoke, It is a yearning to give one’s self to God’s Way.

Hildegard of Bingen

[a-swift-and-terrible-sword]

[kuunibal]

"You are the tender flower that will never grow dry."

— Ordo Virtutum by Hildegard of Bingen

[alexnaszados]

St Hildegard von Bingen

oil on carved wood, 2019

9″ x 27″ x .75″ Alex Naszados

[ohholydyke]

Some fun facts about St Hildegard of Bingen:

She wrote the first morality play

She also wrote so much music and poetry, much of which you can still listen to online

She had chronic illnesses and chronic pain and might have also had chronic migraines (disabled queen)

She describes humanity as inherently fragile, weak, sickly and dependent on each other and God—in other words, she makes it so that humanity’s inherent default condition is disabled (rather than able bodied/minded as modern society suggests) and THEN she adds on that humanity’s inherent default condition is union with Love itself (God) and with the earth and nature

She wrote medical textbooks of herbal medicines, some of which are still viable

She also has a cookie recipe you can find online that I plan on making soon

She might have been gay, jury’s out on whether her feelings for Richardis were motherly, platonic or romantic, but she fully raised hell when Richardis left the abbey and seems genuinely heartbroken at the loss, and describes Richardis with a lotttt of affection.

[ophelia-freesia]

"My grief rises up. That grief is obliterating the great confidence and consolation which I had from another human being...I loved you for your noble bearing, your wisdom, your purity, your soul and all your life! So much so that many people said, 'What are you doing?'"

Hildegard of Bingen, after her close friend Richardis was assigned to be an abbess in separate monastery.

[loudlylovingreview]

Video: Hildegard of Bingen | Love Aboundeth In All Things

Hildegard of Bingen (c. 1098 – 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. She has been…

[givemearmstopraywith]

They do not consider whether I am salty or not salty, sweet or bitter, a dweller of heaven or of earth. What does this mean? They do not pay attention to either the spice or the sweetness of the Scriptures.

Hildegard von Bingen, Hildegard Von Bingen's Mystical Visions : Translated from Scivias, translated by Bruce Hozeski.

[showingsoflove]

— “You may call God love; you may call God goodness; but the best name for God is Compassion.” 🩵

[a-swift-and-terrible-sword]

[longlistshort]

As part of their programming for PST: Art & Science Collide, Getty Museum is showing Lumen: The Art & Science of Light. The exhibition includes a collection of European medieval artwork, along with several contemporary works, that focus in some way on the science and concept of light.

From the museum about the show-

Through the manipulation of materials such as gold, crystal, and glass, medieval artists created dazzling light-filled environments, evoking, in the earthly world, the layered realms of the divine. To be human is to crave light. We rise and sleep according to the rhythms of the sun, and have long associated light with divinity. Focusing on the arts of western Europe, this exhibition explores the ways in which the science of light was studied by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim philosophers, theologians, and artists during the “long Middle Ages” (800-1600 CE), when science and religion were firmly intertwined. Natural philosophy (the study of the physical universe) served as the connective thread for diverse cultures across Europe and the Mediterranean, uniting scholars who inherited, translated, and improved on a common foundation of ancient Greek scholarship.

This story is equal parts science, poetics, and craft. By bringing together a variety of media that materialize light and objects that communicate how medieval people understood the lights of the heavens and of the eye, this exhibition demonstrates how science informed the artistry of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. To convey the continuing sense of wonder inspired by starry skies or moving light on precious materials, the exhibition includes several contemporary works of art placed in dialogue with historic objects.

Below are a few selections-

���On the Construction of the World”, in “Book of Divine Works (Liber divinorum operum)” (text in Latin), Rupertsberg, Rhineland, Germany, about 1210-40 CE by Hildegard of Bingen (German, 1098-1179 CE), Tempera, gold, and ink on parchment

About this work from the museum-

The nun and philosopher Hildegard of Bingen is known for her deeply religious visionary experiences in which she communed with the fiery “living light” (lux vivens) of God. Yet her evocative spiritual imagery reflects the language of science and cosmology. Shown at lower left, Hildegard, an illuminator as well as author, recorded her dazzling vision of the human at the center of nested elemental spheres. The figure is ringed by heavenly bodies, the clouds, and the winds, all encircled by the figure of flaming Caritas, or Divine Love. As a way to understand humankind’s relationship to the Godhead, Hildegard’s imagery emphasizes the correspondence between the body and the cosmos; just as the four humors affected health, the four winds controlled the earth, and the vivifying power of divine light nourished both.

“The Glorification of the Virgin”, attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Haarlem, northern Netherlands, about 1490-95 CE, Oil on panel

The painting above by Geertgen tot Sint Jans has so many fascinating details and was part of a section titled Divine Darkness.

The wall text from that section-

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all associate God with light. In the Creation story told in Genesis, when light was created, so too was darkness. As medieval optical theorists understood that sight was contingent upon light and that bodily vision was not possible in darkness, theologians of the time equated the unknowable, invisible aspects of God with darkness. According to a medieval “negative theology,” God exists beyond human perception and poses a challenge to vision itself. The fifteenth-century Christian theologian Nicholas of Cusa wrote that “God is found when all things are left behind; and this darkness is light in the Lord.” Such contradictory associations between God and both light and darkness were fundamental to the verbal and visual expressions used to elucidate the nature of the divine.

And about the painting-

Golden light surrounds the glorified Virgin Mary and Christ child at the center of this intimate and absorbingly detailed devotional painting as a luminous host of angels fills the heavens with eternal music. Their brightness contrasts with the dark perimeter that envelops this apocalyptic vision to suggest the ineffable darkness in which God dwells.

Constellations from a Hebrew Translation of Ptolemy’s “Almagest”, In an astronomical anthology (text in Hebrew), Catalonia, about 1361 CE, Tempura, gold, and ink on parchment and Astrolabe (with Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic Script), Iberia (Spain) or Italy, 1300s CE

From the museum about these two items-

In the Muslim and Christian courts of Europe, and particularly in Iberia, highly educated, multilingual Jews held important positions as physicians and astrologers. Jewish practitioners of these related fields contributed original works on astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy, drawing from and improving on Greco-Arabic sciences. At left, the Hebrew translation of Ptolemy’s Almagest (a work that was little known in Europe before 1200) updated the ancient text with the addition of astronomical tables that guided religious observance. Only a small number of European astrolabes with Hebrew inscriptions survive. This exquisite example lists the names of twenty-four stars in a combination of Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic. The centermost circle marks the ecliptic, or the sun’s path, and is labeled with the zodiacal signs in Hebrew.

“Untitled (Mugarnas)”, 2012, Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Mirrors, reverse-glass painting, and plaster on wood

One of the most impressive contemporary pieces in the show was the sculpture pictured above, by Monir Sharoudy Farmanfarmaian, which captured and reflected light so beautifully.

About the work from the museum-

Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian was deeply inspired by a visit to the Shah Cheragh shrine in Shiraz, Iran. The vaulted domes and walls of that site are covered in dazzling, intricate mirror mosaics that fracture and dematerialize space while reflecting light and amplifying movement and activity in the shrine below. Farmanfarmaian began exploring these mosaic techniques, eventually collaborating with master artisans to produce sculptural and wall-mounted works that incorporate mirror mosaic and reverse-glass painting. Untitled (Mugarnas) adopts the sacred and decorative forms that are common in Islamic architecture, and expresses the perfection of creation.

This exhibition closes 12/8/24.