The gate of the year

Figure above:

Image of a “Green man” among the remains of the St. Mary Abbey, Melrose, Scotland, established by Cistercians during the XII century.

[Image: http://www.paradoxplace.com/Photo%20Pages/UK/Britain_Yorkshire_and _North/Melrose%20Abbey/Melrose.htm]

These representations have been interpreted sometimes as simple decorative conventions, stereotyped and repetitive modules. In medieval art, however, the choice of motifs and images was absolutely not casual and followed a precise order of relationships. In medieval thought, every material object could become the image of something corresponding to it on an higher plane, thus serving as a symbol of it. “The symbolism was universal and thought was a continuous discovery of hidden meanings, a constant “hierophany”. The hidden world was indeed a sacred world, and the symbolic thought was nothing but an elaborate, decanted form, at the level of learned men, of the magical thought into which the common mentality was immersed” (Le Goff 1981, p. 355).
Thus, the innumerable images of “Green men” or “Feuillus” (leafy masks) which constellate churches and holy buildings have to be interpreted as symbolic and religious forms and not only decorative motifs. They represent the time that devours and regurgitates every life form, through the branches stemming from the mouth, and show how the cycle of vegetal life can be the model of the passing of time, which intertwines among themselves both life and death. Moreover, it is not to be excluded that an allusion was hinted at the masquerades of “tree-men”, so widespread in many Carnival celebrations (Gaignebet-Lajoux 1985, p. 73).

Figure below:

Keystone from the College of Cluny, showing a leafy mask, dating to the XII century, exhibited in the Musée National du Moyen Âge, Thermes et Hôtel de Cluny, Paris, France.

[Image: http://www.sculpturesmedievales-cluny.fr/notices/notice.php?id=80]




Tree Symbols

Back

Figure above: Image of a “Green man” among the remains of the St. Mary Abbey, Melrose, Scotland, established by Cistercians during the XII century. [Image: http://www.paradoxplace.com/Photo%20Pages/UK/Britain_Yorkshire_and _North/Melrose%20Abbey/Melrose.htm] These representations have been interpreted sometimes as simple decorative conventions, stereotyped and repetitive modules. In medieval art, however, the choice of motifs and images was absolutely not casual and followed a precise order of relationships. In medieval thought, every material object could become the image of something corresponding to it on an higher plane, thus serving as a symbol of it. “The symbolism was universal and thought was a continuous discovery of hidden meanings, a constant “hierophany”. The hidden world was indeed a sacred world, and the symbolic thought was nothing but an elaborate, decanted form, at the level of learned men, of the magical thought into which the common mentality was immersed” (Le Goff 1981, p. 355). Thus, the innumerable images of “Green men” or “Feuillus” (leafy masks) which constellate churches and holy buildings have to be interpreted as symbolic and religious forms and not only decorative motifs. They represent the time that devours and regurgitates every life form, through the branches stemming from the mouth, and show how the cycle of vegetal life can be the model of the passing of time, which intertwines among themselves both life and death. Moreover, it is not to be excluded that an allusion was hinted at the masquerades of “tree-men”, so widespread in many Carnival celebrations (Gaignebet-Lajoux 1985, p. 73). Figure below: Keystone from the College of Cluny, showing a leafy mask, dating to the XII century, exhibited in the Musée National du Moyen Âge, Thermes et Hôtel de Cluny, Paris, France. [Image: http://www.sculpturesmedievales-cluny.fr/notices/notice.php?id=80]