Letter and Spirit

The Latin illuminare means ‘to light up’. This is the origin of the term ‘illumination’ when used to refer to the illustrations that decorate manuscripts such as this one. The biblical text is adorned with designs that are incorporated alongside or intertwined with the text.

‘Illumination’ refers to the brightness of the gold and other colours used in such objects, and also implies that the motifs are enlightening—that they reveal something about or beyond the text that might not be conveyed (or communicated as easily) by the unadorned text.

In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul contrasts the ‘letter’ of the Law of Moses with the ‘spirit’ of Christ; ‘the letter kills, but the spirit gives life’ (3:6 NRSV). This contrast does not necessitate a rejection or supersession of the Law; rather, it can be seen as analogous to the dynamic between word and image in an illuminated manuscript. The illumination does not replace the text but lights it up, and in so doing can reveal aspects of its message afresh.

The page (also known as a folio) seen here is from an early fifteenth-century manuscript of Nicholas of Lyra’s biblical commentary by a Franciscan scribe, Ugolino Marini Gibertuzzi of Sarnano. This leaf has the beginning of 2 Corinthians. The illuminations include rich foliage, and two illuminated capitals (decorated letters). The large illuminated capital ‘P’ is for the start of the Epistle, and includes a portrait of Paul holding the sword of his martyrdom. While the portrait identifies the author, the foliage does not seem to relate directly to the text itself. These adornments express the preciousness of the text, both by beautifying the object, and because the time and materials involved were costly. 

Nicholas’s commentary focuses on the literal sense of the Bible, as distinct from its figurative meanings (allegorical ones, for example). He discusses details such as the language and the historical context of the text. The illumination therefore introduces an element to the page that has a more excursive relationship with the ‘letter’ of the biblical text, which can be likened to the ‘spirit’ that ‘gives life’.

‘Letter’ of any kind is transcended in the Rothko Chapel. Conceived by founders Dominique and John de Menil as a non-denominational sacred space, the chapel was devised by architects Philip Johnson, Howard Barnstone, and Eugene Aubrey to accommodate fourteen abstract paintings by Mark Rothko.

The Rothko Chapel may be understood as embracing a new mode of expression that emerged out of religious and artistic shifts in the twentieth century. Its octagonal plan (reminiscent of Christian baptisteries), and the triptych form of three groupings of paintings (evoking Christian altarpieces), situate the chapel in an older tradition of Christian architecture and art, and help to engender a sense of the sacred. But the almost monochromatic, abstract aesthetic of the whole resists association with any particular tradition, and thus fosters the universal religious experience that the de Menils envisioned. By eschewing figurative representation, the chapel creates a space that, as Dominique de Menil described it, ‘is oriented towards the sacred, and yet … imposes no traditional environment’ (Rothko Chapel, section 3). It is a space for people of all religious traditions (and none). It does not represent the ‘letter’ of any religion but instead invites viewers to engage in a common pursuit of contemplation and stillness.

At the same time, the chapel maintains a collection of religious texts that pilgrims or visitors can read in the space. The experience of reading a text that might be familiar in this place can provoke fresh perspectives on that text; art and architecture create a space in which the pilgrim can experience an aesthetic encounter with sacred scriptures of various traditions.

This experience can be seen as analogous to the ‘spirit’ giving life to the ‘letter’ in Paul’s terms (2 Corinthians 3:1–11). The spirit, which is literally unrepresentable, pushes beyond the literal meaning of the words on the page. Rothko’s paintings, by going beyond representation, may work in this spirit. Entering the chapel (a technology-free zone) disrupts the everyday experience that is saturated with information and images; in so doing, pilgrims might ‘give [renewed] life’ to their seeing and reading.

References

Rothko Chapel, ‘About’. Available from http://www.rothkochapel.org/learn/about/ [accessed 24 August 2018]

‘There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright…’ (Job 1:1 KJV). So begins the book of Job, which the English poet, painter, and printmaker, William Blake, depicts in a series of twenty-one designs. Blake’s first Job series was produced in watercolour in c.1805–06. In 1825, he published engravings based on these designs. Here, in the first engraving, ‘The Letter Killeth The Spirit giveth Life’ (2 Corinthians 3:6 KJV) is inscribed on an altar which is depicted at bottom centre, in the margin below the main image.

In the main image, under a tree, Job and his family are engaged in prayer—some seated and others kneeling. The prayer books on the laps of Job and his wife, and the opening words of the Our Father in the margin above, suggest that they are praying with traditional liturgical texts.

Blake here rejects the idea of organized religion, believing that it stifled the individual’s engagement with the divine; for Blake, divinity is found in imagination. Blake uses Paul’s words to critique the conventional piety that Job and his family are engaged in as akin to the ‘letter’ that ‘killeth’. Blake’s Job is presented as a self-righteous man who engages in rote piety, not with imagination. This point is reinforced by the depiction of musical instruments hanging in the tree above the family, which alludes to Psalm 137:2: ‘We hanged our harps upon the willows’ (KJV). The psalm is a song of lament by the Jewish people during their exile in Babylon. By depicting instruments in the tree above Job’s family, Blake suggests that their display of conventional piety—following ‘the letter’—is a form of spiritual exile.

Tellingly, in the final design in Blake’s Job series, the artist depicts Job and his family playing the musical instruments, indicating that they now engage with ‘imagination’, or ‘the spirit’ in Blake’s use of Paul’s phrase. Thus, the series may be understood as a manifesto of Blake’s religious vision of art, encouraging the viewer to encounter the divine in the ‘life’ of imagination.