Holy headlessness. Beheading, death and various afterlives of sacred sculptures

Beheaded and mutilated medieval Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. Musée National du Moyen Âge, Paris

(An initial comment: Since I started planning this blog post on beheaded sacred images and their afterlives some weeks ago, recent events in Paris and other places in the world have brought the topic of violence, domestication and exercise of power under a religious label to a whole new and urgent level. I will not go into these events here at this point, but hope to return to them in the near future.)

I cannot think of a better topic for waking a resting blog, than resurrections and afterlives. Well, and some quite dramatic beheadings, of course - after all, I tend to end up reflecting on death every so often in this peculiar research topic of mine. As some of you might recall, It all started with a headless Jesus; my PhD journey took off when I encountered a headless Jesus in a Swedish cathedral, and couldn't make up my mind as to wether I regarded it primarily as a devotional, a historical or a cultural object. The broken state of this medieval sculpture is in no way unique in a Swedish context, but rather the normal condition. Worth noticing is that the present appearance of the medieval Catholic sculptures in Sweden is not a result of intentional mutilation or political violence, but of neglect in some church attic or shed after they came out of fashion (and, in some way, became dangerous) after the Reformation. With this, the Catholic sculptures were physically stowed away and out of sight, to be re-used as examples of a long history and proud national antiquities a century later in late 17th century. Seeing Catholic images presented like this creates an image of distance, of mysticism maybe, of historical pasts and beliefs, and of authenticity. The result, at least in Sweden, appears to be a sense of holiness and authenticity attached more strongly to these damaged images in a museum display or to a church ruin, than to sacred buildings and objects still in their original use.

Old and sacred matter the way I grew up seeing it in Sweden: broken, damaged and displayed museum objects with a narrative taking place in a time very long ago. (Gotlands Museum, Sweden)

When I recently took part in an international seminar at École du Louvre in Paris, on the musealisation of sacred buildings, I enthusiastically continued on this grim path, and learnt more about how the sacred images in France lost their heads.

Beheaded saints from the facade of Notre Dame de Paris, now in Musée National du Moyen-Âge.

Fact is, I was quite stunned by the ever-present and large number of beheaded saints and Marys that met me in various museums. In Musée National du Moyen-Âge were armies of saints ripped down from church facades, and individual sculptures with heads, hands and in some cases also their genitalia cut off. In other museums displaying religious art I met them too. Their headlessness is a result of the violent suppression of all forms of religion during the French revolution, primarily in the 1790's, when the churches were stripped of decoration and furniture, and the sacred art in many cases was mutilated or destroyed. The destruction here was violent, an act of dominance and an attempt to eradicate certain beliefs - and a jump start to musealisation of sacred objects and places. 

In the turmoil during the revolution, the sacred objects that were not destroyed were brought to Bibliothèque Nationale, which besides being a library at the time also functioned as a forerunner to Musée du Louvre. Objects made of precious metals were to be melted down for more useful purposes, and only objects of a certain "historical value" were to be spared. Thus, the heritagisation process in a nutshell: a quick shift from accentuating the sacred value to promoting (and, in fact, legitimizing the existence of an object with) the historical or heritage value.

Headless saint in a church museum in Angers

So, comparing the sacred headlessnesses in my own country with those in France, I find some major differences:

1) The heads in Sweden were almost always lost because of neglect after the Reformation, or because of popular beliefs that for example the wooden head of baby Jesus could ease the pain of a woman during childbirth if put in her bed (and sometimes didn't make it back to the church, or got lost, as loose details tend to do), but not in an act of religious or political violence. The heads in France, on the other hand, were intentionally and violently cut off to suppress and domesticate religion, and remove it from society in every shape but as historical and artistic artifacts.

2) In France these beheaded images are now on display in museums, telling stories about violent acts in the history of France, about religious beliefs and practices in the past, and about the artistic skills in various periods. I saw no beheaded saints in churches, used as devotional objects - but quite a few copies from the Viollet le Duc era in the 19th century. 

In Sweden however, as I have stated previously, even the beheaded images can be used for devotion and seen as sacred - perhaps even more sacred and authentic than the better preserved or recently made ones? There is something fishy about the secularized Swedes and decaying heritage... (OK, sorry. I can't keep myself from referring to this favorite scene in the film "Peter's friends", where an American actress expresses her admiration for the old English mansion and adds that she has seen something just like it in the States, "but brand new!". Look here, at 1.09...)

So, is this displaying of beheaded and mutilated sacredness, also with various agendas, something unique to Christianity? Well, you just have to take a quick look in interior decoration magazines and the fancy Buddha-heads-in-bookshelves (not seldom side by side with a Lourdes madonna) to realize that there is more to it than that.

Musée Guimet, Paris

Not only interior decorations, but also museums are filled with Buddhistic and other religious Asian art, often in fragments or damaged condition. I ask myself if the level of exoticism and aestheticism in these objects is higher, and the religious content less obvious, to a Western audience?

 Damaged Buddha at Musée Guimet, Paris

Musealised Buddha in New South Wales Art Gallery, Sydney

Visiting the Jim Thompson House Museum in Bangkok where an American collector and silk factory director assembled a group of Thai houses into a Western interpretation of typical Thai style, I was fascinated by the rich collection of Buddhas - many of which headless. I asked the tour guide how Thai Buddhists regarded these statues, and was told that damaged Buddhas are connected to bad luck and are therefore not to be kept at home. Being holy, they however can not be disposed of in a careless way, but are brought (back, in a way) to the temple, where a special room serves as a final resting place for damaged and used Buddhas. 

Intentionally beheaded Buddha at Jim Thompson House Museum, Bangkok

Buddhas, and more Buddhas, in Jim Thompson's house

In Jim Thompson's House Museum, the headless and damaged Buddhas seem to go well in line with the eclectic westernized assembly of Thai art objects and architecture, forming a magnificent and all new creation built on heritage and aesthetics. The presence of the damaged and beheaded Buddhas in a home might be unthinkable for a Buddhist believer, but in this home formed by a foreigner's eye, the damaged state poses no religious problem and goes well side by side with ancient pottery and other objects with patina.

Coming this far in the guided tour my curiosity on beheaded sacredness was triggered, and I asked the guide why the Buddhas were missing their heads? The answer was, in this case, neither the Swedish Lutheran neglect or the French revolutionary rage and domestication. The explanation was more one of greed and materiality: in connection to conflicts treasure hunters were after precious metals and valuable objects, and they had heard that some Buddha sculptures were made of gold and painted over. To check the presumed material preciousness of the Buddhas, they cut the heads off, and if (as in the case here) the material was a less precious one, the beheaded figure was left behind to meet another destiny: as museum or collector's object.

Buddha head on display, NSW Art Gallery, Sydney. Not a Buddhist display, but okay in a museum.

Travel Buddhas in the museum shop at Musée Guimet. Pick your favorite color, please!

Looking at these three examples from three different historical, cultural and religious contexts, we find three different motives behind the missing heads of sacred sculptures - religiously motivated neglect, political violence, and plundering - and three different kinds of afterlife: museum objects, a final rest in the temple, or resurrection as sacred object in mutilated state. While mutilation or damages in some cultures make the images impossible for sacred use, it rather seems to reinforce the sacred and authentic qualities in countries like my own. Heritage can, obviously, act as a new religion, creating meaning and traditions in a time where traditional religious institutions are regarded with suspicion and by some even claimed to have played out their role. From holy headlessness to holy heritage, perhaps..?

At the core of all this heritage, death and afterlife dwells the complex question of Eternity - a time frame set for many collections in another time, but which for many reasons seems quite problematic today. And to be honest (quoting one of my secular house gods, Freddie Mercury): Who wants to live forever?

Sometimes, I can't blame the escaped gargoyle in the facade of Notre Dame de Paris: it hit the road, leaving nothing but its paws behind. A pawless afterlife, and an escape from material sacredness...

Domesticating the Medusa

 

When working on a long-term creative project such as a PhD, it is fascinating (and also a little scary) to follow the winding trail of one's own thoughts: circling around shifting themes, digging deep in details that might prove useful (or not), drifting away, then drawn in towards the core of the problem again. It is a privilege, and an art to learn and - hopefully - master one day.

Recently, those untamable thoughts of mine have dwelled a lot on Domination and Domestication, and on Control and Power. And, as almost always, an image started it all... This time, it was a blessed moment in the Yerebatan Sarayi, the 6th century "underground palace" in Istanbul, perhaps better known as Justinian's water cistern. 

336 columns, water, fish and coolness: Subterranean Istanbul magic

In the early morning hours of the last day in Istanbul and the ISCH conference, I managed to see this underground kingdom of sweet water, fat fish, stone columns and historical stories and layers literally placed on top of each other. I was amazed by the beauty and the vastness, and by the ingenious idea of a subterranean lake and food supply, accessible through holes in the courtyards of the Byzantine and, later, Ottoman inhabitants in the city.

For those of you who have been there, you know that the typical signs for tourists about Things Of Importance That Must Not Be Missed were there, too - the kind of signs that, I must confess, always make me more curious about what strange and exciting things might dwell in the other direction. This time, however, the notion of Medusa and her petrifying gaze made me actually follow the signs to see the two Antique Medusa stone heads placed as column bases at the far end of the hall. This is what I saw:

Medusa's head, de-charged by not only being used as a column base but also - deliberately - turned upside down. Domination and domestication, hands-on style.

The information signs told me that the two Medusa heads dated from an earlier Classical period, that the reason for why they were used as column bases is a matter of discussion among researchers, but that everyone seem to agree that they were deliberately placed here and in this way, and probably as a way to control and domesticate them. This goes along very well with the ideas in my dissertation project, on heritagisation (in my case, of religion) as an act of control and domestication of the disturbing and dangerous. However, down there, in the cool silence below the busy city and facing the upside down faced domesticated Medusa, yet another dimension of this struggle for power and domination in historiography struck me. Medusa, being the most terrible of three mythological Gorgon sisters, and the one whose mere gaze had the power to petrify any human meeting it, could in fact be a metaphor for the heritagisation process as I perceive it: the beholder (i.e., the museum curator, the heritage bureaucrat, the historian, the tourist guide, etc) has the power - knowing it or not - to petrify living things, environments, immaterial customs etc, and turn them into well preserved heritage with a designed narrative attached to them. 

In Medusa's case, the hero Perseus outsmarted her and cut her head off, and then used it - with its' petrifying powers intact - as a weapon against his enemies before finally giving it to goddess Athena to wear it on her shield (quite a shield..!). In this way, one could say that Medusa's terrible petrification qualities not only worked as harmful, but also in a protective way, to save the hero from harm. Turning to the heritagisation parable, the most frequent arguments and debates in the heritage field are about exactly this: protection, saving, taking aside from the course of time and destruction, and for the sake of memory, humankind and eternity (a little generally put, perhaps, but still). So, using this image to think with, we are dealing with a most powerful process that functions both as a petrifying or even a lethal tool, but simultaneously as a life saver and a protection from time, aging and decay.

This for the Medusa and the petrifying gaze. But what about next layer, the urge to dominate and domesticate this strong power?

The taming of the Beast - recurrent motive in human narratives

The main field of my PhD project, the domestication of religion through heritagisation, is overflowing with motives and drastic actions to dominate and make harmless narratives and beliefs that have come (our were forced) out of fashion. In my Northern territories, the Medieval images are frequent of St. George (Sankt Göran) piercing the dragon - in various contexts representing the Danes or other enemies at the time - or the Norwegian king St. Olav (Sankt Olof), stepping firmly on his enemy's head (which in fact is the head of his heathen brother, in the shape of a half-monster).

St. Olav the Holy stepping on his heathen brother Harald. Tricky thing even for a saint, the Love thine brother...

Here in Rome the cultural layers are, as you know, many and complex - almost like one of my favorite Italian desserts, the Torta Millefoglie: 

Torta Millefoglie, 'Thousand layers' cake'. Divine.

Layer upon layer of history, materiality, narratives - but also of controlling, domesticating, silencing, triumphing, showing who is now in charge. The basilica of San Clemente, one of my favorite churches to visit in Rome, is an example of this multi-layered material history: A Mithras temple, then a Roman house where Christians met secretly, then a 4th century church, then the present Medieval basilica - all excavated and possible to visit. In this case, the perspective of domestication but also of religious and historical continuity is strongly connected to the place: the place itself is a bearer of values and permeated with spiritual charges.

The Mithraic temple below San Clemente's basilica

Returning to Istanbul, and to Hagia Sophia 6th century Cathedral-turned Mosque-turned museum (and now suggested to be turned Mosque again), the need to demonstrate new ideologies and domesticate - though not eradicate or erase - previous ones is more evident. Here, the crosses on the doors and in the mosaics have not been physically removed, but altered to become a non-religious element of decoration.

 

Altered cross on one of the entrance doors, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Altered mosaic cross, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Given the many and turbulent changes in the history of the city, mirrored in the changing regimes in Hagia Sophia (where the musealisation/heritagisation in 1934 forms an important chapter), it is interesting that so much of the previous layers are still there, and visible. The gigantic signs with Islamic verses is a dominant visual element in the interior of the building, but some Christian mosaics showing Mary and Jesus are also there and well preserved. And beneath the signs, the previous decorations can still be seen:

Cultural and religious layers, and a heritage preserving scaffolding, in Hagia Sophia

So, how to collect these meandering thoughts on domestication, death and preservation? Elaborating just a little more on the Medusa head in Istanbul, could it be that even the petrifying heritagisation process can be overruled - by something living, by a new power and regime? Continuing that line of thought, what will happen to the rapidly and globally increasing number of appointed heritage items and places and immaterial goods: are they really petrified forever, and saved from the ban of time and change, or can they be awakened again..? I have no answers to this, yet, and I hope you forgive me for letting you into this inner chamber of unfinished contemplations and unresolved problems. But please: feel free to contribute in the comment field below if you like!

For now, let's just remain another instant on this mind boggling topic, in the lucid company of Joni Mitchell and Taming the Tiger...