Chapter III. Functions of Medieval Images.

Question 1

Main purpose of the Chapter III

Definition of the critaerias of devotional image:

Discution is based on the statment of Ervin Panofsky argued in 1927: “devotional image is an instrument of contemplation by individual”;

Answer 1

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 41

Further reading:
Ervin Pamofsky. “Imago Pietatis”: ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des “Schmerzensmanns” und der “Maria Mediatrix”, in Overdruk uit: Festschrift für Max J. Friedländer zum 60. Geburtstage, pp. 261-308;

Question 2

Statement of Belting:
a. Conceptual definition of the devotional images requires criteria.
b. Criteria is destinctive features.

Problem A of main purpose by Belting:
Can images as the Imago Pietatis exists in a form that is not or is no longer a devotional image?

Statement by Panofsky according to Belting:
Panofsky defines the Imago Pieatatis as an devotional image only when the coacting figures were added and set in motion the main figure of Crist changing also his psychological expression;

Discussion on Panofsky’s conceptual definition of the Imago Piatatis and its criteria:

Panofsky defines the Imago Pieatatis as an devotional image only when the figures are setted in motion with changed psychological expressions.

Statements by Panofsky:

1. Panofsky’s system of images:

Panofsky refers only to two basic categories used by the Miaddle Ages Church; these are Historia and Imago:

a. Panofsky named them a narrative image (Historia) and a representational image (Imago);

b. Historia is more likely to narrate so he called it the “scenic historical image”;

c. Imago portayes person so Panofsky refered to it as “cultic representational image”;

2. Devotioanl image is formed due to this two basic categories (Historia and Imago), but first, the portrait icon-type must be infused with life to enter into dialogue with the viewer.
3. Devotional image was formed by combination of the characteristic of narrative image (Historia) and representational image (Imago). It borrowed the movement and expression of life of the Historia and the tranquillity and timelessness of Imago. This combination formed a new type of image - devotional image - undefined spatially and temporally;

Conclusion by Panofsky:

thus, according to Panofsky the criterias of the Historia and the Imago merged into new type of an image;

Criticism of the Panofsky’s criteria system:

Berliner had worn to do not mis formular and functional conditions of the images.

My comment:
here Belting is going to define new creteria beyound the confinments of the Panofsky’s criteria;
Criteria for Panofsky’s definition of Imago Pietatis as a devotional image are abowe;

Answer 2

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 41 - 42;

Further reading:
1. Ervin Pamofsky. “Imago Pietatis”: ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des “Schmerzensmanns” und der “Maria Mediatrix”, in Overdruk uit: Festschrift für Max J. Friedländer zum 60. Geburtstage, pp. 261-308;

Criticism of Panofsky’s:

2. Rudolph Berliner. “Arma Christi”, in Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 3rd ser., Vol. 6, 1955. p. 90.

Literature resources:

3. Guillaume Durand, The Symbolism of churches and church ornaments : a translation of the first book of the Rationale divinorum officiorum written by William Durandus, 1893;

Question 3

Problem on Panofsky’s conception of the devotional image and the image system formed by Belting:

a. Statement by Belting:
If Imago Petatis has Eastern origin, it did not originated from the apses of Romanesque churches as the Masolino’s Pieta. It wil be an error to equate icon and western representational image.

b. Conclusion by Belting:
Thus, Panofsky’s system has lacuna - the icon - that wase not taken serioualy into account.

c. Examples by Belting:
As example of two panels (Virgin of Mrgaritone and Madonna and Child of Lippo Memmi) can be descussed at the same rubric. But Madonna of Lippo Memmi do not originated from the Margaritone’s Virgin but from other eastern icon-type image.;

Answer 3

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 42;

Further reading:
1. Ervin Pamofsky. “Imago Pietatis”: ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des “Schmerzensmanns” und der “Maria Mediatrix”, in Overdruk uit: Festschrift für Max J. Friedländer zum 60. Geburtstage, pp. 261-308;

Question 4

Statement by Belting on the imported icon in West and its function:

For the West culture an icon was a new experience, not only as a panel painting but also as a bust presentation;

Evidence from the sources:

Strange Durandus explanation of eastern icon and its appearance:
“The Greeks, he said, in order to prevent evil thoughts, did not depict figures below the navel”.

Problem by Belting:
The icon was ommited in Panofsky’s system, but, in reality, it existed alongside with Historia and Imago; icon had transferred its form to the devotional image;

Conclusion by Belting:

a) Icon form as something new and foreign became available for a new content and a new function;
b) Imago Pietatis did not have a form by its own, but usurped a foreign one, thus the form of an icon;

Statement according to conclusion of Belting:

The image of the Imago Pietatis such as the lectern of Giovanni Pisani and the panel at Tocello presents reformulated icon type which invitate the viwer to maditation and worship;
For that reason:
a) the triptych in Trieste shows the Virgin as the Virgin of Mercy;
b) the Lawdesi brotherhood of Bologna in a monuscript of 1329 added the icon-type of Imago Pietatis to their patroness Virgin of Mercy and called it “forma pietatis”;

Conclusion:
Thus, the former eastern icon become a devotional image and recieved its own name “forma pietatis”;

Answer 4

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 42;

Further reading:
1. Ervin Pamofsky. “Imago Pietatis”: ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des “Schmerzensmanns” und der “Maria Mediatrix”, in Overdruk uit: Festschrift für Max J. Friedländer zum 60. Geburtstage, pp. 261-308;
2. Guillaume Durand, The Symbolism of churches and church ornaments : a translation of the first book of the Rationale divinorum officiorum written by William Durandus, 1893;

Question 5

Problem by Belting:

How the form of an image relates to the function of an image?

We need to destingush the function of icon and the function of devotional image, even if we can distinguish their form which remains the same;

Statement by Belting in accordance with the problem and contravercity of Panofsky’s statement:

a) The icon was integrated in Byzantine liturgy and was related to the preson portrayed and presents its one and only possible phisical appearance;

b) The form of the devotional image according to Panofsky is always changedable with regard to needs and expectations of viewer;

Answer 5

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 43;

Question 6

Problem by Belting on changable form of the dedotional image and ingangable form of the icon:

How devotional image (according to Panofsky changable) can borrow the form of icon that was used so defferently (was unchengable)?

Purposes of Belting to the problem:

a) the relation between form and function is much more complex than Panofsky thought; (farther: the relation of form and function problem)

b) the function is more complex then Panofsky’s triadic schema: “representing-narrating-rendering the viewer empathic”, so to say, “imago-historia-devotional image”; (farther: the problem of the image function complexity)

Answer 6

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 44;

Question 7

Problem A: the relation between form and function is much more complex than Panofsky thought.

A. The relation of form and function problem.

Statement by Belting:

1. According to correct observation of Rimgbom the icon was perfect devotional image befor it was changed because it gives initimicy to a viewer and enters with him into dialogue providing not only phisical appearance but details such as Christ’s wounds or Mary’s limbs which were the objects of cultuc veneration (in accordance with statement of Ringbom);
2. The icon was specific enough for contemporary wiever.
3. for modern person is hard to encounter the equation of form and function, when the function usurps already existed form such as icon for a new purpose and use; thus, the form is an instrument of function;

Answer 7

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 45;

Farther reading:
1. Sextin Ringbom. From Icon to Narrative, 1965;

Question 8

Problem:

Does the devotinal image is independent class of images has its own form used for devotion?

A. The relation of form and function problem.

Argumentation:
1. As Berliner argued that scence were used as a devotional image;

2. As Belting argued all hystorical categories of images were changable:

a) Imago is no longer mere representation, but portrays the person in lively manner restricted to the devotional image.

b) Historia does not narrates in severe accordance with story, but retells it in a manner restricted to the devotional image.

Evidance:

Examples:
Franciscan devotional book in Florence.

1. In literature we can see it in the retaled Bile stories in the Meditationes Viae Christis which are realistic and devout; the psychological realism also appears in the Hstoria, as Alberti claimed that every Historia must have liveliness;
2. Two examples from the same time as the Meditationes Viae Christis show:

a) how Imago become a narrative devotional image.

image of the Vergin enthroned with a Child from the Franciscan Book at Florence:
Biblioteca Medicea, MS Plut, XXX. 3, fol. 373;

The image of Madonna with a Child that usually was presented in that time on altars, now became a scene that shows pert of the life of the Crist; it is settled between the image Massacre of the Innocents and the twelve-year-old Jesus; so the Imago become a devotional narration image according to the book context;

b) how Historia become a stationary devotional image.

image of Crucifixion from the Franciscan Book at Florence:
Biblioteca Medicea, MS Plut, XXX. 3, fol. 366;

It is clearly the scene, a part of the narration, but it also creates a mood that leads to compasio.

Scene of Cruciffisxion from the Franciscan Missal at the Vatican Library;
Roma, Biblioteca Vaticana, Cod. Reg. Lat. 2048, fol. 129v;

It shows not the story, but expierience of the event.

Here the scene - historia - does not exists as the naration, but as a devotiional image which is suitable for its purpose.

Conclusion:
1. both - Historia and Imago - can be a devotional station;
2. Zardine de Oration reccomended to use this station for emotional compation to the Pessions of Jesus;
3. Meditatones Vitea Cristis in the 13th c. had already been formed under the principe of the refolmulation of the scenes from the narration into the stations for maditation, as a collection of the subjects on which fathfull can contemplate;

Answer 8

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 45 - 49;

Lit.:
1. Rudolph Berliner. “Arma Christi”, in Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 3rd ser., Vol. 6, 1955. p. 90.
2. Micael Baxandall. Painting and experience in fifteenth century Italy: a primer in the social history of pictorial style, 1978;
3. Edward B. Garrison. A new devotional panel type in fourteenth-century Italy, in Marsyas, nr. 3, 1943-1945, pp. 15 - 69;
4. Robert Suckale. Arma Cristi, in Suckale, Stil und Funktion. pp. 15 - 58;

Question 9

Problem by Belting:

Is it possible to destinguish devotional image, formally and functionally, from the scene?

A. The relation of form and function problem.

Ringbom and criticism of Panofsky’s sytem:
Ringbom has suggested to abbandone the Panofsky’s system and has advanced a new concept:
a) something that does not look like devotional image can functionate as one;
b) something that looks like devotional image wasn’t a devotional image; it can symbolyze a theologian notion or a mystery such as Imago Pietatis that used to symbolyze a church dedicated to the “The Sacred Body and Blood”;

Ringbom concepte:
He proposed two terms:
a) “devotional image” which designates a function without the form;
b) “Andachtsbild” the form without the function;

Criticism of Ringbom’s concept and terms by Belting:
1. Andachtsbild do not explain second term and do not define a pictorial form;
2. Do not destinguish devotional image and Andachrsbild. Relations between form and function are more unstable:

a) function can be changable:
b) pictorial form or form can assume new functions:

3. It is better to use another term to describe the difference between form and function.

Explenation of Ringbom’s concept by Belting:

His idea was to trace a “development of the dramatic close-up” in the 15th c., which combine the vividness of historia and portrait character of icon”. Insteed of Panofsky’s concepts, it louds us to speak about close-up scenes, which, are not by thair definition the scenes;

Examples by Belting:
1. According to the Ringbom’s concept the Presentation of Christ in the Tample by Mantegna (in Berlin) was not developed out of scene, but from the image of Virgin in profile and corresponds to Virgo Purificata; it has narrative fetures, but functionally is a devotional image;

2. Pieta in Bellini’s ouvre is a “narrative without time”. But both images - A and B - differ: A is scenic close-up image and B expanded 14th c. formula of the Imago Pietatis, which is ,uch more closer to its origin that Rinbom thought;
   A. Giovanni Bellini, Pietà c. 1490-1500, oil on wood, 70,9x88,7, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, nr.inv. 36
   B. Giovanni Bellini, Pietà, c. 1465, oil on panel, 107x86, Milano, Pinacoteca di Brera, nr.inv. 228;
3. Bellini’s Brera prototype B differs from its protorype A; “Andachtsbild was a set of theologian symbols built around of Christ”; but Brera picture is a devotional image wich first developed “a coherent narrative” in the form of “dramatic close-up of the Seviour sorrunded by mourners”; as their earliar example, they were objects of private devotion, but only in Quattrocento they receive a form which is appropriate to thier function;

Conclusions by Belting:

1. Trecento images look different, but they do not present only theologian concepts:
   a) they performed a psychologiacal function with combination of ather semantic functios; specyalization is characteristic of Quattrocento images; themes were enlarged by selection from the narration new subjects for static reading and devotion;
   b) in Quattrocento the devotional image explores a new artistic approach to depict emotions in naturale close-up in a window type composition;
   c) it shows only a new way for old tendencies; their popularity were made under the influance of the already existed social function of private devotional images;

Answer 9

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 49 - 52;

Lit.:
Sextin Ringbom. From Icon to Narrative, 1965;

Question 10

Problem:

Shoul be distinguised a devotional image from historia?

A. the relation between form and function is much more complex than Pano

Statement by Belting:
1. Devotional image can be destinguished from the Hiatoria.
2. It requires long span of historcal changes:

a. in the beggining, some images were chenged under the icon’s influence into “scenic station of devotion”; remodeling all scene into image which represents only a selected part of scene;
b. adapting a new form this images were viewed in divers religious manner as an objects that were served for contemplation;

Example of image:
Master of the Fogg Pietà, Pietà, c. 1330, tempera on panel, 42.2x50, Cambridge, Harvard Art Museum, nr.inv. 1927.306;
Only according to latter examples it is scene of Lamentation, but in origin, it is a Pieta in the scenic context; here the painter do not describe an event, but shows it in a dramatic and exprecive way by the additional figures;

c. in Quattrocento both demands were clearly formulated; they deffer to such degree that Historia becomes more “technical” according to optical laws, in opposite the devotional image was incomplited in the whole span of the narration;
d. further development of Historia traced by Ringbom is a combination of vitionary illutionism combined with intimicy of the figure’s mood;

Conclution by Belting:
1. Davotional image can be destingished from Historia, when in the former type form and function interact not in a linera but in reciprocal way.
2. We again have faced a problem to determine a function of devotional image, insteed to understand what an image function is or can be.

Answer 10

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 54 - 56;

Lit.:
Sextin Ringbom. From Icon to Narrative, 1965;

Question 11

Problem:

B. The function is more complex then Panofsky’s triadic schema: “representing-narrating-rendering the viewer empathic”, so to say, “imago-historia-devotional image”.

B. The function is more complex then Panofsky’s triadic schema.

Statement:
1. Function relates to the image in a complex way and shows a social practice wich, at first, must be established befor it will explain an image.
2. Devotion is a function of devotional image.
3. Panofsky destinguished devotional image from Historia and Imago, what he understands as image’s function;
4. He refered to the triadic chema: “represnt-natrrate-emotionally attune”;
5. the schema “represnt-natrrate-amotionally attune” was a basis in the Madieval and Renaissance theory on images; image become useful;
6. according to the schema “represnt-natrrate-amotionally attune” image can:
a) teach illiterate;
b) remeber about the constatnt presence the mystery of faith;
c) stimulate the feelings of pious devotion; what was more effective through the images that through words or texts;

7. the triadic chema “represnt-natrrate-amotionally attune” was knowen from the time of Gregory the Grate; in Maddle ages the question of empathy and emotions burn significant interest in theologians;
8. devotional image was designated from Historia and Imago to shape this function;

Conclusion:

1. Schema presents only three categories of the schema approved by theologians;
2. it do not show complaxity of all images and the historiacl uses of images;
3. do not refer to the traidic schema “reprseent-narrate-emotionally attune” because:
   a.devotional image do not always spetcialized on purpose “emotionally
   attune”;
   b. it can be easly destinguished as a independent class from its sorrounding;

Answer 11

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 56;

1. Ervin Pamofsky. “Imago Pietatis”: ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des “Schmerzensmanns” und der “Maria Mediatrix”, in Overdruk uit: Festschrift für Max J. Friedländer zum 60. Geburtstage, pp. 261-308;
2. Balbus (John of Genoa), Catholicon

Question 12

Problem of Belting and criticism of Panofsky linaer system:

How did the form (devotional image) relate to its function or to its functions?

B. The function is more complex then Panofsky’s triadic schema.

Discussion:
1. Panofsky understands devotion as an function in a linear way, something psychological, the capacity for mystical experience.
2. Most common definition of the devotional image is to situate it in the private sphere at a distance from the collective cult of
the ecclesiastical liturgy as an instrument of personal, noninstitutional piety.

Satement:

1) Th concept of the devotional function is only partially correct;
2) The devotional images were experienced emotionally and cognitively as a pictorial symbol or mystery of faith;
3) It leads to general uses of image to a socila-historic phenomenon of the lay and private devotion, which come to existance only in the 13thc.;

Satement of Balting on the origin of the devotional function and about Ringbom’s explanation of the development of the devotional function:

Ringbom’s explanation of origin of function with this statement also agrees Belting:
a. Book of Hours and “petit tableau” become an instument for devotional practice;
b. Book of Hours and “petit tableau” were sattled in the house holds;
c. Book of Hours and “petit tableau” provids new texts and new images, which were experienced more emotionally in accordance of the mysteries of faith;
d. piety promulgated by mendicans orders reqiures feelings and actions for participation of the theologically untrained liaty in the ecclesiastical life;
e. the grater becames “inner image” experienced by an individual, the graaeter value is attached to “material image”; they were popularized by mysticism in which was clear resamblance between the images revealed in visions and existing religious images;

Image example:

Petrus Christus
Portrait of a Female Donor, c. 1455
oil on panel
41.8 x 21.6
Washington, National Gallary of Art
inv. 1961.9.11

Flanders, XVI c.
Virgin and Child and a Donor
oil on panel
35.9 x 26.7
London, The Courtauld
P.1947.LF.250

Arguments by belting on Ringbom’s concept:
1. Devotional image is explained in the Middle Ages and Renaissance literatute as a “petit tableau de devocion,” or as by Heinrich Seuse “andaht nach bildricher wise.”; look lit.
2. A prayer must talk in front of the devotional image, but not only by lips, but also emotionally to enter in a certain emotional state; devotion in front of image helped to produce devotional state for contemplation;
3. 1. the reciprocity between the viewer and persons depicted was described by early history of Dominicans: “In their cells they had before their eyes images of her [the Virgin] and of her crucified Son so that while reading, praying, and sleeping, they could look upon them and be looked upon by them [the images], with the eyes of compassion [oculis pietatis].”
4. Piety become a reciprocal attitude;
5. Images by Dominicans in the Carthusian monastery of Champmol; they depict in the same way Cruciffixio where the role of passio is giving to Christ and compassio to Virgin; thus the viewer was involved in the image symbolically and graphically;

Example of image:
Jean de Beaumetz
Calvary with a Carthusian Monk
63.5 x 52.5
The clevelend Art Museum
inv. 1964.454

6. Devotion to images was not izolated by convents wall, it was also common in the hauseholds of the lay society and even can originated from it.
7. The mental state of devotion was a “must have” religious practice; it also had a collective role and had previwed a some sort of perfection.

Evedent by Belting:

1. In italay it was manifested as a mass-movements whos estetic piety was a pathof daily prayer;
2. Graet flagellant movement of 1260 what has stimulated of rise of small confraternities;
3. Compagnia di Santa Maria della Vita di Bologna; they texts are provided with images of the Virgin and the Passion; but in one case it shows an icon in ather narrative, the Scourging of Christ;

Image example:
Unknown italian
Statuto della Compagnia di Santa Maria della Vita di Bologna, 1285
Madonna with Child, Flegalations
Bologna, Biblioteca cominale dell’Archiginnasio
Fondo Ospedale 1, fol. 2

Conclutions by Belting on function of devotion and devotional image:

1. Devotion is a collective style of affective religiosity that brought into existance an analogues tsyle of contamplation of image;
2. The image must to reciprocate the mood of believer and, if it possible, create and manage it;
3. Viewr and the person depicted were related mimetically;
4. The viewer try to assimilate himself to the depicted person and edmanded from person depicted aliveness which the viewer possessed;
5. This mimesis brought to the ecstasy, thus the person depicted become a part of the real world;
6. In the next evolutionar steps according to mysticism demand, the person depicted become more and more real to create a more intimate dialogue which viewer demanded from its partner;
7. Devotion was a convention, so devotional image were pictorial conventions;
8. Devotional image convention informed viewing conventions, thet they modified public cult images;
9. Private devotion not only influenced the public cultic forms but also was influenced by them, becuase they were collective;
10. Convention is spreading withou a form;
11. Function is an use or a need in images as a collective attitude;

Answer 12

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 56 - 58;

Lit,:
About congenative experience of images and symbols:

1. Rudolph Berliner. “Arma Christi”, in Münchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 3rd ser., Vol. 6, 1955. p. 90.;
2. Robert Suckale. “Arma Christi” aperlegungen zur Zeichenhaftigkeit mittelalterlicher Andachtsbilder, in Stil und Function, 2003, pp. 15 - 44;
3. Gerhard Schmidt. Patrozinium und Andachtsbild, in Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung vol. 64, 1956. pp. 277 - 290;

On useage of books in the devotion:
4. Andre Wilmart. Auteurs spirituels et textes dévots du Moyen âge latin, études d’histoire littéraire, 1971;
5. Gerorges de Legarde, Bilan di XIII siecle
6. Geneviève Bresc-Bautier. Artistes, Patriciens et Confréries. Production et consommation de l’œuvre d’art à Palerme et en Sicile Occidentale (1348 - 1460)

On visions:
7. E. Benz, Die Vision. Erfahrungsformen und Bilderwelt

About usage of devotional images:
Origo. The merchant of Prato, Bosto: Nonparial book, 1986; +
Larener, -
Renato Piattoli, Il Pela, Agnolo Gaddi e Giovanni d’Ambrogio alle prese con la giustizia (1392 - 93), in Rivista d’arte, 14.1932, pp. 377-382 -

On connection between the viewr and person depicted:
Alfred Neumeyer. Der Blick aus dem Bilde. Berlin: Mann,1964;
Fratris Gerardi de Fracheto O. P. Vitae fratrum ordinis praedicatorum necnon cronica ordinis ab anno MCCIII usque ad MCCLIV ad fidem codicum manuscriptorum accurate recognovit notis breviter illustravi
Georg Tröscher. Burgundische Malerei, Berlin: Mann, 1966.
O. von Simson. Uber die Bedeutung von Masaccios Trinitatsfresko in S. Maria Novell, in Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, Vol. 7, 1965;

Resources:
1. Anselm of Canterbury,
2. Bernard of Clairvaux
3. Fra Michele da Carcano, Sermones quadragesimales fratris Michaelis de Mediolano de decem preceptis, 1492 (partially by Baxandall)

Question 13

Problem of Belting:

How to destinguish different image functions and correspondingly different fumctional images? When pictorial invention was used originally and when it was used for ather purposes?

B. The function is more complex then Panofsky’s triadic schema.

Sataement by Belting:

1. Devotion was a convention, so devotional image were pictorially conventions.
2. Devotional image convention informed viewing conventions, so they also modified public cult images.
3. Private devotion not only influenced the public cultic forms but also was influenced by them, becuase they were collective.
4. Convention is spreading withou a form.
5. Function is an use or a need in images as a collective attitude.

Additional Problem by Belting:

The function X that correspomds to a general mode of experience, is also an objective connection of the image to its purpose.

Arguments by Belting:
1. This function represents specialized use of a fucntion witha narrowly defined meaning.
2. This function needs to be associated witha specific context.

Statement by Belting:

All examples previously examine in his book shows delimited situations in which function is associated with specific context;

Arguments to the statement:
a) small-sized dyptich from the Horne Museum is a private devotional image:
b) tryptich at Trieste was a cult image of a convent of Clarisses:
c) as a part of the graet altarpiece in the pala feriale di Paolo Venezioano and the Pisan altar by Simone Martini:
d) as a pulpit in the church like the relief of Giovanni Pisano in Berlin:
e) in mosaic icon in Rome as a miracle image for relique, so as a new function without any origin:

Conclution by Belting:

If the Imago Pietatis was imported in general and at all from East to West, then its funcion as a devotional image was likewise ancillary there.

Statement of belting:
further functional usage of the Imago Pietatis confirm previous statemetnt;

Examples of Belting:
a) on patens, on paxes, and on tabernacle doors, as a pictorial symbol of the Eucharist;
b) on private sepulchers where, in the name of the deceased, it summons the bereaved to supplicatory prayer to “Our Lord of Mercy,” who had led the way in death.;
c) On the predella of an altar retable, the Imago Pietatis functions as a reference to the sacramental Christ by means of, and only by means of, the location of the image; in quattrocento the formula of the Chtist shedding his blood was developed to serve this purpose and its formula only prossessed the sacramnetal meaning; it connects to the Mantuan relic of the Precious Blood, only in the cases when rhe context or the function of the image can be reconstructed;

Answer 13

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 58 - 60;

Question 14

Problem by Belting:

Three usage of the notion of function.

B. The function is more complex then Panofsky’s triadic schema.

Arguments by Belting:
1. In the first case the notion referes generally to the social-psychological function of the devotional iamge.
2. In the second case the notion referes to the connection of privat image to the cpecific function.
3. In the third case, the notion of the function which designatesthe relationships of a partcular meaning with a particular form.

Satement of belting:
a) The meaning is the function of the pictorial form and the pictorial form is its expression.
b) it occures, as in the second case, when the image is linked to external purposes.

Evidance for 1:
1. In the first case the notion referes generally to the social-psychological function of the devotional iamge.

Image Example:

Roberto Oderisi
Man of Sorrows with Arma Christi, c. 1354
Tempera and gold on panel
62.2 x 38 cm
Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum
inv. 1937.49

Arguments by Belting:
1. With Imago Pietatis shows in a linear way the Station of the Cross, which the viewer could memorize individually and also venerate the Arma Cristi and the stigmata as the religious usage obligated him.
2. Objectrealism and mystical concept-realism are united in the same image and provieded two different approaches that viewer had knowen well;
3. They provided a way for close-up presentation of actions and persons - for instance, the veneration of the individual stgimata or individual tourturs of Christ - creating social convention how to read such image.
4. Modern beholder cannot understand such image, because he does not possess social conventions for that and the model leads to be misinterpratated; he also can not encounter simultaneously psychological illusionism and abstract symbolism.
5. At that time both - psychological illusionism and abstract symbolism - could serve for the purpose of the devotional image.
6. Psychologically illusionistic image can be used to experience mystically a visually present theologican concept; in other case, the lackness of the illusionism was experienced with imagination.
7. The Roberto Oderisi’s panel of the Man of Sorrows with Arma Christis shows such complexity; figures of Mary and John by their gestures and miming bring the mood of piety to the viwer, and Arma Christi are guiding figures that enhance the capacity of the main figure.

Conclusion by Belting:

1. In the case of term “devotional image” we can speak only generally, and the devotional function is a category of social psychology.
2. The private devotional image is only specific case, its specialisatiom.
3. The private image can be an image in which pictorial form originated, but do not migrated.
4. For art history is important to stress the interactions between the various csocial levels of the image cult (public, confraternal, private) as well as migration of pictorial forms from one functional area to another.

Answer 14

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 60 - 64;

Question 15

Main conclusions to the Chapter III:

1. In the case of term “devotional image” we can speak only generally, and the devotional function is a category of social psychology.
2. The private devotional image is only specific case, its specialisatiom.
3. The private image can be an image in which pictorial form originated, but do not migrated.
4. For art history is important to stress the interactions between the various csocial levels of the image cult (public, confraternal, private) as well as migration of pictorial forms from one functional area to another.
5. Image could have from its begining a cultic status and it was tied to publica cult, as for example, Sacre Sacrament or a relic or through associations such as confraternities.
6. The Veronica was a private image for contamplation in the Books of Hours, originally it was a miraculous image or a relic image that the Church had provided with an indulgence.
7. Like as Imago Pietatis, imported from East, it do not posssessed originally the form of devotional image; but Imago Pietatis developed it because it do not exist as an authentic original;
8. The reality of Imago Pietatis correletes to existence of Christ in the Sacrament, at the begining, it drew to itself supplicatory prayer and the expectation of salvation.

Answer 15

Hans Belting. The Image and its Pubblic in the Middle Ages; Chapter III, p. 64;