Two Portraits of Ignatius of Loyola Painted on Copper
- Format:
- Conference Paper
- Year:
- 2021
- Event Date:
- June 16
- Event Institution:
- Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies, University of York
- Conference Title:
- How to be a Jesuit Saint in 1622 ca: The Canonisation of Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier in Context
- Conference Location:
- York
- Language:
- Abstract:
My paper will examine two small portraits of Ignatius of Loyola painted on copper around 1600. They are both unattributed, but we know that at least one of them was part of the third vera effigies campaign initiated by the Belgian father Olivier Mannaerts, a former companion of Ignatius (Fig. 1). I will point out the enlivening and transformational qualities of the two portraits by focusing on their materiality at the intersection between painting, metallurgy and alchemy. In this respect, fire, warmth, and heat play a major role, respectively, which I shall connect to the fiery nature of Ignatius of Loyola, as evidenced by the well-known Ignatius/igneus pun. Whereas Andrea Pozzo’s ceiling fresco in Sant’Ignazio in Rome is almost famous representations of Ignatius within a fiery iconography, the pun was also taken up in anti-Jesuit propaganda, e.g. in the frontispiece of the Pyrotechnica Loyolana, Ignatian Fireworks. Or, the Fiery Jesuits Temper and Behaviour, anonymously published in 1667. My paper will shed light on the early history of Ignatius’s fiery nature, at a time when the Jesuits began to firmly promote his canonization. I will first argue that the brilliance of colour, a distinctive feature of painting on copper, evokes a vivid, lifelike portrait, and likewise visualizes Filippo Neri’s account of Ignatius’s supernatural splendour. Secondly, I will focus on the transformative and generative power of fire. Flemish allegories of fire painted on copper by Jan Brueghel, among others, show the productive operations of fire necessary to refine base materials and to create glass- and metalwork. In the context of spiritual alchemy, Ignatius similarly functions as a generative (divine) fire that enflames the viewer’s heart and spiritually transmutes and perfects the beholder.
- Who (Jesuits):
- What (Subjects):
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