Les vitraux gothiques sont parfois décrits comme des symboles de l’hymen marial : ils transforment l’apparence des rayons du soleil sans diminuer leur lumière. Pour d’évidentes raisons de bienséance, la mise au monde par Marie n’est pas représentée comme telle dans les sermons de la première modernité. Cependant, le locus generationis d’un corps qui est « engendré, non pas créé » se trouve questionné bien au-delà du Moyen-Âge. C’est pourquoi l’utérus de Marie est évoqué par un réseau métaphorique aussi vaste que complexe : combinant les images de la prison, du sang et du sanctuaire, les prédicateurs tentent de traduire l’idée d’un espace figural qui symbolise l’Incarnation, et annonce la tombe du Christ ainsi que sa libération. Inversant les images de l’humiliante prison et de l’étroitesse douloureuse, ils font de l’utérus marial un espace paradoxal, un hortus conclusus dont l’obscurité même est promesse de lumière.

Abstract: The article explores late-medieval vierges ouvrantes (hinged Virgins that reveal Christological or Trinitarian interiors) as thresholds between secrecy and revelation. They translate the porta clausa of Ezekiel 44:2 and the hortus conclusus of Song of Songs 4:12 into sculpture, illustrating the paradox of a body that is both inviolate and permeable. Their mechanisms turn the Incarnation into a visible event and also expose cultural fears about vision, curiosity and trespass. Patristic writers framed these fears in theological terms. Jean Gerson condemned the vierge ouvrante as ‘unwarranted exposure.’ Later comparanda, from illuminated manuscripts, obstetrical collections and the Mechelen Besloten Hofjes , repeat the same tension between revelation and restraint. The article argues that both the opening and the later sealing or destruction of these statues reveal a theology of thresholds that reshaped the act of seeing.

The article is devoted to the Beguinal urban culture in the 13th-century Low Countries. It points out that the phenomenon of the Begijnhof is an implementation of the biblical idea of the hortus conclusus. Architecture and safe localization of the beguinages inside the city walls created the unique cultural and economic space for the development of the Beguinal movement. Beguinages organized the space for the common being of women and gave them an opportunity for safe intellectual and manual work that brought them popularity outside the city walls. It also initiated the development of brilliant religious art inside the beguinages which was mainly devoted to the topic of the Holy Family and the Virgin Mary. This investigation presents a look at the beguinages as the small female towns in the cities of the Low Countries that took an important part in the urban economy and culture.

Una of the Garden and Kilmeny of the Orchard can be reread using the hortus conclusus (enclosed garden) motif as a lens to explore how romance and the realistic code collide and so embody L.M. Montgomery’s ambivalence regarding romantic love. The motif connects Una’s/Kilmeny’s space to Eden, as represented in Genesis 1 to 3 and in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and to the garden in the biblical Song of Songs, in complex evocations of imprisonment/liberation and protection/invasion.

Para el simple aficionado al arte, el tema de la Anunciacin del ngel Gabriel a la Virgen puede resultar sencillo, incluso repetitivo.Quin no recuerda la tabla de Fra Angelico que todos podemos admirar en el Prado, y otras escenas semejantes?Quin no se ha recreado en la visin del mundo dividido -medio real, medio ideal-que se reparte en ella, cortndola literalmente en dos?Menos sern los que se hayan planteado adentrarse, no digamos en el tema, uno de los ms conocidos de la vida de Jess, sino en la forma de plasmarlo.Habr quien se haya dirigido a la amplia, y siempre til, Iconografa del arte cristiano, de Louis Rau, y haya recorrido las sustanciosas pginas que nos cuentan el trasfondo de las referencias bblicas -el Evangelio de San Lucas, los textos apcrifos-y las posibilidades que han ofrecido al arte a lo largo de los siglos.El lector de esas pginas habr descubierto cmo trataron el tema, desde el arte paleocristiano, tanto los bizantinos como los catlicos, y se habr asombrado al descubrir las formas que han tomado, a lo largo de los siglos, sus tres personajes principales: el ngel -o arcngel-Gabriel, la joven y recatada Mara y el Espritu Santo, que viene del cielo a fecundarla.Tambin habr descubierto, por ejemplo, que el mensajero de Dios puede llevar un lirio -smbolo de pureza y virginidad--; que Mara puede aparecer arrodillada, sentada o en pie, y que la paloma del Espritu Santo vuela hacia el vientre de la Virgen o hacia su oreja, ya que Jesucristo es -bien lo sabemos-el Verbo, la Palabra, de Dios Padre

This paper seeks to interpret the biblical metaphor of the hortus conclusus (closed garden) according to a Mariological projection, as presented iconographically in various Quattrocentro Annunciations. The author bases his interpretations on the exegesis developed by many Latin and Greek-Eastern Church Fathers and theologians, who considered this metaphorical expression of the Song of Songs to symbolize Mary’s virginal divine motherhood and perpetual virginity. Their textual interpretations of this doctrine helps elucidate the Mariological meaning in six Quattrocento paintings that include a more or less explicit “closed garden.” These six paintings present a closed garden as a visual metaphor illustrating the Mariological dogmas unveiled by the Church Fathers and theologians when explaining this biblical metaphor.

Hortus conclusus. The Holy Family of Loreto by Lorenzo Lotto. The contribution is an excerpt from Dalla parte di Lorenzo Lotto. Il ciclo lauretano (On the Side of Lorenzo Lotto: The Loreto Cycle), an essay to be completed soon on the pictorial cycle which Lorenzo Lotto (Venice, 1480-Loreto, 1556) ordered in 1555 in the chapter chapel of the church of Santa Maria di Loreto. This is the painter’s last work for a public destination; due to the difficulties in providing a unitary and coherent interpretation, the cycle risks being expunged from Lotto’s catalogue despite the indication made both by Giorgio Vasari in the 1568 edition of the Vite (Lives) and by Carlo Ridolfi in 1648 in Le Meraviglie dell’arte: ovvero Le vite degl’illustri pittori veneti (The Wonders of Art: The Lives of the Illustrious Venetian Painters). Of the seven works making up the cycle, the Holy Family is one of the five painted before 1550, some of which had to be adapted to harmonize their format. The painter intervened on the Holy Family in order to adapt the content of the painting, originally intended for domestic devotion, and make it suitable for the new destination. REZUMAT. Hortus conclusus. Sfânta Familie din Loreto de Lorenzo Lotto. Contri­buția este un extras din lucrarea Dalla parte de Lorenzo Lotto. Ciclul din Loreto, este o lucrare în curs de definitivare asupra ciclului pictural pe care în anul 1555 Lorenzo Lotto (Venezia, 1480-Loreto, 1556) l-a comandat în capela capitulară a bisericii Sfânta Maria din Loreto. Este în fapt aceasta, ultima operă a pictorului destinată publicului; din cauza greutăților întâmpinate în a oferi o interpretare unitară, riscă să fie suprimată din catalogul lui Lotto în ciuda semnalării făcute atât de Giorgio Vasari în ediția din 1568 a Vieților, cât și de Carlo Ridolfi în 1648, în Minunile artei: sau viața ilustrilor pictori venețieni. Din cele șapte pânze care constituie ciclul, Sfânta Familie este una din cele cinci care sunt pictate înainte de 1550, una dintre acelea care au trebuit adaptate pentru a armoniza adapta noii destinații. Cuvinte cheie: Lorenzo Lotto, Santa Maria din Loreto, Giorgio Vasari, Sfânta Familie

This article seeks to shed light on the doctrinal meanings of the closed garden included in some Renaissance paintings of the Annunciation. To justify the iconographic interpretations that we will give of these paintings, we will base them on the analysis of many medieval liturgical hymns that poetically designate the Virgin Mary through the metaphorical expression hortus conclusus (closed garden) with which the Husband or Bridegroom requisites the Wife or Bride in the Song of Songs. We will divide our article into two parts as a strategy for analysis. First, we will analyze an extensive series of fragments of liturgical hymns that repeatedly praise Mary through this biblical metaphor. In the second part, we will examine some artistic representations of the Annunciation that, in the Italian Renaissance, depict a closed garden in the scene. From this double comparative analysis, textual and iconic, we will conclude that, in direct and essential correlation, those hymnic texts and those paintings clearly illustrate that the hortus conclusus is an eloquent symbol of the virginal divine motherhood of Mary and her perpetual virginity, as well as the excellence and fullness of her supernatural virtues and privileges.

This article aims to show the complex object of a fanal -a glass lantern where a sculpture of Baby Jesus surrounded by miniatures depicting nature dwells- as a three-dimensional representation of the hortus conclusus. The reflection and data provided, show this object as a garden to take care of and as a reminder of the search and mental pilgrimage to the renewal space.

En esta breve introducción y tras hacer una presentación de los tres artículos que constituyen el monográfico, Mercedes Montoro Araque asegura que no se puede singularizar el jardín del paisaje dado que más bien, y siguiendo a François Jullien, la clasica definición del "hortus conclusus" debe dejar paso a un espacio de "concentración del paisaje" en la que entren en juego tanto la dimensión simbólica y afectiva como la histórica y cultural.

PurposeDuring the 17th century, the Dutch Republic sought to project a positive global image centred around the principles of economic endeavour, moral stewardship and military resilience. By illustrating one way in which the country sought to communicate its international position, the paper aims to provide an early example of political diplomacy and reputation management.Design/methodology/approachPictorial narratives provide an important but often underutilised insight into our cultural, social and economic history. As works of art were considered legitimate and authoritative forms of communication, their importance can lie beyond any aesthetic accomplishment. Using established iconographic techniques, this paper deconstructs and interprets the meaning contained within a specific genre painting, The Young Mother (1658) by Gerrit Dou.FindingsRather than being devoid of meaning, The Young Mother represents a narrative purposely constructed to symbolise the cultural, religious and economic character of the United Provinces. It celebrates success through global trade, innovation and enterprise while simultaneously reminding audiences of the country’s moral and spiritual foundations. Like the patriotic allegory of De Hollandse Maag protecting the sacred space of the hortus conclusus, the painting is a secular representation of the new Loca Sancta.Originality/valueWhile acknowledging that The Young Mother has been praised for its visual qualities, this paper maintains that any broader political significance has been largely overlooked. The analysis and findings therefore offer original interpretations from which new conclusions are drawn.

The case of Emil Schwyzer, a.k.a. the ‘Solar-Phallus Man’, was foundational in giving shape to Jung’s early reflections on the concept of the collective unconscious. In 1906 Schwyzer identified a tail of light coming off the sun as a phallus, which Jung interpreted as a particularly important example of ‘the fantasies or delusions of…patients…[being] paralleled in mythological material of which they knew nothing’ (Bennet 1985:69). This was because it represented not only a single mythological symbol or idea that Schwyzer could not have known but an entire passage from an ancient document known as the Mithras Liturgy. According to Jung, Schwyzer’s ‘vision’ also paralleled a rare theme in Medieval art. Jung’s student J.J. Honegger gave a paper on the Schwyzer case at the March 1910 Second Psychoanalytic Congress in Nuremberg. In it he again discussed Schwyzer’s description of the light tail on the sun but especially his concept of a Ptolemaic flat earth. Relying largely on archival material not previously discussed, the present article provides a history of the Schwyzer case along with a thoroughgoing evaluation of what Jung and Honegger made of it. KEYWORDS J.J. Honegger, Emil Schwyzer, ‘Solar-Phallus Man’, Mithras Liturgy, Collective unconscious, Inherited ideas, Hortus Conclusus.

ABSTRACT The article studies the construction process of the Argentine-Uruguayan Hortus Conclusus sanctuary, inaugurated in Palestine in 1902. It focuses on the project’s diffusion and the construction of solidarity networks between Latin America, Rome and Palestine articulated by the Archbishop of Montevideo Mariano Soler. The central argument is that the case studied exhibits some particularities of the “global turn” of the Catholic Church in the Río de la Plata, which rather than being a passive recipient of congregations, images and devotions received from European “centers” of Catholic renovation, functioned as a dynamic space of appropriation and even universalization for many of these forms and images. This can be perceived by reconstructing the life of transnational agents and projects that linked different places in the world, amplifying the global consciousness of Catholicism at the local, national, and continental levels. Also, the article exemplifies how a Marian devotion was able to function as a symbolic space in service of political identities, and as a vehicle for (trans)national movements.

This contribution reviews the recent renovation of Z33—House for Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture in Hasselt, Belgium—in the light of its unique implementation of different levels of interiority. The institute is housed in the former beguinage, a site with a rich and layered history and one of the few green public spaces in the city centre. The intervention by architect Francesca Torzo builds further on and strengthens the existing qualities of the site through a creative process of copying and improving. By doing so, she changed the overall appearance of the beguinage, strengthening its quality as an enclosed public space—an intimate yet collective hortus conclusus.

The Polish version of the article was published in “Roczniki Humanistyczne,” vol. 64 (2016), issue 4.
 In Polish museum collections there are a few objects made of coral or decorated with it. They are, among others, altars, holy water fonts, crucifixes and other liturgical items. Most often they were bought during Poles’ travels to Italy in the Mannerism and Baroque epochs. St Mary’s Basilica’s treasury boasts of a portable coral altar dated to the middle of the 17th century, a gift from Maria Josepha, the wife of King Augustus III. It has a golden frame and is embellished with enamel and coral. Its centre features the figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary standing on a crescent, in a radiant coral glory, surrounded by Marian symbols. It is an apotheosis of the Blessed Virgin Mary based on a fragment of the Apocalypse of St John. The figure of Mary is presented with her cosmic attributes: twelve stars around her head; she is clothed with a radiant glory; and she has a crescent under her feet. Around her seven symbolic biblical signs are presented, ones connected in the exegetic tradition with her being the mother of the Messiah. The term Cedrus exaltata—is perceived as the symbol of majesty, sublimity, loftiness, paradisaical beauty, safety. Fons signatus is a sealed spring, an enclosed one, accessible only to the Mother of God’s Son, chosen by God. Hortus conclusus is the symbol of St Mary’s virginity. Oliva speciosa points to St Mary’s charity, her extraordinary fertility, inner peace, the gift of relieving sufferings. Rosa plantata is a metaphor of wisdom, love, medicine for sinners. Puteus aquarum viventium, a well of living waters, indicates St Mary’s mediation for people redeemed by Jesus. Turris eburnea—the ivory tower is another feature of the Virgin Mary’s beauty, of her immaculate body and fortitude.

La reforma Carmelita femenina descalza se presenta con frecuencia a través de la imagen de un espacio de clausura donde se han reforzado, a la par que los muros, las condiciones de austeridad de la Regla y las prácticas de ascesis. Sin embargo, la construcción y recreación del nuevo Carmelo no se limitó a una topografía unidireccional y simple. Una variada gama de elementos materiales y simbólicos fueron imaginados como fuerzas portantes de una forma de habitar el espacio que se planteó como una forma de estar en el mundo donde la presencia femenina fue resignificada. Este estudio tiene como objetivo la identificación de algunos de estos elementos y el análisis de sus significaciones a partir de los escritos de dos de sus protagonistas: Teresa de Jesús, la madre fundadora y María de San José, su discípula.

One of the main interests of this panel was to explore the relationships between virtual dimensions of photography and concrete physical realities in contemporary discourses on Architecture, City and Territory. We wanted to discuss, among other things, how constructed and manipulated images that suggest a new reading or create new idealised scenarios of existing architectural and public spaces may be used to cross or infringe certain borders people are bound in their daily lives as a way to act upon reality, fabricating new relationships between individuals and the collective public. A number of relations between the artistic strategies developed by the authors of this panel could be examined, focusing on the various methods they used for the construction of visual narratives between the virtual world of photography, manipulated visual constructs and the field of architecture in contemporary discourse. In this way, it was possible to discuss and examine today’s possibilities of image creation with digital tools that expand and potentiate significantly the practice of photography on creating imaginary environments of present architecture and public spaces. In fact, the projects presented went far beyond traditional objective approaches, exploring the fictional universe and making critical readings of existing spaces, going against the undiscerning saturated media consumption of architectural images. Starting with the text “HC (hortus conclusus)” written by the panel’s keynote speaker Beate Gütschow – an amazing artist who came from the world of realistic painting towards photography medium, having studied with Bernhard Johannes and Wolfgang Tillmans – it can be said that her body of work questions in a very significant way the likeness of photography, being also political and critical towards the notion of truth associated to this media. [...]

Naturally Artificial:The Pre-Raphaelite Garden Enclosed Dinah Roe (bio) The garden historian Brent Elliott tells us that the mid-Victorian revival of the enclosed garden "was not primarily a scholarly movement" but an artistic one and cites depictions of such gardens in the pictures of "many of the Pre-Raphaelite circle" as evidence.1 W. H. Mallock's satirical 1872 recipe for making "a modern Pre-Raphaelite poem" also recognizes the prominence of the walled garden motif in Pre-Raphaelite work. Among his key ingredients are "damozels" placed "in a row before a stone wall, with an apple-tree between each and some large flowers at their feet."2 He is probably thinking of the frontispiece of William Morris's The Earthly Paradise, a volume whose title evokes an enclosed garden; as the landscape architects Rob Aben and Saskia De Wit point out, the word "Paradise is derived from the Persian word Pairidaeza, literally meaning 'surrounded by walls.'"3 I want to demonstrate that it is this sense of what the garden theorist Stephanie Ross calls "surroundedness" that attracts Pre-Raphaelites to the enclosed garden. Ross writes that "being surrounded" provides "a basic sensory and kinesthetic" experience signifying "comfort, security, passivity, rest, privacy, intimacy, sensory focus, and concentrated attention."4 Walled gardens, in other words, provide the material and metaphorical conditions for experiencing and making art. Focusing on Christina Rossetti's poems "On Keats" (1849) and "Shut Out" (1856), Charles Collins's painting Convent Thoughts (1851), and William Morris's poem "The Defence of Guenevere" (1858), I want to examine the ways in which Pre-Raphaelitism begins to conceive of the walled garden as an analogue of both contemporary art and artistic consciousness.5 I will argue that the Pre-Raphaelite revival of the enclosed garden modernizes what was once a medieval space by remaking the traditional hortus conclusus in the image of the nineteenth-century artistic mind. Furthermore, I will demonstrate how the enclosed garden's paradoxical nature (open/closed, natural/artificial, free/constrained) contributes to the Pre-Raphaelite portrayal of consciousness [End Page 131] as fluid, multivalent, and self-generating. The early examples of enclosed gardens discussed here are important because they dramatize tensions that lie at the very heart of Pre-Raphaelitism, a movement whose pursuit of "truth to nature" can seem at odds with the requirements of artistic representation. Understood in the context of the horticultural revival of the enclosed garden, these artistic depictions of garden space can refine how we interpret the movement's realism. Despite the Pre-Raphaelites' reputation for representing the natural world with "microscopic" intensity, their interest in nature is not primarily scientific or botanical; they do not seek to make discoveries about cellular structure or the cultivation of plant species but rather to discover in the natural world "truths" about human nature and the artistic imagination.6 I will argue that Pre-Raphaelite portrayals of enclosed gardens celebrate interiority, subjectivity, and generative consciousness, privileging the mind over nature. I want to begin by suggesting that early Pre-Raphaelite representations of walled gardens participate in the "revolution in aesthetics" that Brent Elliott identifies in the nineteenth-century "overthrow of the landscape garden" (p. 7). Eighteenth-century landscape gardens encouraged garden visitors to "follow nature" by arranging "garden features" and "scenery" to "inevitably invoke particular responses" (p. 8). Seeking to imitate the natural world, these gar-dens concealed their own artificiality by disguising their borders and boundaries, making them appear as part of the "natural" landscape. For example, ha-has, woodlands, and sunken ditches were designed to draw attention away from themselves as aesthetic objects and from human intervention in the garden.7 Horace Walpole's influential essay "On Modern Gardening" promotes this approach, recommending that the English garden should aspire to "no other art than that of softening Nature's harshness and copying her graceful touch."8 Elliot argues that the Victorian drive to expose "the artistic and unnatural character of the garden" registers a broader philosophical shift from concern with "the qualities of the material world" to "the relation of that world to the mind" (pp. 10, 7–8). The nineteenth-century mind no longer regarded itself as a Lockean...

HC stands for hortus conclusus, a Latin term that means “enclosed garden”.In the HC series, the principles of medieval art with regard to pictorial space and perspective are applied to photography. In the Middle Ages, many images were rendered in parallel perspective; the viewpoint is always elevated. I have employed these spatial representations in my images. You will find these principles in many images of gardens in medieval book illustrations. Linear perspective was not developed until the Late Middle Ages; prior to this, artists employed multiple perspectives. These did not obey a particular spatial logic; instead, the available perspectives served a narrative purpose. If the narrative required a scene to be set in a particular place, this space was “opened out”, while the remaining space was shown as a flatter plane. [...]

El trabajo explora las estrategias proyectuales y recursos arquitectónicos empleados con singular oficio por Luis Barragán para dar forma a la idea de lugar. Se observan los recintos interiores y exteriores que componen su casa y la cuadra San Cristóbal, dos de sus obras más destacadas. Estas últimas se analizan en vinculación a la noción de Raum desarrollada por varios actores del contexto cultural y disciplinar de la segunda mitad del siglo XX, como así también en torno al empleo del hortus conclusus como recurso para generar pequeños universos de escape hacia el intimismo y la individualidad. A partir del análisis de los casos bajo esta óptica se pretende verificar la relación entre los planteamientos teóricos y disciplinares con los que Barragán mantuvo contacto y su producción concreta.