Generare Dio (il Mulino, Bologna, 2017) by Italian philosopher Massimo Cacciari is a reflection on the nature of iconography and the divine: on the artistic representation primarily of Mary in the 'Madonna Poldi Pezzoli del Mantegna' (and among other religious paintings).In his view, reflections on artistic representations of Mary serve always as interesting segues into discussions of God and the course of European civilization itself. The meditation on Mary will take the form, in Cacciari's book, of an "invisible phenomenology in the sensible representations" of the traditional iconic image of Mary with child (di Maria con il bimbo al seno) from which Western culture's derived much cultural nourishment and speculation.
But how has Western culture been defined by the sacred image of the Virgin? How has Western culture been enriched and advanced in this way? To begin, in Simone Martini's Annunciazione lies the form of Mary's il Sì response to the angel Gabriel's announcement of the Virgin birth. Mary accepts because she quietly listens; in listening comes understanding and acceptance. Here's the first moment in Cacciari's "invisible phenomenology" in which the miraculous becomes, through encounter and acceptance, the ultimate victory of the possible over the impossible: Concepisce ascoltando.E come potrebbe avere scienza dell''impossibile'? Come 'conoscere' che no si di il impossibile? La fede no è 'visio facialis'. Vince il dubbio, no lo annulla. Rinsalda la ricerca, da voce all'interrogare, no lo elimina...
God grows (Dio matura) for the first time as iconic illustration of the victory of the humble over the proud and disdainful; of the Virgin's rapt (worshipful) attention to the visiting angel of God come to announce the impossible. It's this capture of divinity in the religious image (immagine) of the attentive Mary in Martini's and Piero della Francesca's paintings that signifies, for Cacciari, a visible and invisible enrichment of Western civilization. Marian reflection is one of many roads to Western art: 'Mille strade' è la Maria che l'Occidente dipinge.
Furthermore, with Mary it's not just servile acceptance but a meditation on the il Sì or acceptance on behalf of her worshippers of the mystery of the Virgin birth now about to become flesh. After initial surprise and rapt attention there's a moment of reflection on Mary's part. The faithful now becomes part of this miraculous event by understanding as she has understood. Così medita Maria, come 'concependo'. It's not just the promised Savior that the Virgin is about to give birth to: acceptance and reflection now give rise to the miraculous 'Other' ('Altro da sè) possible only through understanding that which the Virgin's accepted and humbly guarded (accolto et custodito). Of course, Gnosticism--as Cacciari will also show--will reveal a more earthy ‘Other’ in the form of Mary Magdalene.
A revelation and announcement now becomes--in Cacciari’s view-- the descending shadow (l’Ombra del Signore) of thought: Un’ ombra copre Maria et l’angelo la saluta piena di grazia, beata, potente nella ‘altissima paupertas’ della sua cella.” Ideas become images (or icons) for a language (il Verbo) of Western thought seen as the “illuminating shadow” of truth lying at the heart of mystery: a mystery to be revealed only in religious iconography. The child (bimbo, l’infans) in Cacciari’s “invisible phenomenology” is the first embodiment of the Virgin birth to be represented in art. The purpose of artistic work is to transform the self-emptying (Kénōsis) of the divine baby Jesus, of lowly birth, into a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Here’s a ruptured unity between mother and child (madre et bimbo), both joyous and painful to depict, that continues all the way to the cross. In art Mary’s made both mother and later an aging witness to a son’s death.
The Madonna col Bambino paintings are, in other words, now symbolic of that troubling birth and death juxtaposition: joyous advent and prefiguration of a bloody crucifixion. It’s in the chapter titled La Croce di Maria that Cacciari extends the language of self-emptying savior to art, seeing in the Mantegna and Bellini portraits an ominous contrast of the suffering (sofferenza) with the sweetness (dolcezza) of mother with child; of the mother’s protective embrace with the final separation from her in Bellini’s Pietà . Art is tasked with the terrible duty of interpreting the mother’s comforting caresses as a premonition (figura futuri) of the son’s horrible disfiguring death. Cacciari even sees in van der Weyden’s Deposizione dalla croce a reenactment of the Virgin birth: Deposta col figlio, lo partorisce di nuovo. These are among the many “dissonant harmonies” (dissonanti armonie) to be found in reflection on the figure of Mary.
Cacciari’s “invisible phenomenology brings the reader to a Birth (Nascita) and Death (Croce) antinomy of thought--its final stage-- which it is the purpose of Art to articulate. How will art and thought do this? Since reflection’s never really shaken off its ‘shadow’ ( ombra) reality, it is bound to always appear both as wistful as the archangel’s sudden announcement and as heavy as a son’s body being taken down from the cross. The light and darkness mixture would, in fact, lead to problematic Gnostic readings of a more earthy, androgynous Holy Family (androginia spirituale) in which not Mary but Mary Magdalene becomes spiritual exemplar. A shift in thought always threatens to turn the iconic Virgin generare of Mary into the iconoclastic apocryphal non generare of Magdalene so that thought has been bifurcated irremediably into two competing senses of the nature and development of the Marian event: with the result that the Father has turned into feminine Sophia as the primary creative source (Madre-Sophia).
Human thought has, in conclusion, made the traditional male Logos now the equal of the feminine Sophia, the patriarchal Deus-Trinitas being set beside a view of Mary as both the physical embodiment of Sophia (il perfetto farsi carne di Sophia) and as creatrix of all things. This is no “celestial dialectics”, as Cacciari affirms: Mary is now queen of Heaven and Earth (In Maria il mondo celeste bacia quello terreno), taking her place beside the God of Genesis . There is nothing in thought and the ambiguous iconography that can preclude this quite remarkable consubstantiality of both Son and Mother with the Father. Cacciari may be criticized for immersing Marian reflection into Gnosticism yet there’s no denying that the clues and signs had already been present in Renaissance art.