Abstract
Devotional piety broadly depends on events that are not accessible for direct observation and commonly offer very little, if anything, in the way of historical documentation. Sometimes the experiences to which devotion is directed in the veneration of saints is based on visionary experience for which reports are contradictory. This essay explores ways in which word and image are brought together to anchor evanescent or ephemeral, or entirely uncertain, origins and provide devotion with stable objects. I develop the view that word and image are generatively entangled, meaning that their ambiguous connections with one another are able to produce a medium in which devotion finds a footing. The discussion focuses on two case studies: Our Lady of Fátima and Saint Jude. Fátima is based on a series of apparitions to young children in 1917 and Jude is a historically shadowy figure whose cult underwent a modern revival, in part assisted by new iconographic developments that allowed devotees to link their saint to very old traditions. Lore and imagery work together as forms of saying and seeing that bring elusive origins into focus.
Highlights
The complex relations that entangle words and images have received a great deal of attention [1] from scholars over the last several decades, and for good reason (Brusati, Enenkel, and Melion 2012; Hunt 2010; Mitchell 1994)
The entanglement of word and image is hardly limited to this tradition, in the interest of cogency I will focus on the Catholic devotion to two figures—Our Lady of Fátima and Saint Jude
Devotional piety like the cult of Saint Jude operates in this way: people see the imagery and [32] realize the saint presents himself in the image as looking like “what people say.”
Summary
Sometimes the experiences to which devotion is directed in the veneration of saints is based on visionary experience for which reports are contradictory. This essay explores ways in which word and image are brought together to anchor evanescent or ephemeral, or entirely uncertain, origins and provide devotion with stable objects. I develop the view that word and image are generatively entangled, meaning that their ambiguous connections with one another are able to produce a medium in which devotion finds a footing. Fátima is based on a series of apparitions to young children in 1917 and Jude is a historically shadowy figure whose cult underwent a modern revival, in part assisted by new iconographic developments that allowed devotees to link their saint to very old traditions. Lore and imagery work together as forms of saying and seeing that bring elusive origins into focus
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