Description
St. Hildegard von Bingen icon
© Cecilia Lawrence
October 18th, 2014
Ink, watercolor, gold leaf
4.5 x 6 inches
About 10 Hours
“O glistening starlight,
O royal Bride-elect, resplendent,
O sparkling Gem:
you are robed like a noble Lady
without spot or wrinkle.
Companion of angels,
Fellow citizen with saints—
Flee, flee the ancient
Destroyer’s cave and come—
Come into the palace of the King.”
~ O Choruscans Lux Stellarum by St. Hildegard
Here is another commissioned icon, this time of the great St. Hildegard von Bingen. I chose to depict her with a crosier (symbolizing her status as Benedictine abbess) decorated with leaves and other floral motifs, as a nod to her love for gardening, medicine and nature. Her large volumes of profound, prophetic writings, plays, music and her title as Doctor of the Church made me decide to show her writing in a book. Over her breast is a stylized depiction of her receiving her visions, as she is shown in an illustration from a copy of her Scivas.
:+: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE SAINT :+:
Saint Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – September 17th 1179), (also known as the “Sybil of the Rhine”) was born in Bermersheim vor der Höhe, Germany, to her parents Hildebert of Bermersheim and Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet, who were members of the German lower nobility. Hildegard was the youngest child of ten children, and as the tenth child, she was offered as an oblate to the service of the Church. At the age of three, she began experiencing visions, and at five she realized that what she was experiencing were visions from God. She found it difficult to express what was happening, and kept the matter a secret. At the age of eight, Hildegard went to live with a holy nun named Jutta of Spanheim, who taught her to pray, read, write and study the Scriptures, and also shared her knowledge of plants and medicines with the young girl. Jutta was an anchoress who lived an austere and simple lifestyle, and was enclosed (lived like a hermit near the monastery of Disibodenberg) in 1112, along with Hildegard, who was about fourteen at the time. During these early years, Hildegard was constantly plagued by illness and bad health. She was also troubled by her visions. She finally confided in her friend and mentor Jutta, who also told a monk named Volmar. Volmar became one of Hildegard’s greatest friends and supporters. He encouraged her to write down her visions and to not get disheartened by her illnesses and natural inadequacies. He later became her secretary and confessor, and general spiritual advisor.
When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard (being about thirty-eight) was unanimously elected as magistra of the community. The Benedictine Abbot of the monastery, Kuno of Disibodenberg asked her to be the Prioress, but Hildegard, desiring to found a new convent at Rupertsburg, instead requested permission to move there. The Abbot refused, so Hildegard went to the nearby Archbishop of Mainz, who granted her permission. Abbot Kuno still refused to let her go, and it was only when she was struck by a terrible illness that left her immovable that he relented. So Hildegard moved twenty nuns to the new site at Rupertsburg in 1150 and founded a monastery there, as well as another at Eibingen afterwards. While all this was happening exteriorly, Hildegard experienced visions that commanded her to write down what she saw with great urgency. She was afraid to do so, until she received a direct vision from God commanding her to write. She was forty-two years and seven months old (according to her own description of the event) when she received this vision. Though she did not doubt the divine origins of the vision, she didn’t want to do anything without ecclesiastical approval. She wrote to many eminent bishops and abbots requesting advice on the matter. She even wrote to the great St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who supported her in the matter. Finally, Pope Eugenus heard of Hildegard and her reputation as a holy woman, a visionary and a mystic, and after reading a copy of her writings he gave her Papal approval to write down the things she saw and heard.
With the help of her secretary Volmar, she wrote down her visions in her works Scivias (short for Scito vias Domini “Know the Ways of the Lord”, finished sometime around 1151), the Liber vitae meritorum (“The Book of Life's Merits”, completed around 1163) and the Liber divinorum operum ("The Book of Divine Works", also completed around 1163). She wrote numerous letters to the greatest men and women of her day. She advised abbots and bishops, popes and emperors, and wrote on a diverse number of other topics. Her interests included theology, language, poetry, music, gardening, and medicine. Hildegard’s scientific works include Physica and Causae et Curae, both of which detail her extensive practical and theoretical knowledge of various illnesses, diseases and their cures, as well as expounding her theories on the delicate balance of the human body. In addition, she also wrote exquisite poems celebrating various feast days in the liturgical cycle of the Church. She also composed music to accompany her poems, antiphons and other theological works. Her music has a pure, delicate, ethereal quality to it that is lovely to hear. Her play, the Ordo Virtutum (“The Order of the Virtues”, composed around 1151) is a morality play about the Human Soul (Anima) struggling to fight the Devil and to embrace the Virtues, which help her on her way to God. It is contained within a larger manuscript of works called the Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum ("Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations"), which contains more than 70 liturgical hymns. Among her other numerous accomplishments, Hildegard even invented her own alphabet and language based on Latin, which she called the “Lingua Ignota.”
After a long life of ill health, St. Hildegard died on September 17th 1179 at the age of eighty-one. Even while living she was considered a saint, but after her death, the canonization process took such a long time that she was never formally canonized. But on May 10th 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared Hildegard von Bingen to be a saint, in a process called “equivalent canonization” in which the Pope extends the veneration of a saint to the whole Church. On October 7th, 2012, he declared her to be a Doctor of the Church, making her the fourth woman to be so honored. In his address on Pentecost 2012, he called her “an authentic teacher of theology and a profound scholar of natural science and music” and called her “perennially relevant.”
“And behold! In the forty-third year of my earthly course, as I was gazing with great fear and trembling attention at a heavenly vision, I saw a great splendor in which resounded a voice from Heaven, saying to me, “O fragile human, ashes of ashes, and filth of filth! Say and write what you see and hear. But since you are timid in speaking, and simple in expounding, and untaught in writing, speak and write these things not by a human mouth, and not by the understanding of human invention, and not by the requirements of human composition, but as you see and hear them on high in the heavenly places in the wonders of God.”
“Cry out and speak of the origin of pure salvation until those people are instructed, who, though they see the inmost contents of the Scriptures, do not wish to tell them or preach them, because they are lukewarm and sluggish in serving God’s justice. Unlock for them the enclosure of mysteries that they, timid as they are, conceal in a hidden and fruitless field. Burst forth into a fountain of abundance and overflow with mystical knowledge, until they who now think you contemptible because of Eve’s transgression are stirred up by the flood of your irrigation..”~ from the beginning of St. Hildegard’s Scivias
The Feast of St. Hildegard von Bingen is celebrated on September 17th.
Lord God,
you filled Saint Hildegard with heavenly wisdom.
By her help may we remain true to your teaching
and put it into practice.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Comments: 63
Theophilia In reply to ??? [2024-02-09 04:29:54 +0000 UTC]
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Ahleemah [2021-01-20 00:27:45 +0000 UTC]
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Severusiana [2018-11-30 23:06:12 +0000 UTC]
An amazing woman, I didn´t know her. Thanks by this.
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dixiehellcat [2018-11-21 18:13:48 +0000 UTC]
this is lovely! May I print it off as a gift for a friend? <3
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Theophilia In reply to dixiehellcat [2018-11-26 22:33:12 +0000 UTC]
Thank you! If you would like to order prints from me, you can go to my journal on my front page for information on how to do that.
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juliawaters [2018-02-24 23:37:06 +0000 UTC]
I'm not a religious person, but I am such a fan of your work. It really captures the essence of some of the Renaissance and Catholic art that first inspired me in my own practice. Phenomenal stuff! <3
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IammanyforIamall [2017-02-18 17:43:59 +0000 UTC]
i have a 126 year old book at home (its the book of the saints) and its all in gGerman and your drawings I can honestly say yours are better
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CROMantis [2017-02-02 18:22:47 +0000 UTC]
Bravissimo
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JK-Gallery [2016-08-22 18:38:03 +0000 UTC]
Graet artwork. God bless!
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Christopher-Damiano [2016-04-07 03:16:24 +0000 UTC]
You have a gift for writing icons! Very beautiful! The Lord has truly blessed you!
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belianis [2015-11-24 19:00:14 +0000 UTC]
There are two Hs of music: Handel and Haydn. As you can see in my profile, I'm looking for composers worthy of sharing in the company of GFH and FJH. Mother Hildegard is definitely most worthy.
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Alexis92fr [2015-01-25 12:20:26 +0000 UTC]
Nice work, I love it. Do you sell your painting ?
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nKhyi-naonZgo [2014-11-05 01:58:55 +0000 UTC]
I like the solid look of the halo, how it looks like a golden crown.
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Aranov [2014-10-27 18:43:11 +0000 UTC]
Oh I know her! My best friend learned about her in her music history course. She was really an amazing lady! I had no idea that she did SO MUCH. I like the relative simplicity of this icon. It seems very appropriate that her book is the most ornate part of the composition.
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rushinrulet [2014-10-25 17:38:07 +0000 UTC]
great work! and interesting stuff too. im gonna see if i can track down some of her music. theres something chillingly awesome about music written very long ago
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nKhyi-naonZgo In reply to loverofbeauty [2014-10-28 08:39:00 +0000 UTC]
I would say Eleanor's daughter Marie was more significant than Eleanor was. Marie, as Countess of Champagne, basically commissioned the invention of the novel in the West, thanks to her patronage of the trouvère Chrétien de Troyes (the guy who invented "Arthurian Romance" as we think of it). I know of no entire format of literature (plus an entire major genre) that was invented solely because of Eleanor's tastes in reading-material. Then again the idea there were as few as three "big" women in the Medieval era—an era when women had almost as much influence in society as they do now—is singularly ill-conceived; you might as well talk about the "big three" African-American jazz musicians or the "big three" German-speaking originators of quantum physics.
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loverofbeauty In reply to nKhyi-naonZgo [2014-10-29 03:15:31 +0000 UTC]
Okay, I think there's been a misunderstanding here. If you're comparing Marie and Eleanor solely on their contributions to literature, of course there's going to be a discrepancy in their influences! I was referring to how Eleanor was a major player in European politics for nearly 60 years, and how her relationships with her husbands and sons had significant impact.
Also, "big three" is a very subjective term. Of course there were more than three influential women during the Middle Ages! I was just reiterating something my college professor said!
Finally, I'd be careful about making such blanket statements as "an era when women had almost as much influence in society as they do now". Medieval women could certainly exercise significant power and influence, but to casually make such a statement like it's an undisputed fact (at least that's the way it appears to me) could lead to trouble.
I apologize if any of this sounds overly blunt, but the tone of your comment sounded very condescending to me. If you wanted to debate the things I said, that would have been perfectly fine (indeed, I would have welcomed it), but it seems to me like you're insulting and dismissing the words of a perfectly innocent observation without any real reason, and I don't appreciate it.
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nKhyi-naonZgo In reply to loverofbeauty [2014-10-29 06:18:50 +0000 UTC]
I wasn't insulting and dismissing it, I was merely disagreeing with it. I didn't mean to offend—though I could certainly have given more thought to whether I would offend, I concede.
But I wasn't talking merely in terms of contributions to literature, I was talking "influence". "Caused the invention of an entirely new kind of literature, plus a major genre of fiction" is much more important than anything any single human being can do politically. The old saying goes "let me write a people's songs, and I don't care who writes their laws". And we still write not only novels, but even Arthurian stories—whereas the political system Eleanor worked in was moribund by a century after her death. Any mere political achievement is ephemeral compared to changing the entire popular culture of a continent.
Finally, that medieval women (at least in France, England, and to a lesser extent the Holy Roman Empire, between c. 1100 and 1300) had a vast social role, certainly more than was typical of any era of Eurasian history before or since, until quite recent times (they could vote, for example, in any assembly where men of their class could—do you know when they got that right back, in most European societies?)...is something very few serious historians do dispute, at least not without open acknowledgment that disputing it is now a minority view and bears the burden of proof. It's not quite undisputed, but it is the broad scholarly consensus.
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DCJBeers [2014-10-25 02:51:21 +0000 UTC]
More wonderful work!
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glasslinger [2014-10-24 21:30:14 +0000 UTC]
Very nice work..
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hockeymask [2014-10-24 14:13:28 +0000 UTC]
I was thinking about your art today and I find this .I know nothing of this saint but as always , the details in your work are astounding .The biography you provide is great and saves me having to look it up.Top stuff !
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