Edvard Munch, the Norwegian artist whose painting, ‘The Scream’ (above) is one of the most famous images in modern art, was born today in 1863. His mother died when he was five, and his father, a devout and obsessive Christian, brought him up in an atmosphere of religious claustrophobia. ‘Illness, madness and death were the black angels that kept watch over my cradle,’ he said. He went on to explore the human condition, creating images of loneliness and terror which are direct, powerful and unsettling.
‘One evening I was walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjord – the sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood-red. I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. I painted this picture, painted the clouds as actual blood. The color shrieked. This became “The Scream”.’ Edvard Munch, diary entry, 1892
Today in 1531, the Blessed Virgin appeared to Juan Diego, an Aztec convert to Christianity from Cuautitlán, Mexico, requesting a shrine be built for her. When Juan passed on the message to the Archbishop of México City, the Archbishop refused to believe the story, but after several more meetings he asked for a miraculous sign. ‘The heavenly lady’ then poured many different kinds of Spanish flowers, not native to Mexico, and not in season, into Juan’s tilma (cloak). When he in turn poured the flowers at the feet of the Archbishop, there printed on the inside of the cloak was a miraculous image of the Virgin Mary. The event and the image of Mary is celebrated in Mexico’s greatest religious festival, the Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
‘Am I, your mother, not here? Are you not under my protective shade, my shadow? Am I not your happiness? Are you not in the security of my lapfold, in my carrying gear? Do you need something more? Do not let anything worry you or upset you further.’ The Virgin Mary reassures Juan Diego
Today in 1666, the tyrannical, reforming Patriarch Nikon of Moscow was deposed by a Church council and reduced to the status of a lay monk. He was put onto a fast sledge and carried off into exile in the remote Ferapontov Monastery, where he remained for almost 10 years. Nikon, who reckoned himself to be more powerful than the Tsar, had carried out his reforms by demolishing incorrectly designed churches, gouging out the eyes on icons which were in the wrong style, exiling priests along with their wives and children to Siberia, and personally wearing fabulously ornate vestments and jewels worth 30,000 rubles. His actions split the Church and made him some very powerful enemies, who now took their revenge on him.
On this day in 1204, Moses Maimonides, the medieval Jewish teacher and philosopher, as well as being a physician and medical writer, died in Egypt and was later taken to be buried in Tiberias, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. His writings have had a profound influence on Jewish philosophy and theology, as well as on Christian theologians such as Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart. His best known work is The Guide for the Perplexed, which explores a Jewish view of God, creation, evil, providence, the law and the prophets. It was denounced as heresy and burned by Jewish, Muslim and Christian authorities, but was highly influential for centuries after the time of Maimonides.
‘Do not imagine that these most difficult problems can be thoroughly understood by any one of us… We are like those who, though beholding frequent flashes of lightning, still find themselves in the thickest darkness of the night.’ Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed
Bedřich Hrozný, the Czech linguist who worked from clay tablets to decipher the ancient Hittite script, and who thus helped shed light on the world of the Old Testament, died today in 1952. The Hittites had a powerful empire in what is now eastern Turkey before they were overcome by the Assyrians. The Bible’s most famous Hittite is Uriah the Hittite, whose death was arranged by King David so he could cover up his rape of Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife.
Image: Munchmuseet / CC BY 4.0