Black Madonna

As a Black Madonna is the image or statue of a Madonna called, whose face is black in religious art and devotion to Mary. This can be either due to a black paint or the use of black wood or stone.

In Brazil, the blackness is associated with the dark skin color of indigenous populations in conjunction and interpreted as Marie illustration of a black population.

History

Origin

The former often held view, the dark color is on subsequent influences such as the great age of the wood, or due to the fouling by the lighting of candles in front of the devotional image is wrong according to current knowledge. A selective darkness that affects only the face and hands, but not, for example, to the clothes, little seems plausible.

The biblical basis for the black color was taken from the Song of Songs: "I am dark, but lovely " (Song of Songs 1.5 EU). The corresponding point in the Vulgate reads: " Nigra sum sed formosa ". This quote is also found inscribed on some of the Black Madonna, and it is usually not clear whether the inscription was not added later. In the Greek Septuagint, the passage reads: " ego eimi kai melaina kale ," which can be translated as "I am black and beautiful ". The change of the conjunction of and but was some scholarly debate. In the Hebrew text the conjunction is just we, but both kai and we can use " and " or with "but nevertheless " be translated. In the Christian exegesis of the body was the soul as the bride of God, therefore Mary, based.

In the 20th century it was attempted due to the black color of the ancient black goddesses as possible forerunners of the Black Madonna. The Black Goddess was in the history of religion based on viewing many ancient cults. For millennia, fertility, maternal and Earth Goddesses were worshiped, who were black in some cases ( see Alma Mater, Great Mother ). In the triangle Anatolia - Egypt - Mesopotamia the cult of the goddess Cybele, Astarte, Isis and Ishtar was widespread. From there, the tradition continued on the one hand in a westerly direction continuing with Artemis, Demeter and Ceres, on the other hand, in an easterly direction with the black goddess Kali. In the Germanic and Celtic world Freya and Ana apply - the latter is especially brought in Brittany with St. Anne in combination - as a precursor of the Dark Madonna. The research looks at the Christian Black Madonnas such as the cult of Mary ever thus not as a separate, independent phenomenon, but as standing in this general age-old tradition.

Romanesque

The secured oldest representations of the Black Madonna sculptures are mainly made ​​of wood, rare stone, and date from the Romanesque period in art. They appeared almost suddenly in large numbers in many places. The reasons for this phenomenon, there is no clear research results. A common hypothesis is that the first black Madonnas were possibly in the context of the Crusades, brought from the Middle East to Europe, more specifically France in greater numbers. An important role is said to have played the Knights Templar. All these Black Madonnas were created before the 13th century.

All the Black Madonna of Romanesque possess similar characteristics. They are about 70 cm high, sitting upright, represented by a rigid -looking wide-eyed into the distance views. Your hands and fingers are often excessively long. You keep a -sighted forward child on the knee. The child takes the gesture of blessing, or it holds in a hand a ball, which may be the globe or an apple. The face is not that of a small child, but an adult man. The statues seem to strange and practice on many viewers a great fascination.

Baroque

The later the Black Madonna, for example, those of the Baroque, represented mainly standing, in various sizes. From the ancient Black Madonnas many were in the Huguenot wars and during the French Revolution destroyed, leaving only a more or less good copies often are seen.

Presence

The Black Madonnas are frequently to be found in France, with emphasis in central France ( Auvergne va ) and in Provence, with broadcasts to the Pyrenees. The Black Madonnas of France are the best studied, so that the essential basis of literature has been published in France in French (see literature). So far still poorly understood are the Black Madonnas of Italy.

The phenomenon of the Black Madonna is still not fully understood. This and the fascination they radiate on many contemporary viewers, the Black Madonna also makes it an attractive subject for fringe science and esotericism.

One of the most common representations of a Black Madonna of Loreto. It was imitated in many so-called Loreto Chapel.