Ogrody Maryi − kompozycje miejsca i roślinne wypełnienia. Zarys ikonografii motywu Madonny na tle ogrodu
The Gardens of Mary – Compositions of the Place and Plant Filler. An Outline of the Iconography of the Motif of Madonna Against the Backdrop of the...

Summary/Abstract: The garden as a space related and ascribed to woman has almost always been, in each culture and religion, linked with nature, and in medieval art belonged to Mary. It was identified with Madonna and ascribed to Mary, and thus became a picture equivalent of Her features. In medieval chants, hymns, and prayers Mary was compared to a garden, extolled as the most beautiful flower and the most precious rose of the garden. In painting, She became “Mary in the garden,” the Bride in hortus conclusus. The exegeses of the Song of Songs have affected the semantic and plastic dimensions of Marian gardens. (…) Interpreting the icons of Mary in the garden, the complex problem how the two dimensions of the presented world interpenetrated is many times omitted; in this space only the inconographic equivalent of the mystic hortus conclusus was perceived. The symbolical layer of the garden dominated over the real, realistic surface which was particularly strongly encoded and combined by the Netherlandish artists, defined – following Panofsky – as “hidden symbolism.” In the case of the Italian artists or the Germans from the first half of the 15th century representing Madonna in the Garden we easily feel and notice the superior symbolic element, noticed against the golden background, in almost bodiless, immaterial figures, floating angels or the Persons of the Holy Trinity, popular in the Nadrenia tables, then in the Netherlandish artists the reality and symbol become concepts and transparent qualities. In Stefan Lochner’s or the anonymous masters’ tables from Cologne and the Rhineland, the painter of the Frankfurt Paradise Gardener the elements in which the real world existed were accumulated plants. In their species and morphological variety the earthly world was reflected, nevertheless as a complete juxtaposition of real and at the same time ideal forms, the gardens acquired an extreme and supernatural dimension. It is otherwise with the Netherlandish masters. In their wooden flower beds and ceramic pots typical plants grow, and the paintings are not specially selected. Their symbolical character has almost imperceptibly been emphasised, Mary is placed near to whiter lilies and rose ascribed to Her.

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