"The Holy Grail of the Unconscious" Sara Corbett 9-20-09 New York Times Magazine. Click on image for higher resolution. I found out about this forthcoming "Liber Novus" of Carl Jung, which he inscribed and illustrated, ca. 1916-30 It reminded me of another Germanic artist, and a Spanish one: both from medieval times, but sharing vivid colors, bold graphics, and memorable craft. What do you think of their juxtaposition? I have better comparisons for Hildegard-related illustrations in my mind; I wish I could provide closer examples, but Web image variety's quite scanty. Visions stay elusive.
"The Dragon Gives His Power to the Beast" Beatus de Facundus (folio 191v). 1047, Spanish commentary on the Book of the Apocalypse. These illustrations inspired passages in Umberto Eco's great novel about medieval learning, "The Name of the Rose." 
Hildegard of Bingen's been elevated practically to New Age Goddess rank the past twenty-five years, but she's a formidable defender of orthodoxy, even if she stood up to a pope. Her visions made her famous, if belatedly; so today her music. Her writings earned visualization as in this codex of her "Scivias.""Der mystische Leib." Meister des Hildegardis Codex Scivis: 1165, Germany.
3 comments:
You beat me to it! I was just about to blog on the Red Book myself. The Hildegarde comparison is most apt.
Tell us more: I kept this short for once, but I recall from an earlier blog entry you wrote on Hildegard, Matthew Fox, Starhawk et al. your own interest in this iconography.
Starhawk not my cup of tea, and poor old Fox. Heart in the right place, I think. But I am very keen on Jung.
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