The PTR | Issue 36 http://www.princetontheologicalreview.org/issues_web/36_text... A VACATION FOR GRÜNEWALD: ON KARL BARTH'S VEXED RELATIONSHIP WITH VISUAL ART Matthias Grünewald could use a break. An illustration can only be used so many times before it loses its effectiveness, and on that score Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece as a visual companion to Karl Barth’s theology has, due to extreme over-employment, been wearing somewhat thin. For Grünewald’s sake, and for Barth’s – it may be time for a change. Of course, it is not that Grünewald’s position was undeserved. The Isenheim Altarpiece is one of the few visual theological illustrations that was consistently used by Barth himself. Roy Harrisville reminds us of the career-long, and not always positive, presence that the altarpiece had in Barth’s career: Barth referred to the Isenheim Altarpiece a score of times. A reproduction of it stood next to or above his desk for years. Notes from his confirmation instruction at his parish in Safenwil in 1918-1919 assign the retable a prophetic role. The crucified Christ is a reminder of death ‘with all its horrors and mysteries,’ while the group on the left reflects ‘humanity in face of its fate,’ the hand-wringing Magdalene on the right ‘the weakness of our good will,’ and the hand of the Baptist ‘judgment and grace.(1) Barth’s Grünewald references continued in the Letter to the Romans and his lectures on Calvin. And though in the lectures on Schleiermacher we are told to “forget Grünewald, the Middle Ages and the Reformation to let the Berliner speak,” (2) the Isenheim altarpiece reappears in the Church Dogmatics four times, where in one instance Barth asks, Can anyone point away from himself more impressively and completely (illum oportet crescere me autem nimui)? And can any one point to the thing indicated more impressively and realistically, than is done there?(3) That famous crooked finger of John the Baptist even serves as an illustration of the theme that is the beating heart of the Church Dogmatics: This is the place of Christology. It faces the mystery. It does not stand within the mystery. It can and must adore with Mary and point with the Baptist. It cannot and must not do more than this. But it can and must do this.(4) Certainly, therefore, the Isenheim Altarpiece is a well-suited illustration of Barthian themes. But might students of Barth seeking visual companions to his ideas be permitted even a little variety? Furthermore, might there be a piece of visual art that illustrates Barthian themes better than Grünewald can? I think so. But before that question is explored, some remarks are in order as to whether visual art and Barth’s theology can be mixed at all. For it is frequently remarked how odd it is that a theologian so suspicious of the visual arts would find an altarpiece a lifelong partner in theological dialogue. BARTH AND ART? Was Karl Barth really disapproving of any visual art that depicted Christ? Indeed he was.(5) Barth is often 3 of 93 9/28/12 3:19 PM The PTR | Issue 36 http://www.princetontheologicalreview.org/issues_web/36_text... accused of positions he did not hold, and certainly the volume of his output is such that attempts to isolate any single position are suspect, but nevertheless I do not see any way out of the fact that he held this one. Barth’s reflection on the Isenheim Altarpiece is the exception that proves his rule. Although the Grünewald references show he permitted an illustrative role to depictions of Christ, and though Barth himself showed frequent aesthetic sympathies, (6) still his view of depicting Christ in the first place is clear: It could not and cannot be anything but a sorry story. No human art should try to represent – in their unity – the suffering God and triumphant man, the beauty of God which is the beauty of Jesus Christ. If at this point we have one urgent request to all Christian artists, however well intentioned, gifted or even possessed of genius, it is that they should give up this unholy undertaking – for the sake of God’s beauty. (7) Lest one think that this was an early career inclination that Barth somehow outgrew, a similar statement appears towards the end of the Dogmatics, where Barth sadly regurgitates arguments deemed Christologically heretical by the 7th ecumenical council: … even the most excellent of plastic arts does not have the means to display Jesus Christ in His truth, i.e., in His unity as true Son of God and Son of Man. There will necessarily be either on the one side, as in the great Italians, an abstract and docetic over-emphasis on His deity, or on the other, as in Rembrandt, an equally abstract, Ebionite over-emphasis on His humanity, so that even with the best of intentions error will be promoted…. It is better not to allow works of this kind to compete with the ministry of preaching. (8) The only conclusion that I am able to draw from these statements is that as much as the Isenheim Altarpiece is helpful in illustrating Barth’s ideas, because it depicts Christ in one of the forbidden manners (in this case the Ebionite over-emphasis on humanity), it would nevertheless have been better, from a strictly Barthian point of view, if the Isenheim Altarpiece had not been made! Fortunately, there is no reason to be bound to proceed from a strictly Barthian point of view.(9) For the sake of Barth’s greater insights, his weaker ones – in this case his iconoclasm - may have to be jettisoned. Doing so enables the discovery of a different piece of medieval visual art that magnificently displays Barth’s greatest theological insight. THE GHENT ALTERPIECE Proceeding then on a road paved by Barth himself – using altarpieces to illustrate theology – I’d like to recommend the justly famous Ghent Altarpiece (10) as a more adequate visual representation of the theology of Karl Barth (Fig. 1). The numerous, erudite, and clearly legible inscriptions on the altarpiece are testimony to its theological precision and didactic intent, making it a unique match to the likewise erudite Barth. (11) But the commonalities between the Ghent Altarpiece and Barth go well beyond mere sophistication. 4 of 93 9/28/12 3:19 PM The PTR | Issue 36 http://www.princetontheologicalreview.org/issues_web/36_text... Ghent Altarpiece Though the entire gospel narrative, fall to eschaton, is carefully recounted in the twelve panels of the Ghent Altarpiece, I will limit myself to reflection on the central upper and lower panels.(12) The upper right panel shares with the Isenheim Altarpiece that central motif which so impressed Barth, the pointing finger of John the Baptist. But to whom is John the Baptist pointing in the Ghent Altarpiece? Who is the central figure in the central upper panel? In seeking to answer this long debated iconographical question, and its relation to the lower panel, we will find just how much promise for Barth’s theology the Ghent Altarpiece contains. At the considerable risk of weighing down a masterpiece of art with theological jargon, for my purposes the upper central panel and its mysterious central figure will be assumed to correspond to the immanent Trinity (who God is “in Himself”), and the lower to the economic Trinity (who God is “for us”). The intimate connection between the two spheres is a point made as forcefully by this altarpiece as it is by Barth. Like Barth, the Ghent Altarpiece does not “solve the Christological mystery by juggling it away” with modalist or subordinationist heresy.(13) Instead Barth insists on “the offensive fact that there is in God Himself an above and a below, a prius and a posterius, a superiority and a subordination,”(14) facts beautifully conveyed in the upper and lower central panels of the Ghent Altarpiece. The connection between the two panels preserves the “most offensive fact of all, that there is a below, a posterius, a subordination, that it belongs to the inner life of God...” (15) Modalism is avoided by the fact that there is both an upper and a lower panel. God “stays home” even while he ventures into the far country. Subordinationism is avoided by the puzzling unity of the two panels, a unity I will now explore. In the lower panel (the economic Trinity) all humanity, Christian and non- Christian, has gathered around the lamb. Eucharistic and baptismal imagery abound, and the inscription is straightforward enough: “Ecce agnus Dei qui tollet peccata mundi.” This is what we know of God’s economic activity on behalf of our salvation. Christ speaks to us of God. Making a connection between “the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” and Barth’s theology should not be a strain on anyone’s credulity, nor would it be a very remarkable connection to make. In the lower panel (the economic Trinity) all humanity, Christian and non- Christian, has gathered around the lamb. Eucharistic and baptismal imagery abound, and the inscription is straightforward enough: “Ecce agnus Dei qui tollet peccata mundi.” This is what we know of God’s economic activity on behalf of our salvation. Christ speaks to us of God. Making a connection between “the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” and Barth’s theology should not be a strain on anyone’s credulity, nor would it be a very remarkable connection to make. 5 of 93 9/28/12 3:19 PM The PTR | Issue 36 http://www.princetontheologicalreview.org/issues_web/36_text... But what of the upper panel, God “in Himself”? We can safely consider one Barthian insight—if not the central insight—to be the elimination of any “God behind God,” and the focusing of all reflection on the divine nature in the person of Jesus Christ. Writes Barth: Of what value would His deity be to us if – instead of crossing in that deity the very real gulf between Himself and us – He left that deity behind Him in His coming to us, if it came to be outside of Him as He became ours? What would be the value to us of His way into the far country [the lower panel] if in the course of it He lost Himself [the upper panel]?(16) Central to Barth’s Trinitarian theology is that God as revealed in Christ is not divorced from who God is in Himself. And central to the Ghent Altarpiece is that God in Christ, depicted as the lamb in the lower panel, is intimately connected to God’s own nature, depicted directly above. Art historical debate has long contested who the upper figure is. Is it Christ or the Father?(17) That the figure is the Father seems to be indicated by the papal tiara, normally connected iconographically to the first person of the Trinity, as well as by the royal scepter in place of Christ’s traditional Gospel book. Furthermore, the word on the sash, “Sabaot” refers to the God as the “Lord of Hosts,” words connected to the Father during the sanctus of the medieval Mass. There also appears initially to be no hand wounds that would belong to Christ. Finally, the words on the back of the throne “Hic est Deus…” though not ruling out the divine Christ, seem nonetheless to invoke the Father. However, there is also sufficient evidence to support the thesis that the middle figure is Christ. Firstly, that the figure is Christ seems to be indicated by the features. A youthful brown beard replaces the traditional white beard that can be seen in similar figures of the Father. Secondly, the standard medieval Deësis, of which this seems to be an obvious example, depicts Mary and John the Baptist flanking not the Father, but Christ. In addition, the evidence that there are no hand-wounds can be mischievously (but fairly) contested by suggesting that the way Christ’s fingers fall perfectly conceal the wounds. Finally, there is inscription evidence to suggest Christ as well. Directly to the left of the figure is a picture of a pelican pecking its chest to feed its young, a clear reference to Christ which is further bolstered by the unmistakable Greek inscription, IHESUS XPS. So who is this illusive central figure? Christ or the Father? It is perhaps as difficult to answer this question as it is to understand the depths and contours of Barth’s Trinitarian theology. Regarding the illusive figure, art historian Dana Goodgal suggests that, When all the attributes and inscriptions are understood together … they characterize the united Godhead … the inscription describing his divine nature, the figure, his human nature. (18) Above we saw that Barth pointed out that depictions of Christ err towards a “docetic over-emphasis on His deity,” on the one hand, and “an equally abstract, Ebionite over-emphasis on His humanity” on the other. But by dialectically setting the inscription (suggesting deity) against the depiction (suggesting humanity), we may have a case in the Ghent Altarpiece complex enough to avoid Barth’s dilemma.19 Yet, interesting as this avoidance may be, the Ghent connection to Barth’s theology is more significant than the mere fact that this kind of depiction might, by Barthian criteria, be allowed. Again, who is the figure? Christ or the Father? After summarizing the centuries long debate, the eminent art historian Erwin Panofsky suggested a solution: From the dogmatic point of view this figure belongs in the same class as its forerunners, its 6 of 93 9/28/12 3:19 PM The PTR | Issue 36 http://www.princetontheologicalreview.org/issues_web/36_text... parallels, and its Flemish derivatives: it fuses the three Persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost into one image which is dogmatically equivalent to the whole Trinity. (20) But Panofsky’s tidy iconographical resolution – that the figure simply represents the Trinity – may be more than the Ghent Altarpiece wants to give. What if the tension between Christ and the Father is not meant to be resolved? Perhaps the aim of the altarpiece is to keep us guessing, and perhaps the point of the guessing is to drive home the idea that we cannot think of God the Father at all apart from the form and figure of Christ. In The Humanity of God, Barth declares that there can “be no theological visual art. Since it is an event, the humanity of God does not permit itself to be fixed in an image.” (21) However, the Ghent Altarpiece, with its spring-loaded tension between Father and Son, perhaps avoids Barth’s critique that theological visual art must be static.(22) A figure that preserves a holy ambiguity between Christ and the Father illustrates, in a theologically appropriate way, Christ’s statement that “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). And when this mysterious figure is seen in context with the adoration of the Lamb in the panel below, the key Barthian theme emerges: That the God who ventured below into the far country has always been anticipating, by His Trinitarian nature, this very outpouring of love. The crown laid down at the foot of the God above declares that self-emptying kenosis is intrinsic to Christ’s very nature. The Ghent Altarpiece illustrates, better than any work of art that I’m aware of, that “the One who reconciles the world with God is necessarily the one God Himself in His true Godhead.”(23) The difference between the Ghent Altarpiece and Barth’s Trinitarian reflection is that in Ghent the idea can be seen, which after all is something Barth clearly wanted his readers to do: This concealment, and therefore His condescension as such, is the image and reflection in which we see Him as He is… Everything depends on our seeing it, and in it the true and majestic nature of God: not trying to construct it arbitrarily; but deducing it from its revelation in the divine nature of Jesus Christ. (24) GETTING IT WRONG Perhaps the significance of this kind of medieval visual connection to Barth’s theology can be underscored by another piece of medieval art that makes almost the exact opposite assertion. In the same crucial passage from which I have been quoting, Barth warns that we cannot be disturbed or confused by any pictures of false gods…. not an ontic and inward divine paradox, the postulate of which has its basis only in our own very real contradiction against God and the false ideas of God which correspond to it. (25) 7 of 93 9/28/12 3:19 PM The PTR | Issue 36 http://www.princetontheologicalreview.org/issues_web/36_text... Figure 2: Coronation by Charonton in Avignon We have seen what a visual depiction of the proper Trinitarian concept would look like, but what would the sub-Christian “ontic and inward divine paradox” look like? What would the divorce of the economic and ontological Trinity, contra both Barth and Ghent, look like? An illustrated devotional manual of the fourteenth century Rhineland Mystic Henry Suso may give us an answer. The manuscript contains an elaborate diagram that charts the mystical path that Suso commends (Fig. 3). Explains Jeffrey Hamburger, Beginning at the upper right and progressing in clockwise fashion, the drawing traces the progress of the soul, from its origins in the Trinity, through the imitatio Christi, to its ultimate destination, reunion with the Godhead, represented at upper left as a passage through the veil of the tabernacle into the midst of three concentric circles. (26) Figure 3: Henry Suso Manual (Bibliothèque nationale de France) A more blatant illustration of the “God behind God” which Barth found so abhorrent is difficult to conceive. The goal of the mystical path is to get past the Trinity to the uncharted, dark concentric circles of the Godhead. Admittedly, in Suso’s theology “images were considered appropriate to the lower, preliminary stages of the mystical itinerary … but by necessity were abandoned at the highest level of contemplation.” (27) Yet provisional or not, there can be no doubt that the images used at the preliminary level convey a troubling and obfuscating message. In contrast we have the Ghent Altarpiece, illustrating Barth’s essential notion that “there is no height or depth in which God can be God in any other way.”(28) CONCLUSION Karl Barth’s relationship to visual art seems not entirely unlike his relationship with Charlotte von Kirschbaum: Stimulating, inspiring, but for a complicated set of reasons, formally unconsummated. Saddled with tensions from an unhappy marriage and his Swiss iconoclasm, Barth proceeded on both the romantic and artistic fronts as he could. But there is no reason we need inherit Barth’s circumstantial tensions either in our private lives or in the realm of visual art. 8 of 93 9/28/12 3:19 PM The PTR | Issue 36 http://www.princetontheologicalreview.org/issues_web/36_text... Art is neutral. It can, perfectly fulfilling Barth’s fears, be a source of theological confusion as with the devotional manual of Henry Suso. It can also, as in the Ghent Altarpiece, express theological truth with unique precision and force. Hence, I have attempted to show here that there is more than one way to visually illustrate Barth’s theology, and certainly among them is the Ghent Altarpiece. Thanks to the dynamism of the inscrutable upper figure, it avoids Barth’s standard critique of images of Christ. Beyond this, it illustrates that central Barthian insight, recalling the “light from light” of the Nicene Creed, that The One who reconciles the world with God [lower panel] is necessarily the one God Himself in His true Godhead [upper panel]. Otherwise the world would not be reconciled with God. (26) How remarkable that a depiction of Christ in visual art, a matter on which Barth was wrong, so wonderfully captures Barth’s Trinitarian theology, a much more significant matter on which he was so right. MATTHEW J. MILLINER MATTHEW HOLDS A BA FROM WHEATON COLLEGE, IL IN ART HISTORY AND A MDIV FROM PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. HE IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON A PHD IN MEDIEVAL AND BYZANTINE ART AT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY. Notes 1 Roy Harrisville, “Encounter with Grunewald,” Currents in Theology and Mission 31, no. 1 February 2004): 5-14. 2 Ibid. 3 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 126. 4 Ibid., 125. Yet, later in the same volume he warns, “If we presume to point directly to it, to dream of coming forward ourselves, somewhat in the attitude of Grünewald’s John, as witness to this event, we should be alleging what one should never think of alleging … the word ‘pointer’ would then be merely another word for ‘presupposition’” (ibid., 301). 5 The remarks of John Dillenberger neatly summarize Barth’s overall attitude: “The verbal imagination of Barth is indisputable. His delight in and his writings on Mozart are common knowledge, and Grünewald’s Crucifixion meant much to him. But he opposed placing stained glass in the Basel minister and his theological comments on the visual arts of painting and sculpture in relation to the church were few and mainly negative in character. Images and symbols, he declared, ‘have no place at all in a building designed for Protestant worship.’ And though his correspondence with Carl Zuckmayer ‘shows human and cultural concerns so characteristic of Barth, but for him, theology as a discipline is different from all that.’ (“Contemporary Theologians and the Visual Arts,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 53:4 [Dec. 1985]: 602). 6 For example, Barth makes the following strong observation: “The word and command of God demand art, since it is art that sets us under the word of the new heaven and the new earth. Those who, in principle or out of indolence, want to evade the anticipatory creativity of aesthetics are certainly not good. Finally, in the proper sense, to be unaesthetic is to be immoral and disobedient” (Ethics, ed. D. Braun [New York: Seabury Press, 1981], 510). Yet, my concern in this essay is visual art representing Christ, for which Barth makes the exact opposite claim. 7 Karl Barth, CD II/1, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 666. 8 Karl Barth, CD IV/3.2, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1962), 868. The iconoclastic Byzantine Emperor Constantine V made similar arguments, prohibiting icons of Christ on the basis that they could depict only Christ’s deity (and thus depict the undepictable and provoke idolatry) or only Christ’s humanity (necessitating a Nestorian separation of Christ from his deity). By limiting the Christ icon to depicting neither the human nor divine nature, but the composite hypostasis of Christ’s person, Theodore of Studios overcame Constantine’s arguments, which were in turn themselves deemed heretical at the Triumph of Orthodoxy in 843. 9 Were one nevertheless so inclined, one could proceed on strictly Barthian grounds by taking a cue from recent arguments for the use of embryonic stem cell lines: To produce new ones strictly for research is unethical, but one can employ the lines that are already made. Likewise, to continue to produce paintings of Christ is (for Barth) an “unholy undertaking,” but this does not preclude gaining insight from art (like the Isenheim or Ghent altarpiece) already in existence. Should one still object that employing visual art to depict Barth’s theology is impermissible in light of his objections, one solid if childish argument remains: He started it. 10 The literature on the Ghent altarpiece is enormous, and has recently been well compiled in a dissertation by Dana Ruth Goodgal (The Iconography of the Ghent Altarpiece, University of Pennsylvania, 1981). Goodgal makes a convincing case that the altarpiece in its original context proves to be a complicated and rich illustration of medieval Eucharistic theology, as informed by the well studied 9 of 93 9/28/12 3:19 PM The PTR | Issue 36 http://www.princetontheologicalreview.org/issues_web/36_text... theological consults equipped by the impressive library of the St. Bavo monastery. I am admittedly stepping far afield from this warranted contextual interpretation by applying a Barthian insight. But by dropping the smokebomb of postmodern hermeneutics, I should invoke enough confusion to enable me to proceed. 11 Goodgal (see note 10) makes a convincing case that the inscriptions reflect the ideas of medieval theologian Oliver de Langhe who must have worked closely with the artists, one or both of the brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Would that contemporary theologians resume their historic role of theological consultation to artists 12 Considering the depth of this altarpiece and length of the Dogmatics, many alternative connections could be fruitfully explored. 13 Karl Barth, CD IV/1, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1956), 200. 14 Ibid., 201. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., 185. 17 A summation of the debate by an art historian of near Barthian stature (respective to his discipline) can be found in Erwin Panofsky’s “Once More: ‘The Friedsam Annunciation and the Problem of the Ghent Altarpiece’” (The Art Bulletin 20:4 [Dec. 1938]): 433ff. 18 Goodgal, Iconography, 280. The full translation of the inscription surrounding God the throne is “Here is God, most powerful because of his divine majesty and high over all because of his sweet goodness and most generous in giving because of his measureless bounty.” 19 Such gymnastics are hardly necessary however, for the standard Eastern icon, as understood in the reflection of Theodore of Studios and Patriarch Nicephoros, avoids the Barthian dilemma as well (see note 8 above). 20 Panofsky, “Once More,” 442. 21 Karl Barth, The Humanity of God (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1960), 57. 22 The Isenheim Altarpiece, I am moved to reassert, does not avoid Barth’s critique. 23 Karl Barth CD IV/1, 193. For another visual example of Christ being in the form of God, one might point to the bizarrely literal depiction of Christ crowning the Virgin, accompanied by the Father who, following the stipulations of the commissioning contract, looks exactly the same (Coronation by Charonton in Avignon, Fig. 2). This would seem to also make the point, but the loss of ambiguity, even the eerie literalness, leads me to conclude it does not do so nearly as well. 24 Karl Barth CD IV/1, 188. 25 Ibid. 26 Jeffrey Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998), 202. 27 Ibid. 28 Karl Barth, CD II/1, ed. G.W. Bromiley and T.F. Torrance (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1957), 77. 29 Karl Barth, CD IV/1, 193. 10 of 93 9/28/12 3:19 PM