By Sander Vloebergs
[continuation of blogpost Art Project 1, part 1]
It was only the day after writing the first part that I figured out that another drawing that I developed some time ago, is an answer to the intellectualism that I faced at the beginning of my project. Hadewijch herself assigns a character and a body to her own reason, so she can fight with her. The vision takes place during the night of the liturgical celebration of Mary’s Nativity. Hadewijch is very conscious of the liturgical time and allows it to penetrate the content of her visionary experience. Already at the start of her vision, she encounters a majestic queen, dressed in gold. It is a dress, moreover, covered in flaming eyes. She is assisted by three maidens. I decided to leave the maidens out of the picture because I wanted to concentrate exclusively and intensively on the relation between Hadewijch and this imposing queen. With the liturgical time in mind, could this be Mary whom Hadewijch is talking too?
Soon the vision takes a violent turn as the queen attacks Hadewijch and puts her foot on Hadewijch’s neck, screaming: “Do you know who I am?” I was rather shocked at first sight, Hadewijch was not. She knew. Hadewijch was battling her own reason. It tortured and grieved her during her whole life by holding her back from a complete (and naïve) union with God and by pointing out the difference between the eternal God of Love and the weak creature that she was (defectus amoris). But this time, queen Reason is not there to hurt Hadewijch only to reveal her majesty, or only to show the precious clothes with the thousands of eyes that shine with bright flames, and the thousands of tiaras that she is wearing. Rather, it was Hadewijch’s own suffering and pain that clothed reason, that made her a queen. In the last part of the vision this Enlighted Reason unveiled her true identity. She was Hadewijch and Hadewijch was the Queen. After that she surrendered herself.
In the ninth vision there is surprising amount of violence which influenced the dynamics of my drawing intensively. As a dancer and choreographer I draw inspiration from body language. I wanted to capture the sadomasochistic relationship between Hadewijch and the mysterious figure. I was fortunate to have revealed to me an image while I was just wandering around before starting the art process. I believe this revelation to be part of contemplative seeing. I decided to work with the broken mirror and the shattered glass, the intellectual insight to correlate the drawing and the vision were unveiled only after the drawing took shape.
There are two protagonist in my drawing, Hadewijch who is held captive under Reason’s foot. I chose to picture the two figures as living dolls (to refer to the female art of the Middle Ages and its naïve and childish style). Hadewijch cannot do anything, except to see, to stare at Reason. I placed a layer of glass on Reason and broke it where her face used to be. The mysterious figure who Hadewijch artfully hid under many layers of interpretation (Mary – Reason – Herself, it even reminds me of the story of Jacob and the angel) allows Hadewijch and the reader to wonder about her identity. Hadewijch tells her correspondent that she has to see for herself how many tiaras the queen is wearing, implying that looking is not only related to observing but to experiencing as well. Later I understood that I was not drawing shattered glass but that I was drawing a mirror, allowing Hadewijch to look into her own reflection. The many eyes and tiaras are reflected on all the broken pieces. They are scars of the many painful encounters she experienced with the sharp edges of human finite reason. Only when she completely surrendered she conquered and became queen herself.
At this point I see the many layers in my own art/thought process. The curious choice to put both of these drawings (in this and the previous blog post) together, demanded me to reflect on the process I went through. By reading the ninth vision again, I discovered that Hadewijch herself was fighting with human finite reason and the intellectualism that suppresses art and mysticism. She made me look in the mirror and answer the question: “Who do you think I am?”