Approaches to Mysticism

As Jantzen observes, the term mysticism is historically sensitive. Although the words ‘mystic’ and ‘mystery’ are used frequently, ‘mysticism’ does not appear in any of the nineteenth-century texts that I have found in convent archives and libraries: as a description of a distinct arm of Christian theology, it was not in popular use during the period that they were written. However, one of the earliest attempts at an overview of Christian mysticism was produced in 1899 by the Anglican priest William Ralph Inge, and, significantly, the term was used by J. Beavington Atkinson in 1882 to describe the work of the Roman Catholic artist Friedrich Overbeck.^{Footnote 16} We may therefore assume that the term had some, if limited, currency in nineteenth-century English Roman Catholic thought. The concept of a ‘mystic’ experience, drawn directly from Inge’s taxonomy, was qualified in 1902 by William James in Varieties of Mystic Experience. James, a philosopher and clinical psychologist, attempted a scientific definition of mysticism in what has retrospectively been termed the ‘Perennialist’ approach. James developed this through the construction of four categories, to which a mystic experience must conform: ineffability; noesis; transience and passivity.^{Footnote 17} This paradigm, though widely challenged, cemented ‘mysticism’ as an umbrella term for a range of thinkers and texts, from Platonic philosophy to Counter-Reformation ecstasies. As a self-contained category, however, mysticism has suggested fresh and important theoretical approaches in the fields of psychology, theology, philosophy and feminist discourse. Grace Jantzen mounted a challenge to Perennialism by calibrating the terms in which a ‘mystic’ experience might be thought to exist. Both she and Bynum suggest that the spirituality of medieval and Counter-Reformation women was characterised by a bodily (often eroticised) rather than psychic encounter with God, therefore undermining, for feminists, the utility of a term predicated on interiority. In describing a distinct female tradition and rejecting ‘ineffability’ as a contingent factor, Jantzen attempted to rescue women’s religious experience from the murky backwaters of the private and personal and restore its political and intellectual legitimacy. In disrupting the ‘mystic’ category, Jantzen implicitly rejects the value of interior spirituality which, for the women that I will be discussing, was authoritative, creative, influential and enduring. Though Jantzen is undoubtedly right that the idea of ineffability would have ‘baffled’ Hildegard of Bingen and Teresa of Avila, it certainly would not have baffled the women discussed here: while they did not use the word ‘mysticism’ they would, as his contemporaries, likely have recognised James’s description of it.

Mystic texts

The written works that were owned and read by active sisters reveal a great deal about the way that mystic spirituality was understood and practiced. In addition to the communities discussed in this article, orders such as the English Dominicans, and the Society of the Holy Child Jesus, collected works of mystics identified by James and Inge, such as those by Teresa of Avila, Francis de Sales, Catherine of Siena and St Gertrude. It is clear that these were not read simply for their scholarly or historical value but also operated as spiritual handbooks. The 1869 biography of Mother Margaret Hallahan, foundress of the English Dominicans, for example, offers an intriguing account of her spirituality, which makes explicit references to mysticism: ‘Her letters give evidence of that reading of the best ascetic authors which she pursued all her life, they also reveal her deep and accurate knowledge of moral and mystic science’.^{Footnote 18} It goes on to describe a super-sensual state that harmonises with James’s notion of ineffability:

The word that seems to specifically synchronize with ‘ineffability’ here is ‘nubecula’. I have yet to find other examples of the use of this term but employed, as it is here, in conjunction with the word ‘mystic’, it is surely descriptive of an altered state consciousness.

Ignatian Spirituality

The dominant mystic influence in the charism of all of the orders mentioned was that of Ignatius Loyola, cited both by James and Inge. The Rule of St Ignatius provided the model for the constitutions of many active female religious communities in the nineteenth century. Fundamental to Ignatian theology is the concept that God is present in everything (including sin) and that prayer can take a multitude of forms - most significantly, labour in the service of God. The Jesuits, accordingly, designed an apostolate that incorporated education and missionary work. William James refers to this ‘active’ spirituality in his description of Ignatius: ‘St Ignatius was a mystic but his mysticism made him one of the most powerfully practical human engines that ever lived’.^{Footnote 20} This was not at the expense, however, of meditative prayer. Contemplation bore equal weight to work in Ignatian spirituality and religious were expected to follow the Spiritual Exercises composed by Ignatius between 1522–1524. The Exercises comprised a set of prayers and mediations themed around the life of Christ and performed daily for a period of 28 to 30 days. These were specifically designed to help the meditant achieve a mystic union with God. James describes their function thus:

Ignatian spirituality naturally lent itself to those religious orders with an active apostolate, which constituted the large majority in nineteenth century England. Women’s communities, in particular, were keen to maintain or cultivate a sharply defined religious character in order to distinguish their work from secular philanthropy. Practicing meditative contemplation in addition to the offices underscored the monastic heritage of modern communities and provided a theological and cultural framework within which to reconcile Mary and Martha. Both of the orders that will be discussed here – the Society of the Sacred Heart, founded in France in 1800 by Madeleine Sophie Barat (1779-1865), and The Congregation of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, founded in England in 1872 by Frances (later Mother Magdalene) Taylor (1832-1900) – operated under the Ignatian Rule. Not only was this instructive in the practical organisation of their institutions, it also exerted a considerable influence over their spirituality. The Society of the Sacred Heart, for example, was founded by the French nun, Madeleine Sophie Barat in 1800 with the express aim, like the Jesuits, of promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart internationally, a vocation that was operated through the foundation of schools.^{Footnote 22} The Society of the Sacred Heart is, in fact, informally regarded as the partner order of the Jesuits. The Poor Servants of the Mother of God, a simple-vowed congregation with a broad apostolate that ranged from nursing to refuge work also had close connections to the Jesuits. Frances Taylor, foundress of the community, produced with her Jesuit confessor, Fr James Clare, a translation from French of meditations in an Ignition style and spirit.^{Footnote 23} Whilst most histories of Taylor have focused on the practical nature of her spirituality, it is clear that she was also personally engaged with the mystic elements of Ignatian spirituality. In a letter to her niece, Charlotte Coles written in 1889, Taylor writes:

It is important to note, however, that although the Ignatian Rule was instructive, the foundresses of many orders, particularly those that operated under papal rather than episcopal authority, were at liberty to construct, within the constraints of formal theology, their own interpretations of Catholic spirituality. Though these were in line with the Church’s teachings, they represented a significant opportunity for women to collect ideas, images and devotional iconography from a range of sources and introduce these to the lay community via their pastoral and educational work.

Mystic Iconography in Nineteenth Century Roman Catholicism

Michel de Certeau, whose readings of Christian mysticism shaped postmodern scholarship in the field, suggests that the mystical, in continual conflict with itself, appears in innately ‘paradoxical forms’.^{Footnote 25} My research on the art and architecture of women’s religious communities proposes that a conscious expression of this aporia lay at the heart of the spatial planning and aesthetic culture of the convent.^{Footnote 26} This is most apparent in the spiritual iconography of women’s nineteenth century-convents that deviated in nuanced but significant ways from that of the institutional Roman Catholic Church. The English author and clergyman, Montague Summers, wrote in 1950 that, ‘one hundred years ago… mysticism was regarded with distrust and suspicion’ by the English Catholic Church’.^{Footnote 27} The brand of mysticism that Summers alludes to here was almost certainly the kind being imported from Southern Europe. Mary Heimann has convincingly disputed the received wisdom that Roman Catholicism in England turned quickly towards Roman Ultramontanism after the restoration of the hierarchy in 1850, suggesting instead that the Church maintained many of the texts and devotions of the English recusant tradition. Despite the more conservative tastes of the English Catholic Church, however, Susan O’Brien proposes that the religious culture of missionary nuns, many of whom taught in Catholic schools, informally introduced popular devotions that the institutional Church had been reluctant to promote but which have proved obstinately enduring.^{Footnote 28} It is certainly the case that women constructed, through the visual iconography of mystic spirituality, their own, often markedly ‘un-English’, cultural identity. It is important to note here that devotional practices were not synonymous with mystical experiences, but instead were often (though not always) conductors of mystic experience.

The Sacred Heart

Both of the communities in the following case studies incorporated devotion to the Sacred Heart within their charism: The Society of the Sacred Heart, which was formed specifically to promote the devotion, and The Poor Servants of the Mother of God, who joined the Jesuit’s Apostleship of Prayer which was established in dedication to the Sacred Heart.^{Footnote 29} Whilst the support of Cardinal Manning helped to secure the Sacred Heart as an important devotional icon in England it was, as Susan O’Brien suggests, nuns who were the primary ‘agents for its widespread popularity in Victorian Catholicism’.^{Footnote 30} There can be little doubt about the role of the Sacred Heart in stimulating what James calls ineffability: as Mother Janet Erskine Stuart, describing her contemplation of the icon in 1896 states, ‘I wish above all to acquire interior spirit and union with the Sacred Heart’.^{Footnote 31} Though the English Catholic Church was slow to endorse quasi-mystical devotions such as that of the Sacred Heart, they were an integral feature of the vernacular theologies and culture of continental Catholicism. Mary Heimann suggests that the English religious character, shaped by the Reformation and Enlightenment, was inherently programmed to seek a rational theology to frame paradox. In contrast, the spirituality of women religious, liberated from the constraints of politics, history and tradition, was able to embrace mystery without theological difficulty. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that these women looked towards the increasingly mystical and, arguably, feminized Catholicism of Italy, France and Spain for a visual language that could express Christian mystery.^{Footnote 32}

Mysticism and Art

The desire to visually express Christian mystery has a long heritage. David Morgan, in exploring the role of art in Christianity, observes specific practices tied to forms of worship. For example, he notes that the act of ‘Schaufrömmigkeit (literally the “piety of looking and seeing”) was an important component of religious life in late medieval Europe, when small devotional images and altarpieces depicting the Passion of Christ were a vital form of worship, prayer and devotion’.^{Footnote 33} Bernard McGinn also discusses representations of the Passion and the Trinity from early Christian to medieval art, seeing in it ‘the paradoxical effort to make the invisible somehow accessible to our gaze’.^{Footnote 34} Here, McGinn examines not only the contemplation of art as a mystical bridge to God but also the production of art, an idea that began to gain purchase with late eighteenth and nineteenth-century medieval revivalism. In reaction to enlightenment empiricism and secularism, artists, theologians and writers sought to re-engage mystic thought as a means of negotiating the Divine. At the vanguard of this movement were the German Romantics, for whom the musings of Wilhelm Wackenroder and Ludwig Tieck provided a loose manifesto: ‘You must wait as with prayer, for the blessed hours when the favour of heaven illumines your inner being with superior receptivity. Only then will your soul unite completely with the works of artists.’^{Footnote 35}

The Nazarene School

The Nazarene school of painters incorporated Wackenroder’s philosophy into a theology of aesthetics that looked back to ‘pre-Raphaelite’ art, pioneering a style that was, it scarcely needs noting, highly influential in England. The movement emerged from the Brotherhood of St Luke or Lukasbund founded in 1809 at the Vienna Academy and informally led by Friedrich Overbeck (1789-1869), a deeply spiritual man who wrestled with the competing call of monastic and artistic life. Overbeck, Franz Pforr, Ludwig Vogel and Johann Konrad Hottinger arrived in Rome in 1810 where they established an artist’s co-operative in the empty monastery of San Isidoro on the Pincian Hill. Over the proceeding years they were joined by fellow German artists, including Peter Von Cornelius, many of whom, like Overbeck, converted to Catholicism. For Overbeck, concerned with the archaeology of Christian art and the rediscovery of sacred symbols or ‘hieroglyphs’, Catholicism was the necessary starting point. It was also the only branch of Western Christianity that, for the Nazarenes more widely, continued to explore and embrace mysticism.^{Footnote 36} The Lukasbund exerted a powerful influence on Italian religious art and actively supported the emerging Nazarene-inspired Purismo Religioso movement, whose ideals were enshrined in a manifesto written by the artist Antonio Bianchini in 1843.^{Footnote 37} The Lukasbund themselves, and Overbeck in particular, enjoyed the patronage of Pope Pius IX who reigned from 1846-1878, under whose administration much of the residual secularism of the First French Empire was swept away: religious orders flourished once again, devotion to the Sacred Heart was consolidated by the introduction of a dedicated feast day and the beatification of Marguerite Marie Alacoque (1647-1690), Papal infallibility was decreed and Mariology became inscribed in Catholic worship via the newly defined dogma of the Immaculate Conception.^{Footnote 38} In its wake, Marian apparitions abounded and countless miracles were attributed to Mary. Cordula Grewe proposes that the Lukasbund drew from a range of mystical sources, both historical and contemporary, in the creation of a new art. This restored the ascendancy of the symbolic, which had been eclipsed by the high Renaissance pre-occupation with form and beauty. Grewe rehearses Hans Belting’s argument, first published in German in 1990,^{Footnote 39} in which he describes the ideological shift from medieval to renaissance art as:

Grewe, however, disputes Belting’s proposition that Bild and Kunst are irreconcilable categories. She suggests that the Nazarenes were able to mesh concepts of the aesthetic and iconic, arguing that style and composition could be as much an integration of the holy as an expression of ‘art for art’s sake’:

In largely Protestant England the relationship between mysticism and art was enacted in subtly different ways. A number of scholars have explored intersections between the two, discerning themes within the Romantic, Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements that were certainly in dialogue with the notion of privacy identified by Jantzen – interior spiritualities that belonged as much to male homosexual subculture as to the domestic home. Ellis Hanson has also observed that the prominence of (particularly Roman Catholic) ritualism in the work of Decadents such as Huysmans and Wilde, inscribed a particular relationship between mysticism and the homoerotic – one which, he argues, pushed the literature of the Aesthetic movement to the margins of literary criticism until the mid-twentieth century.^{Footnote 42} Indeed, the fact that Inge described Huysman’s mystic novels as ‘repulsive’ whilst praising Wordsworth, whom he considered ‘the greatest prophet…of contemplative mysticism’ for his ‘sane and manly spirit’, would seem to support this and also demonstrate an awareness that mystic art had, by the end of the nineteenth century acquired a reputation at variance with Victorian morality.^{Footnote 43} The zeitgeist of nineteenth-century mysticism gave birth to strikingly different offspring: while the Nazarenes and Decadents shared a common ancestor in the German Romantic movement they were separated by an ideological gulf. Nevertheless, a precarious middle ground existed between the two in Anglo Catholic art and architecture.^{Footnote 44} It is worth noting that, although the architecture of nineteenth-century Anglo Catholic and Roman Catholic churches shared many outward features, Anglo Catholic art, perhaps tainted by the sensuality of Aestheticism, as expressed in the work of artists such as Burne-Jones and Simeon Solomon, appeared to be untranslatable. English Roman Catholic women religious instead, looked to Rome for artistic inspiration. Notwithstanding the vital distinctions between gendered and queer cultures, it is curious that English lay women are largely missing from the variety of mystic art, characterised by Solomon and others. This is not to say, however, that they were absent from the field of religious art. During the nineteenth-century the church offered women a range of artistic outlets – from the embroidery of kneelers and vestments to the design of stained glass and even chapels.^{Footnote 45} Though it might be tempting to look for comparisons between the paintings in the following case studies and religious art produced by lay women during the same period, to do so would muddy the distinction between the ecclesiastical and the mystic as religious categories, the home and the convent as private spheres. The evidence that emerges from the testament of sisters, suggests that, although art was certainly produced in the service of the Church, it was also a means of entering into a personal dialogue with God. As Cornelia Connelly, foundress of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus wrote: ‘A Christian art is one of the most important branches of education, second only to that of speaking and writing and in some respects even beyond the language’.^{Footnote 46} The significance of this form of devotional art will be explored in two paintings ‘created’ by nuns from two different orders: The Society of the Sacred Heart and the Poor Servants of the Mother of the God. Both paintings function as the iconic image of each community, employ devices from the genre of mystic art and have acquired a mythology within the congregation.

The Society of the Sacred Heart and Mater Admirabilis

The Society of the Sacred Heart’s house in Rome, the convent of the Trinità dei Monti, houses Mater Admirabilis, a fresco painted in 1844 of the young Virgin. This is not only the iconic image of the order but also inspired a cult of its own, attracting devotees from women’s religious communities across the world (figure 1).

Figure 1.

Detail of Mater Admirabilis, Pauline Perdrau RSCJ, 1844, Convent of the Trinità dei Monti, Rome. Photograph author’s own.

The story behind the painting rapidly established itself in Catholic miracle lore. According to the community’s sources, it was executed by a novice of the order, Pauline Perdrau.^{Footnote 47} Perdrau was seized one day by a desire to paint a fresco of the Virgin Mary in the cloister. Perdrau’s lack of experience of working in fresco, however, occasioned some resistance towards the enterprise from the Mother Superior. She eventually relented, however, and a plasterer was employed to prepare the surface each day and offer advice. On completion of the painting, the Mother Superior was horrified to see how garish the colours were. The painting was dismissed as ‘hideous’ and immediately covered with a cloth in the hope that, as the plaster dried, the livid tones would mellow. After some weeks, to everyone’s relief, the colours improved and the painting, which was now unanimously hailed a success, received a Papal blessing after a visit by Pius IX. In some accounts a miraculous transformation of the painting occurred behind the cloth. Some months later, a priest prayed before the painting to be cured of a throat complaint. His subsequent recovery was proclaimed a miracle and the painting quickly became a pilgrimage site. Pauline Perdrau’s memoirs, though curiously silent on the subject of Mater Admirabilis, reveal a great deal about her spirituality. In 1843 Perdrau travelled to Loreto where her vocation as the servant of Mary was revealed to her through a mystic experience:

Upon returning to the Trinità, Perdrau determined to paint the Virgin. Having settled on the subject matter, however, she puzzled over how to portray her.

The painting self-consciously interacted with its intended audience and the particular activities taking place within the corridor: the Virgin, in sympathy with the sisters, resting momentarily from her spinning and lost in contemplation (figure 2).

Figure 2.

Mater Admirabilis in the corridor at the Trinità dei Monti Convent, Rome. Photograph author’s own.

That the product of Pauline Perdrau’s interior spirituality should be a work of art is not surprising: she had received some formal training as an artist before entering the Society and had undertaken some commissions. Indeed, like Overbeck, she had been conflicted over whether to pursue a career as an artist, as her parents wished, or whether to enter religious life.^{Footnote 50} Whilst at the Trinità, she had been tutored by Alexander Maximilian Seitz, a student of Cornelius and Overbeck, who was resident in the neighbouring San Isidoro monastery.^{Footnote 51} The influence of the Nazarene school on Mater Admirabilis is manifest, as Grewe notes: ‘The lyrical archaism and pastel coloring mark it as a true heir to the Lukasbund aesthetic, picking up on the brethren’s early fascination with Fra Angelico and early Renaissance fresco. The pious literature is full of praise for the work’s beauty of form, harmonious effect, and spiritual depth.’^{Footnote 52} The debt to renaissance art was not lost on nineteenth-century pilgrims either, as the following critique indicates:

Mater Admirabilis illustrates a significant shift activated by the Nazarenes, from the storytelling of the Baroque and Counter-Reformation towards the iconography of early Renaissance and Medieval art. The painting is interactive rather than didactic: Perdrau employs the ‘hieroglyphs’ of lilies, spinning distaff, twelve stars and open book to stimulate contemplation rather than as narrative tools.^{Footnote 54} Indeed, it is significant that the gaze of the intended viewer of Mater Admirabilis was disrupted in both temporal (the sisters’ concentration was largely focused on needlework) and spatial terms (the semi-circular configuration of the needleworkers meant that the image was in the purview of most). It was not until pilgrims, such as the priest mentioned above, were admitted to the hitherto private space, that focused contemplation of the image took place. What separates Mater Admirabilis from the work of the Lukasbund, however, is its candid autobiography. Perdrau draws less on the canon of Christian symbolism than on her own domestic experience – the spinning distaff recalling her (unhappy) childhood labours and the colour of Mary’s robes a memory, according to several Sacred Heart sources, of her favourite dress.^{Footnote 55} Whilst it was certainly not unprecedented to portray Mary spinning, it is clear that this activity was meant to resonate in a space where women were occupied in textile work. Moreover, representations of the Virgin sewing, of which Perdrau’s tutor would certainly have been aware, were numerous and would have been more appropriate in this context, lending further weight to claims that the painting is autobiographical. Given the private setting, unusually domestic character and undistinguished technical quality of the painting, the question of why Pius IX promoted devotion to Mater Admirabilis is, in equal measure, pertinent and unclear. One may speculate reasons ranging from his desire to foreground Marian devotion, to re-establish the spiritual authority of religious orders, particularly those associated with the Jesuits, or to affirm his support for the Nazarene enterprise. It is plain, however, that his enthusiastic endorsement of the miraculous work — his blessing of the painting itself, his readiness to approve miracles attributed to it and his commissioning in 1849 of Nicola Cerbara, engraver to the papal court, to produce devotional medals bearing the image — propelled the burgeoning international cult of Mater Admirabilis.^{Footnote 56} Evidence of the speed with which this was established is offered in a letter to Monseigneur Pierre-Henri Gerault de Langalerie from Alfred Monnin in 1864, twenty years after the painting was finished: ‘Since our visit to Mater Admirabilis, her glory has spread from sea to sea and…to the ends of the earth’.^{Footnote 57} Just how widely the cult spread in reality is unclear: though the ‘ends of the earth’ might be somewhat hyperbolic, it had certainly travelled overseas by the last half of the nineteenth century, as the many marble plaques lining the walls of the corridor at the Trinità dei Monti testify. Eleanor C. Donnelly, an Irish pilgrim writing in 1874, dedicated a verse to the image, which attempted to capture something of its mystic paradoxes:

Devotees quickly established the painting as an intercessor in achieving a mystic union with God. For Mother Janet Erskine Stuart, Superior of the Society of the Sacred Heart community at Roehampton in England,^{Footnote 59} the painting was a source of spiritual revelation, as her reflections in 1912 indicate:

Though this was not precisely the intended purpose of the painting it was certainly not inconsistent with its broad aim. It was also entirely consonant with the aesthetic ideology of the Nazarene project, in which, as an expedient to religious experience, the work of art itself becomes a ‘miracleworking, magical, and talismanic holy object’.^{Footnote 61} The belief that Mater Admirabilis possessed ‘miracleworking’ properties undoubtedly lay behind the many reproductions of the painting that were produced – from the replicas painted by Perdrau herself and distributed among Sacred Heart institutions across the world, to the medals, prints and statues that are still in production and which transmit ‘the sanctity of the original to its replica’ as Grewe describes it.^{Footnote 62} While Grewe is certainly not discussing the translation of high religious art into mass-produced Saint-Sulpician trinkets, works such as the Purismo manifesto suggest the sacred significance of provenance and inheritance. Thus, for the Lukasbund, the process of reproducing holy images has a mystical value that is redolent of the tradition that St Luke painted the first Christian icons, most notably the first image, from life, of the Virgin Mary. This legend is, in fact, deliberately invoked in a series of prints by the Riepenhausen brothers published in 1816, that depict Raphael as a new St Luke. The brothers were Catholic converts and members of the Nazarene circle.^{Footnote 63} It is unlikely that many nuns were familiar with the theological aspiration of the Lukasbund or Purismo movement, but I suggest that, by the mid-nineteenth century, their ideas had permeated many areas of popular religious art. It is, therefore, in the spirit of the Luke tradition, whether of Nazarene or Byzantine exegesis, that nuns from a wide range of orders made their own copies of Mater Admirabilis, either drawn or painted before the original, or hand decorated reproductions. By the 1850s, Mother Cahier, superior general of the Society of the Sacred Heart, had sent engravings of the fresco to all of the Sacred Heart houses across the world so that nuns could paint copies. Many of the replicas were full size and most adorned the convents’ oratories.^{Footnote 64} Among other orders that held the painting in particular reverence was The Society of the Holy Child Jesus, whose foundress, Cornelia Connelly, was, at the time that Mater Admirabilis was painted, a novice at the Trinità. An artist herself, Connelly received instruction under the same tutor as Pauline Perdrau and was reputed to be the sitter for the painting. Indeed, according to one source, Connelly and Perdrau together conceived the idea for Mater and jointly executed it.^{Footnote 65} Before she left the convent, she made her own copy, which was apparently treasured by the community. Perhaps more surprising is an account of a pilgrimage to the site given by Anglican convert, Frances Taylor, foundress of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God. A hand-tinted copy of Mater Admirabilis and a prayer card bearing the image in the community’s archive testify to the fact that devotion to Mater Admirabilis was active within the congregation (figures 3 and 4). Taylor’s firm emphasis on ascetism and practicality appeared to allow little room for the production and appreciation of art and made her an unlikely devotee.

Figure 3.

Prayer card of Mater Admirabilis from Mother Magdalene Aimée’s copy of The Roman Missal, SMG Archives, Brentwood, Middlesex, V/A/3. By kind permission of the Congregation of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God.

Figure 4.

Tinted devotional picture of Mater Admirabilis with painted mount by Sr Mary Tommaso, SMG Archives, Brentwood, Middlesex, II/G/1/5/2/1. By kind permission of Congregation of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God.

The Poor Servants of the Mother of God and The Annunciation

Emerging from a nation without a developed Catholic character, the Poor Servants of the Mother of God had to construct its own cultural identity, drawing on the spirituality, iconography and devotional cultures of continental and Irish orders. Evidence of Frances Taylor’s quest for inspiration is offered by her book Religious Orders: or sketches of some orders and congregations published in 1862, in which she summarises the history and charism of the most well-known women’s communities. Taylor developed particularly close bonds with the Society of the Sacred Heart whose mother house in England and convent in Rome were located in very close proximity to those of the Poor Servants. Though art did not have a defined role in the charism of the Poor Servants, it is clear that Frances Taylor had a firm understanding of its significance and utility and was keen to support sisters who demonstrated an aptitude for painting and drawing. Evidence suggests that Taylor’s artistic enterprises were shaped by a number of factors and influences which included: Ignatian and Counter-Reformation spirituality; her specific devotions to the Sacred Heart and the Incarnation; her religious milieu, particularly the Jesuits; and the growing cult of Mater Admirabilis. Such was the ubiquitous nature of Mater Admirabilis that Taylor was probably more familiar with the full size replica in the Sacred Heart convent in Roehampton (figure 5) than with the original.

Figure 5.

Copy of Mater Admirabilis at Barat House, Roehampton. Photograph by kind permission of Barbara Vesey, Society of the Sacred Heart, England and Wales Provincial Archives.

The success of Mater Admirabilis must have impressed on many nuns the power of religious art, not only as a highly effective tool in the creation of corporate identity but also for its holy, perhaps even miraculous potential. It is in this light then, that we might read a small biography written by Frances Taylor of Sr Mary Clare Doyle. At first glance, it would appear to be nothing more than an affectionate tribute to a sister whose life was cut short and of whom Taylor was particularly fond. A different focus might also reveal, however, the influence of the Society of the Sacred Heart in the construction, whether knowing or not, of an English Pauline Perdrau. Indeed, although Doyle’s short life followed a different course to Perdrau’s, Taylor’s account reveals significant similarities between the two: like Perdrau, Doyle was both profoundly spiritual and a gifted artist. Both, like Freidrich Overbeck were initially torn between continuing their art education and entering the cloister. Both, unlike Overbeck, chose a religious life over a career as an artist. In 1879, Sr Mary Clare Doyle accompanied Frances Taylor on a tour of Continental Catholic institutions. Taylor documented the tour, which included a visit to Mater Admirabilis, and the works that Sr M Clare Doyle undertook:

Though this painting did not achieve the celebrity of Mater Admirabilis, it was and continues to be, among the most prized works in the collection of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God, both as a work of art by a divinely endowed sister and as a hand painted copy from ‘life’ of a revered image. Whilst Perdrau’s story was undoubtedly captivating and must surely have been the model for Taylor’s biography of Mary Clare Doyle, it was her miraculous painting that would make the most enduring mark on the culture of the Poor Servants. Of the works of art supported, commissioned or ‘created’ by Taylor, the community’s iconic representation of the Annunciation owes the greatest debt to Mater Admirabilis. It had been Taylor’s wish to express her devotion to the Incarnation in a work of art for which she had devised a particular design. In 1886, while in Rome, she was introduced by a Jesuit father to an artist named Aristide Dies. Dies was probably selected less for his artistic reputation than for the fact that he spoke French, which allowed Taylor, who spoke fluent French but not Italian, to communicate her vision in detail. Nonetheless, confusion arose over the precise composition of the painting – Taylor had specifically requested a portrayal of the Virgin after the angel, having delivered the annunciation, had departed. On visiting the artist in his studio some days later with one of the Sisters, Taylor was dismayed to see that Dies’s composition was clearly intended to accommodate the angel speaking to Mary. Taylor promptly removed her companion’s cloak and held it in the position that she wished Mary to appear, without the angel (figure 6).^{Footnote 67}

Figure 6.

The Annunciation, Aristide Dies and Frances Taylor, painting in St George’s Church, Rome 1886. Image by kind permission of the Congregation of the Poor Servants of the Mother of God.

With this story in mind, revealing comparisons might be made between Taylor’s Annunciation and another Annunciation, executed twelve years earlier by Pietro Gagliardi. Gagliardi was later commissioned by Taylor (also in 1886) to produce a painting of the Sacred Heart. He was a prolific and successful Italian artist who, though having trained under the Nazarene/Purismo artist Tommaso Minardi, tended to work in a neo-Baroque style. His fresco altarpiece at the Church of the Annunciation in Tarxien, Malta (1874) (figure 7) is among his most celebrated works and bears a striking similarity to Taylor/Aristide Dies’s Annunciation (figure 6). There is no direct evidence to suggest that either Taylor or Dies had seen Gagliardi’s Annunciation, but the fact that Dies was confused about the presence of the angel certainly suggests that he was working from a model that had an angel in it.

Figure 7.

The Annunciation, Tarxien parish church, Malta, Pietro Gagliardi, 1874. Photograph by kind permission of Sirj Photography.

The style employed by Taylor/Dies in The Annunciation is curious. Gagliardi’s Annunciation owes much to the Spanish Baroque – the dynamic composition, swirling clouds, putti, chiaroscuro and so on. Taylor’s commissioned painting, however, is restrained and pensive. While elements of Gagliardi’s style are clearly present, these have been conspicuously attenuated – the swirling clouds now a vague mist, putti reduced to winged heads, the symbolic form of the Holy Spirit accentuated by the surrounding text. In reading Taylor’s Annunciation, two key points present themselves. The first is Taylor’s personal spirituality and the charism of her order. The choice of the Annunciation reflects, as previously mentioned, the centrality of the Incarnation in Taylor’s spirituality and her decision to portray Mary alone is an indication of the significance of interiority. Taylor’s wish was to depict the Virgin as ‘she knelt alone, with her Hidden God, hidden within her’ - a moment that evokes the higher consciousness achieved, or aspired towards, through the Spiritual Exercises that Taylor and her community practiced.^{Footnote 68} Taylor’s solitary Virgin is thoughtful; Gagliardi’s, in the presence of the Angel, is (necessarily) responsive. The second point relates to Taylor’s conscious construction of an iconic image to represent her community. A picture such as Gagliardi’s is effective in telling the story of the Annunciation but too animated to serve as an icon. A much better model for this is provided by Mater Admirabilis - the iconic image of women’s religious orders par excellence. We know that Taylor held Mater Admirabilis in high esteem and it seems plausible that she drew from it in the construction of her own iconic image. Though, as we have seen, Taylor certainly borrowed from the Counter-Reformation style (perhaps in tribute to the community’s Ignatian roots), the composition (the solitary, pensive Virgin with lilies re-positioned prominently in the foreground and to the left) dampened chiaroscuro and flattened plane of her Annunciation owes much more to Perdrau’s Quattrocento forms. Style and symbolism deliberately synthesized, precisely as they are within Nazarene aesthetic theology. As the brand image of the Poor Servants, The Annunciation succeeded in visually embedding the order within the Catholic world and it continues to do so today. But perhaps more importantly, it also succeeded as an icon that inspired and aided the sisters’ spiritual devotions. Reproductions of The Annunciation grace the walls, in some form, of most Poor Servants convents. Importantly, many of these were the painstaking work of Sr Mary Tommaso who, throughout the early to mid-twentieth century hand painted numerous replicas. At the chapel of the Novitiate in Roehampton, Sr Mary Tommaso reproduced it on a large scale over the altar so that it became an object of devotion for generations of novices, thus securing its status. As with Sr Mary Clare Doyle’s copy of St Ignatius, the transmission of ‘the sanctity of the original to its replica’ could not be more clearly at play. For Sr Mary Tommaso, the very act of reproducing the community’s iconic images was itself a personal devotion, as her necrology entry suggests:

Painting as a form of prayer, as practiced by Sr M Tommaso, Pauline Perdrau, Sr Mary Clare Doyle and, in all probability, the countless nuns who made copies of Mater Admirabilis and other holy images is entirely consistent with Ignatian spirituality: ‘contemplation in action’, as it is described in Jesuit theology. But the artistic legacy of nuns’ prayerful painting extends beyond the cloister. In responding to and fulfilling the Nazarene vision of religious art as both an exercise in historicism and a set of universal mystical codes perpetuated by their own inherently holy properties, the paintings of nineteenth-century active nuns exerted a quiet but forceful influence on the ‘international’ Roman Catholic style.