8/14/2019 Iconography of the image of Our Lady of Guisborough

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The Immaculate, Conception. 2272. THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.

A " table of the Conception " stood on the high altar of theChurch of St. Margaret, Westminster. 25The Conception of our Ladye has been treated in two ways :historical and symbolical.I. The historical supposes the representation of events andcircumstances under which the mystery was operated, and thesevisible circumstances denote the hidden mystery. Of thesehistorical representations there are four types :r. The first is designed from the account of the Conceptionof our Ladye which is supplied by the apocryphal gospel of her

nativity, and the proto-gospcl of Jacob. 20 It represents St. Anne,in her garden at prayer, receiving by the mouth of an angelthe promise of the birth of the Blessed Virgin Maryc, herdaughter, and St. Joachim receiving the same promise in themountains whither he had retired. The "Guide of Painting"of Mount Athos follows this ancient narration almost word forword; 27 and it appears also in the poem of Hrotsuitha, thelearned nun of Gandersheim, who died A.D. 999. 2S The Germantranslator of the Guide remarks that, in Northern art, St. Anneis represented in her house, and not in her garden, in consequence of the difference between the customs of the North andthose of the East, where people live more in the open air thanin their houses. 29

This representation is the most ancient.2. The Greek and Sclavonic diptychs give another representation, which is less happy. St. Joachim and St. Anne meet,after having received the blessings and promise of the angel, andtenderly embrace each other. This, according to the Bollandist,

25 S. p. 228.26 Evangdia apocrypha. Edit. C. Tischendorf. Lipsia, 1853, pp. r, 106.Quoted in the Iconographie dc I Immaadee Conception de la Trcs-Sainte Vierge Marie.Par Mgr. J. B. Malou, eveque de Bruges. Bruxelles, 1856, p. 16.27 Didron, Manuel d Iconographie Chretienne, p. 279. Cf. St. John Damascene,Clamaverunt just,, Ubinam ? In proprio horto . . . consentaneus justorum preca-ttoms locus. In horto preca fundcntes, hortum priore huge fdiciorem eenuerunt(Ot 11. DC Nativ. B.M. V. Opp. t. ii. n. 5, p. 852).28 Schafer, Das Handbuch der Malcrei votn Berge Athos. Trier i8