Obsolete Philosophy: Paradox in the Baroque Mindset

As I mentioned in the kickoff post, I wrote a lot of papers in college.

Not all of my classes were philosophy classes. I took some poetry classes as well.

One of my courses was Medieval and Renaissance Poetry and, holy cow, that one was one of my favorites. St. John of the Cross had some poems that still have me sighing when I read them, Ignatius of Loyola had a couple lovely ones, and we all tittered as we found comparisons between religious ecstasy and sexual ecstasy, as if we were the first people to ever notice.

This one isn’t anywhere near a paper I’d be proud of writing today… but, man, it’s got that St. John of the Cross in there. I thought about linking to another of his poems but couldn’t pick between I Live yet do not Live in Me, The Dark Night, and The Spiritual Canticle but… heck. Just read all of them.

Paradox is the defining characteristic of the Baroque mindset. Baroque artists are more than happy to engage in two or more mutually exclusive concepts, and moreover, they are able to make these two contradictory ideas work together to make something that should be impossible into a thing of beauty. St. Ignatius achieves this in his exercises, Don achieves this in his sonnets, as does St. John of the Cross in his, and Bernini does it with his amazing depiction of the ecstasy of St. Theresa as Caravagio does with his depiction of the Doubting of St. Thomas.

St. Ignatius of Loyola deals with paradox in his Spiritual Exercises. He gives many exercises and chores for the supplicant to go through in order to become closer to God, while Christianity, through the teachings of Paul, explicitly states that none of our actions can amount to anything when it comes to getting closer to God. St. Ignatius makes this same point in his exercises that our righteousness is as filthy rags before the glory of the Lord, and that we will never be able to achieve righteousness without the direct help of God, but he still asks his readers to follow along in his exercises.

Another problem with paradox in his Exercises is the fact that people sometimes did them as a way to achieve status. People would brag “I’ve done The Spiritual Exercises three times!”, while a close reading of the exercises would bring one to the conclusion that a successful completion of them would result in humility and a person who would not really care about the viewpoints of other people, let alone someone who would brag about completing the exercises multiple times! This paradox isn’t quite as beautiful as the paradox of faith vs works found within the Exercises, but was very probably much more common in the period of the Baroque.

Religious poetry was another area rich with paradox. St. John of the Cross, in his poem “One Dark Night”, gives one of the most beautiful and erotic descriptions of a mystical experience found in all of literature. His 8th verse:

I abandoned and forgot myself,
Laying my face on my Beloved;
All things ceased; I went out from myself,
Forgotten among the lilies.

This is not only a beautiful description of his feelings about Jesus, but, removed from the religious context, it is one of the best descriptions of orgasm to be found in all of Baroque literature. This so fully sensual description of love for Christ is a paradox, but that is what makes it so rich.

Religious art is another bastion of paradox for the Baroque. Both Caravagio and Bernini revel in paradox and use it to make their own artwork more powerful. Bernini’s “Ecstasy of St. Theresa” shows a beautiful young woman completely aswoon, with a cherub standing over her, smirking beneficently, while holding arrows poised to pierce Theresa’s stomach. The expression on her face is one of, well, ecstasy. It would be easy to imagine the same expression on someone in the middle of an above-average sexual activity. The expression on the cherub is one of amusement, and almost condescension. It would be easy to imagine the same expression on the face of a man watching his own children play with the toys he has given them on Christmas morning. The fact that all of these expressions could easily translate to more secular, and even profane, experiences does not lessen the power of the sculpture, but makes the experiences of the two characters much easier to relate to. The paradox of being in ecstasy and of being in the focus of God’s love is not one that one can dismiss as nonsense.

Caravagio entertains a different kind of Paradox in his painting depicting the doubting of St. Thomas. The painting shows Thomas inserting his finger into the wound in the side of the newly resurrected Christ. If one reads the Gospel of John’s account of the doubting of Thomas, one sees a completely different story. Thomas was not among the other disciples the first time that Jesus showed himself after the resurrection, and he disbelieved the other disciples’ accounts, saying “Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of his nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25b NKJV)

However, when Jesus does show up later in the Chapter, he jibes Thomas and asks him if he would like to put his finger into his nail marks and side, Thomas is left with nothing to say, except “My Lord and my God.”

The fact that the painting depicts a completely different response of Thomas than is shown in the Bible seems to be a paradox. However, the power of the painting is felt by all of its viewers; people put their own hands to their sides in imaginary pain as they also “feel” Thomas poking his finger into their own sides. The paradox adds to the strength of the art, instead of detracting from it.

Throughout the Baroque, there are many paradoxes, so many, that it could be said that paradox is a defining characteristic of it. In some cases, the paradox lies in the response to the work, in others, in the work itself. The melding of sensual sexuality with pure spirituality is one paradox that adds power to Baroque artwork, and the blurring of the lines between art and audience makes all of the work even more powerful still. But perhaps the greatest paradox of all lies in the fact that one as innocent and spiritual as St. Theresa and one as carnal as Caravagio can both be considered great subjects and creators of art as sensual as it is spiritual, and both be part of the same great era in the history of the Humanities.