Middle Ages without borders: a conversation on medievalism
| , ,Keynote Lectures / Lezioni magistrali / Conférences
Jesus Christ, Heavenly Bodies, and Catholic Imaginations
The Apostolic Church, The Vatican, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art1
Résumé
L’exposition Heavenly Bodies : Fashion and the Catholic Imagination a été présentée au Metropolitan Museum de New York et aux Cloisters du 10 mai au 8 octobre 2018. Quelque 200 vêtements et ornements datant du XIXe au XXIe siècle ont été présentés, dont une quarantaine (des XIXe et XXe siècles) provenant du Vatican. Le matériel du Vatican a été installé séparément dans le Centre de costumes Anna Wintour du Met. Les autres objets ont été exposés dans les galeries médiévales du Met et dans les Cloisters, beaucoup à proximité d'œuvres d'art médiévales. Dans cet article, je discute des justifications proposées par les conservateurs et administrateurs du Met et du Vatican pour monter l'exposition et de leurs descriptions des objectifs qu'elle visait, particulièrement importants compte tenu du moment de l'exposition, un moment de grave crise dans l'Église, qui avait commencé bien avant l'ouverture du salon, mais s'était fortement accélérée pendant qu'il était à l'affiche. Je discute ensuite de l'éventail des réactions à l'exposition et au Gala. Enfin, je commente deux thèmes plus vastes : la place de la richesse et de la magnificence dans l’Église catholique et en particulier l’adoption par l’Église de gages matériels de puissance et de magnificence laïques ; et la relation entre les modes exposées à New York – papale et laïque – et une hypothétique imagination catholique (ou des imaginations, peut-être), ainsi que les motivations variées qui peuvent conduire les designers et les artistes à s'approprier symboles religieux, images et histoires pour leurs propres fins séculières.
Texte intégral
- 1 This paper was first presented in Rome, at John Cabot University, on 24 November 2018, at the conf (...)
- 2 The exhibition checklist, with photographs of all the installations except for the Vatican collect (...)
- 3 Here I cite Mellissa Huber, an assistant curator in the Fashion Institute and specialist in twenti (...)
- 4 See Passy 2018.
- 5 The Tut show ran from 15 December 1978 to 15 April 1979. See Hindley 2015, available on the Intern (...)
1From 10 May to 8 October 2018, Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination was on display at the Metropolitan Museum Fifth Avenue and at the Met Cloisters, seven miles to the north (fig. 1). The exhibition consisted of hundreds of garments and ornaments dating from the nineteenth through the twenty-first century, some forty from the Vatican. The objects loaned by the Vatican were installed, apart, in the Anna Wintour Costume Center, ordinarily dedicated to exhibitions of haute couture. The other items were shown in close proximity to medieval works of art in settings selected by the exhibition’s organizers, Andrew Bolton, head of the Met’s Costume Institute2, and Anna Wintour, since 1988 editor of Vogue magazine, fashion czaress extraordinaire, and one of the Met’s Trustees. In what an associate described as “wholehearted collaboration3,” C. Griffith Mann, Michel David-Weill Curator in Charge of the Department of Medieval Art and the Cloisters, and Barbara Drake Boehm, Paul and Jill Ruddock Senior Curator for the Met Cloisters, worked with them. During the five months it was on view, the exhibition was visited by 1,659,647 people4, thus eclipsing by almost 300,000 the previous record set in 1978-1979 by the Met’s show featuring Tutankhamun5.
- 6 This program and Martin’s appearances on 23 February 2009 and 18 March 2010 can be seen on YouTube (...)
- 7 Bolton, Sheen Talks interview, at about 28 minutes.
2Heavenly Bodies created far more stir in the worlds of art and religion than had Tut, at least in part because of the lavish costume Gala held on 8 May, two nights before the exhibit opened. Celebrities vied for invitations (at a cost, for those who paid, of $30,000 a ticket), and honored guests included Timothy Cardinal Dolan, archbishop of New York, and Father James Martin, S.J. As primate of the city, Dolan is a familiar figure to New Yorkers, whereas Martin has since 2017 served as papally appointed consultant to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications, and is popularly known as Stephen Colbert’s “TV priest,” an avowed opponent of materialism who declared on Colbert’s program on 24 September 2013 that money and God cannot be served at the same time6. For the event, the dress code was prudently described as “Sunday Best,” and modesty was recommended in view of the show’s links with the Church7. Attendees varied in their responses. Madonna’s initial ensemble resembled papal vestments, whereas she later performed on the Met’s great stairway, first in a Franciscan-like cloak, and then a scanty white corset and waist cincher.
- 8 On 14 August 2018, the press reported the issuance of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report on sexual (...)
- 9 A session focused on the exhibit was held on 8 March 2019 at the Annual Meeting of the Medieval Ac (...)
3The exhibition and the Gala occurred during a critical period for the Catholic Church, with shocking reports of child and sexual abuse by Catholic clergy being released while the show was in progress8. Similar issues of sexual domination and exploitation were strikingly raised by the exhibition and party, which called attention to the Church’s wealth, its embrace of pomp and grandeur, and the diverse ways in which secular fashion designers have responded to the Church’s practices, some of them, as will be seen, raising issues of sexual domination and exploitation. The tensions among the show’s themes and those between these themes and the larger social context, however, seem simply to have increased the exhibition’s allure. The sumptuous show’s extraordinary success means that it will long be remembered and perhaps emulated9. Thus it seems worthwhile to review the exhibition and assess its repercussions and significance.
The Exhibition: Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination
- 10 I have found particularly useful Hooper 2018; Friedman 2017; and the review by Jason Farago (Farag (...)
- 11 Checklist, 33.
- 12 Checklist, 10-11; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 190-193.
4Some two hundred objects – clothing, jewelry, and other adornments – were assembled for the exhibition. A fifth of them were ecclesiastical, most from the Treasury of the Vatican and dating largely from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries10. The other, non-clerical items were more recent. Created by more than fifty designers working largely in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, they were made with rare exceptions for secular wear and display, intended mostly for women. A few objects and pieces of clothing were limbo-like in status. Most notable were the chasuble that Henri Matisse designed for the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, now owned by the Museum of Modern Art11, and two sumptuous costumes made, respectively, by Yves Saint Laurent and Riccardo Tisci for life-size statues of the Virgin12.
- 13 Checklist, 32.
- 14 Checklist, 33. Only the red shoes appear (without a caption) in Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 86.
- 15 Checklist, 38; Bolton et al.2018, 1, p. 70, 76. The catalogue includes photographs of most of the (...)
- 16 Checklist, 34-35; Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 44-47. For a better image of the chasuble, which can b (...)
5In the Anna Wintour Costume Center, the papal paraphernalia from the Vatican were presented as virtual religious artifacts, objects to be contemplated in isolation from the other fashions, to the relentless accompaniment of a portion of Palestrina’s motet Tu es Petrus13. A simple white papal cassock worn by Saint John Paul II (r. 1978-2005), with specially commissioned red leather shoes14, was overwhelmed and outshone by splendid chasubles and a dalmatic embroidered with scenes from Christ’s life and death, and by extravagant mitres and jeweled tiaras including one decorated with 19,000 diamonds, given by Queen Isabella of Spain in 1854 to Pius IX (r.1846-1878), and another presented to Pope Pius XI (r. 1922-1939) in 1929 by Benito Mussolini15. A richly embroidered silk chasuble that Franciscan sisters made in 1926 for the same pope, Pius XI, displayed scenes from the life of Saint Francis, the current pope’s namesake. Perhaps designedly, the chasuble does not show Francis’s stripping himself of the garments his father had bought him when he renounced the world, nor yet the burning of the Spiritual Franciscans who advocated literal observance of Jesus’s and Francis’s precepts concerning the pursuit of poverty16.
- 17 Checklist, 33, 38. Benedict XVI (r. 2005-2013) substituted a mitre for a tiara decorated with his (...)
- 18 Cf. Friedman 2017 (“and, presumably, to defray criticisms that could incur [sic] if a visitor were (...)
- 19 See the companion volume, Katzew 2017; the exhibition was shown earlier at Fomento Cultural Baname (...)
6Vanessa Friedman suggested that the Vatican items were quarantined because “they are still working garments” – although this is not true of the tiaras, whose use Pope Paul VI abandoned in 196417. In all likelihood, as she also proposed, they were kept separate to insure their not being displayed next to secular garments adorned unsettlingly with sacred symbols and objects18. Although no explicit connections were suggested, the Vatican display in fact resonated with the works exhibited in the show Painted in Mexico, 1700-1790. Pinxit Mexici, on view at the Met between 24 April and 22 July 2018, thus overlapping Heavenly Bodies, but far less visited. With images of richly adorned saints, nuns, and clerics, and depictions of the crucified Christ with brocaded loincloth suspended above silver candlesticks, Painted in Mexico implicitly raised the same issues of propriety and motivation that were posed by the Vatican portion of Heavenly Bodies and echoed in the other two sections of the exhibition19.
- 20 Note Bolton’s remarks in Sheen Talks interview, at 38 minutes.
- 21 Photographs from Roma were reproduced in Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 37, and as artistic comparanda (...)
- 22 Checklist, 12. See Infernal ‘Heavenly Bodies’: How the Directorless Metropolitan Museum Went Astra (...)
7The second, largest part of the exhibition occupied the Met Fifth Avenue’s Medieval and Byzantine galleries, directly off the main entrance to the Museum, with a few gowns displayed an atrium’s length away, in the Robert Lehmann wing. The theme of the Medieval Hall was intended to be the pageantry and hierarchy of the Catholic Church, as well as gender distinctions20. A wall panel compared fashion runways to liturgical processions, calling them both “theatrical spectacles that rely on the tropes of performance.” Describing the display as “a cast of religious characters identifiable by their dress,” the panel identified “as [its] organizing principle” the bizarrely satirical ecclesiastical fashion show that Federico Fellini included in his 1972 movie Roma21. A video loop of the episode attracted a constant sprinkling of viewers, whereas the hall resounded with a musical segment from Peter Greenaway’s 1985 film A Zed & Two Noughts, endlessly repeated22.
- 23 Checklist, 2-32.
- 24 Checklist, 2-3, 5; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 114-121.
- 25 Checklist, 3-4; Bolton et al. 2018, 2:110-113. Versace’s five cross dresses were displayed in the (...)
- 26 Checklist, 7-10.
- 27 Checklist, 13-19; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 148-149, 162-163, 166-173.
- 28 Checklist, 13; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 156-157, where it is shown with a photograph from Fellini (...)
- 29 Checklist, 12-13.
8In the hall and the adjacent galleries the garments and objects were given pride of place amidst medieval artworks, which they sometimes echoed or resembled and which they generally overshadowed (fig. 2)23. Images resembling the mosaics of Palermo and Monreale adorned some garments24, and a series of Versace dresses created in 1997-1998 shortly after Gianni Versace’s murder were inspired by one of the Met’s own votive crosses25. Further, jeweled crosses made by Coco Chanel (1883-1971) reproduced an antique cross she owned26. A variety of garments emulated and evoked clerical vestments27, including a heavily embroidered “evening ensemble” by John Galliano, which consisted of lavish gown, cope, and mitre, made for and worn by a man28. Dresses decked with wings recalled angels, whereas the cloth and color of a low-cut red silk taffeta gown recently created by Valentino were reminiscent of a cardinal’s garb, however unclerical the revealing décolletage (fig. 3)29.
Fig. 3 – Valentino evening dress (2017-2018). Medieval Europe Gallery, The Met Fifth Avenue (photo by the author).

- 30 Checklist, 5-7; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 109. The Bard Graduate Center’s exhibit, Agents of Faith (...)
- 31 Checklist, 25-26; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 326-327. Consult the website lechanelphil.com, for hyp (...)
- 32 See Jaeger 2018 and also, featuring the object, Smith – Laneri – Sheehy 2018 (“A leather bondage m (...)
- 33 This necklace is not shown in the catalogue, but see Checklist, 25.
9Sacred symbols abounded. A ball gown adorned with ex-votos was displayed near leather jackets decorated with gaudily bejeweled crosses (fig. 4)30. Crosses on a gilet designed by Karl Lagerfeld featured Coco Chanel’s linked initial C’s where Jesus’s corpus would ordinarily rest (fig. 5)31. A black costume helmet adorned by small black crosses (described as “a leather bondage mask with dangling rosary beads”) (which was not included in the catalogue) was displayed beside a medieval rosary adorned with death’s heads32 and a Chanel necklace designed in 2014 that was said to resemble a rosary and thus recall the convent where Chanel lived as an orphaned child (fig. 6)33.
Fig. 4 – Evening ensemble (2007). Jean Paul Gaultier. Apse, The Met Fifth Avenue (photo by the author).

Fig. 5 – Gilet (2007-2008). Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. Apse, The Met Fifth Avenue (photo by the author).

- 34 See Bolton’s Introduction to Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 95-96, at 96; and Checklist, 11-12. On 21 J (...)
- 35 Checklist, 43, 45, 46, 61-62, and also 52, 54, 56, 63, 65; Rosenbaum 2018.
- 36 Checklist, 43-45, 47, 49-50, 60.
- 37 Checklist, 43-45; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 264-265 (where the digitally-manipulated image is dist (...)
- 38 Checklist, 43-45, 46-47; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 258-263. A Jean-Paul Gaultier gown, called a “‘C (...)
- 39 Checklist, 64.
- 40 Checklist, 52, 53, 55-57, 62, 65, 66; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 254-256, 274-281.
10The third part of the exhibition was housed at the Met Cloisters. Here the proclaimed theme was “the reflective and reverential side of the Catholic Church34,” Schubert’s Ave Maria played in several galleries, and selections from other spiritually-inspired pieces, including Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack for The Mission, in others35. A few clerical, non-Vatican, vestments, were on view36. An elegantly simple Balenciaga wedding dress displayed in the Fuentidueña chapel reminded some of Christ’s seamless robe (John 19:24) (fig. 7)37. Other wedding gowns and confirmation costumes were shown, as were dresses inspired by monastic robes38. A second red Valentino gown, this one in silk velvet but fully as décolleté as the dress at the Met Fifth Avenue, was placed near the Merode altarpiece39. A number of dresses were decorated with images from well-known paintings, some explicitly biblical and religious, some not, whose creators ranged from Jean Fouquet and Hieronymous Bosch, to Vincent Van Gogh40.
Fig. 7 – Wedding Dress (1967). Cristobal Balenciaga. Fuentidueña Chapel, The Met Cloisters (photo by the author).

- 41 Checklist, 50-51 (listed twice) (the label read: “With a ‘pee[p]’ hole at the crotch, Rick Owens’s (...)
- 42 Checklist, 62; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 298-299. Although Bolton showed this gown in his YouTube (...)
- 43 Checklist, 58-59; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 310-311, where the crown is shown with a late-medieval (...)
11Other items were less reverential, and even less closely linked to the Church and Catholic ideals. A male costume with what the label described as a “pee[p] hole,” was said to be intended to evoke such figures as Chaucer’s bawdy nun’s priest (fig. 8)41. A wedding dress designed by Thom Browne, notable for a gold unicorn head mirroring the Unicorn tapestry displayed nearby, was decorated with intersecting tennis rackets mimicking the crossed gold and silver keys signifying the Petrine power to bind and loose which figure with the papal tiara on the seal of the Papal See and the Città del Vaticano (fig. 9)42. In the Treasury a silver crown of thorns designed to be “comfortable to wear” and “not pierce the head,” created by Shaun Leane in 1996 for Alexander McQueen, was shown next to a hanging depicting the seven Instruments of the Passion (fig. 10)43.
Fig. 9 – Wedding Ensemble (2018). Thom Browne. Unicorn Tapestries Room, The Met Cloisters (photo by the author).

Fig. 10 – Headpiece (1996-1997). Shaun Leane for Alexander McQueen. The Treasury, The Met Cloisters (photo by the author).

12Both at the Cloisters and in the Heavenly Bodies Gift Shop at the downdown, Met knock-offs and replicas of cross-adorned jackets and scarves were for sale, as were other objects decorated with religious motifs and images of Virgin and Child (fig. 11). A range of jewelry, from ultra-expensive to cheap, featured crosses and other Christian symbols. The merchandise became even more affordable as prices were sharply reduced toward the end of the show and after it closed.
The Exhibition’s Premises and Goals
13Heavenly Bodies was planned and seen to completion by Andrew Bolton, during a tumultuous period in the history of the Metropolitan Museum. Thomas P. Campbell’s directorship, which began in 2009, ended abruptly in June 2017. On his departure he was succeeded as interim director by Daniel H. Weiss, who was named President and Chief Executive Officer, having served since March 2015 as president of the Museum after the much-regretted retirement of Emily K. Rafferty. Not until April 2018, after the opening of Heavenly Bodies, was Max Hollein appointed as director, reporting to Weiss. Thus it was Bolton’s vision, approved by Campbell, that inspired the show, and Bolton who brought the exhibition into being.
- 44 Nicole Winfield, Vatican, Versace and Vogue Team Up for Met’s Spring Exhibit, written for The Asso (...)
- 45 Friedman 2017; and also Sheen Talks interview. According to Friedman, Bolton expressed his hope “t (...)
- 46 In Sheen Talks interview, Bolton said he was raised as a Catholic until the age of 14.
- 47 Hooper 2018. In Sheen Talks interview, Bolton thanked Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museu (...)
- 48 Friedman 2017, quoted on 28 February 2018 in an article, At the Met, Catholic-inspired fashion now (...)
14Believing that “dress is central to any discussion about religion, … affirms religious allegiances and, by extension, … asserts religious differences44,” Bolton originally intended to focus on the relationship between costume and each of the “five world religions” – Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity45. But Bolton, himself raised as a Catholic, eventually decided to focus on Christianity alone, and to feature Catholicism as exclusively representative of the myriad Christian faiths that are practiced46. In Rome and at the Vatican Bolton and his associates pleaded their case eloquently enough to win the Vatican’s support47 and agreement (in the words of the director of the Vatican’s press office, Greg Burke) to share some of “the beautiful works of art the Church has been producing and promoting for centuries, … some of the beauty that rarely gets seen48.”
- 49 Greeley 2000; a citation from the book prefaces Checklist, 1. Greeley dedicated the book to David (...)
- 50 First published in 1981, the book has been often reprinted by Crossroad in New York. Tracy, born i (...)
- 51 See the first chapter of Greeley 2000, “The Sacraments of Sensibility,” p. 1-22.
- 52 Tracy 1981, esp. his last chapter, “A Christian systematic analogical imagination,” p. 405-455, wh (...)
15Once the scope of the exhibition was established, Bolton decided to link the objects that would be displayed with a specifically “Catholic imagination,” a notion popularized by Andrew Greeley (1928-2013), a priest, journalist, novelist, inspirational speaker, and sometime sociologist49, who credited as his inspiration the renowned Catholic priest and theologian David Tracy and his book, Analogical Imagination: Christian Theology and the Culture of Pluralism50. In Greeley’s formulation (which he attempted to validate through sociological surveys), Catholics are more inclined than others “to see the Holy lurking in creation,” and to view everything in the world as “enchanted” and revealing God’s active presence in the world, inclining them to storytelling and metaphorical interpretation of all that is visible51. As the title of Tracy’s book and the essay he contributed to the catalogue of Heavenly Bodies suggest, his “analogical imagination” is more nuanced and complex than Greeley’s, encompassing mystical and experiential elements found in many faiths52. However understood, the poetic suggestiveness of the amorphous notion of “imagination” added dramatic cachet to the exhibition’s title, without precisely defining or cumbrously restricting the show’s scope.
- 53 Bolton et al. 2018, Introduction, p. 96; see also Checklist, 1. On 21 June 2018 (see n. 2 above), (...)
- 54 Friedman 2017.
- 55 “Sponsors’ Statements,” in Boston et al. 2018, 1, p. 6-7.
16Bolton had lofty aims for the exhibit. As he wrote in the catalogue, it was “intended to evoke the concept and practice of pilgrimage,” and the pilgrimatic trajectory Bolton himself suggested was spiritually inspired, commencing with the objects from the Vatican, continuing in the downtown Medieval galleries, and culminating at the Cloisters53. Thus Bolton privileged the objects linked with the Church as the starting point for appreciating the show, whereas an Exhibition Map distributed to visitors envisaged the Vatican-linked objects as providing an interlude between the two collections of secular garments, medieval analogues, religious (and sacred-sounding) soundtracks, and the Fellini loop. Both Donatella Versace and the other major sponsors of the show, Christine and Stephen A. Schwarzman (whose company, Blackstone, bought 20% of Versace in 2014)54 praised the show for demonstrating the history of Catholic imagination, even though the exhibit was neither historical nor chronological in focus or organization55.
- 56 Friedman 2017.
- 57 “Sponsors’ Statements,” in Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 6.
- 58 Exhibition Map; Checklist, 1. In his introduction to the catalogue (Introduction, p. 96), Bolton d (...)
- 59 I consulted the site on 18 November 2018; see also Checklist, 1.
- 60 Dated 10 May 2018, the first is entitled “Heavenly Bodies and the Catholic Imagination Gallery Vie (...)
- 61 See n. 1 above.
17When interviewed almost a year before the opening of the exhibition, the president of the Met, Daniel Weiss expressed “confidence that the exhibition will inspire understanding, creativity and, along the way, constructive dialogue, which is precisely a museum’s role in our civil society56.” At the same interview Bolton expressed his commitment to encouraging rumination about “ideas that are a reflection of contemporary interests. That strike a chord or are synergistic with the collective consciousness,” whereas Christine and Stephen Schwarzman said they conceived of the exhibition as a “thought-provoking exploration of the relationship between fashion and the divine57.” Indeed, the show’s organizers declared they envisaged it “as a series of short stories told through conversations between religious artworks… and fashions,” with “the fashions and artworks … sing[ing] in unison with distinctly enchanted and enchanting voices58.” Similarly but less poetically, the Met’s website described the show as “featur[ing] a dialogue between fashion and medieval art” and an examination of “fashion’s ongoing engagement with the devotional practices and traditions of Catholicism59.” Despite these aims, the show was accompanied by no symposia or public lectures at the Met designed to encourage thoughtful consideration, discussion, and debate, although Bolton recorded two virtual tours60, and he and Griffith Mann were interviewed by Father James Martin at the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Center in New York61.
- 62 In Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 9.
- 63 See Hall 1983. Entitled The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art and comprising 237 items, the (...)
- 64 See the comments of Susie Wilkening, a museum consultant in Seattle, quoted by Passy 2018. As yet (...)
- 65 Jessica Andrews wrote on 9 May 2018 that the theme of the Gala (which was taken from the title of (...)
- 66 See Donatella Versace’s “Sponsor’s statement,” in Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 7.
- 67 In preparing the show, Bolton asked Cardinal Nolan and different Catholic groups “to identify garm (...)
18In his Foreword to the catalogue Daniel Weiss did not mention the educational and intellectual rationales he enumerated before the show opened, although he emphasized its demonstration that “art has the power to enrich the soul and uplift the spirit62.” Revealingly, he also noted that the exhibition of objects from the Vatican in 1983 “still holds the record for the third most attended exhibition in the Museum’s history”63 – which suggests the importance to the Museum’s administration of attracting visitors and swelling attendance64. This unspoken goal, resoundingly achieved, influenced the way the show was mounted as well as the items chosen for display. Weiss in fact remarked that the artworks juxtaposed with the clothes and ornaments “serve[d] as both inspiration and” – significantly – “provocation” – a word that implies controversy, as well as offensiveness, suggestiveness, and even indecency65. Donatella Versace used the word in defending her brother Gianni’s display of “religious symbols with something provocative,” explaining that “his intention was to make people stop and contemplate their wonder66.” Wonder apart, provocativeness inevitably attracts attention. The inclusion of items and pairings recognized – and planned – to be “provocative” and “inflammatory” (however one chooses to parse the words)67 insured that the museum would become the most popular show the Met had ever mounted.
Reactions to Heavenly Bodies and the Gala
- 68 See the website cardinaldolan.org/index/Philip/heavenly-bodies-fashion-and-the-catholic-imaginatio (...)
- 69 White 2018. Claire Chretien offered a similar appraisal (Chretien 2018).
19On 7 May 2018, the day before the Gala and three days before the exhibit’s official opening, Cardinal Dolan suggested that in viewing the garments and other objects displayed at the Met, visitors would be gazing on manifestations of God’s glory, and in a sense, Jesus Christ. Echoing Andrew Greeley, Dolan declared, “In the ‘Catholic imagination,’ the True, the Good, and the Beautiful have a name: Jesus Christ, who revealed Himself as ‘the Way, the Truth, and the Life.’ In the ‘Catholic Imagination,’ the truth, goodness, and beauty of God is reflected all over … even in fashion. The world is shot through with His glory68.” As to the Gala, Dolan judged it not “offensive or blasphemous at all.” Although “some things [were] in poor taste,” he saw no one who was “out to offend the Church.” The event, he thought, was “a boost for the Church” and “a celebration of what [Catholics] call the evangelization of culture69.” Dolan hoped the event might remind people “of positive memories of the Church” and its rituals, saying “If this helps people rediscover those [Catholic] roots, then hallelujah, it’s a winner.”
- 70 This is the title of the article Piers Morgan posted on Daily Mail.com, on 8 and 9 May 2018.
- 71 This is the title of the blog posted by Moore, a student at Cardiff University, on 8 May 2018 (moo (...)
20Despite the spiritual rekindling (if not renewal) the Gala produced for some who attended, there were critics and detractors, among them Piers Morgan. “If the Met Gala was Islam or Jewish-themed,” he complained, “all hell would break loose – so why,” he asked, “was it OK for a bunch of flesh-flashing celebrities to disrespect MY religion70?” Still, Will Moore declared that “[t]he Met Gala’s Catholic theme wasn’t as offensive as you think71.”
- 72 This was posted by “Clevver Style” on 9 May 2018.
- 73 See Kosin 2018; Cole 2020; and n. 8 above.
- 74 Recorded on 9 May 2018 as part of a series called New Catholic Generation, the episode is entitled (...)
21Amazement, enthusiasm, and raucous amusement characterized the reactions of several young female viewers of the Gala, recorded in an episode of the video series Dirty LAUNDRY. Entitled “Best and Worst Dressed Met Gala, 2018,” it had been seen 1,591,000 times on YouTube as of 1 June 201972. Clad in an armor-like metallic Versace gown (by Law Roach) the singer and actress Zendaya was described as “Joan of Arc marching into the Crusades73.” The rapper Cardi B they viewed as “a walking piece of art,” who was “channeling the Virgin Mary, since she was pregnant.” One young woman thought that “her boobs look great,” and another commented that her physique showed clearly that “if you want to get your boobs bigger, don’t get a boob job, just get pregnant.” In another video (also on YouTube), three sincere young Catholics, a woman and two men, were less exuberant and more deliberative74. Having initially pronounced the procession of celebrities “cool,” the young woman, Renée, in the end concluded, “But I keep getting an occasional wave of how much I don’t like this because of their lifestyles when they go home. They haven’t been involved with religion for a long time.”
- 75 See the article by William Gossett, undated, on the website Return to Order, entitled Protest at t (...)
- 76 Sheen Talks interview.
22The reactions of visitors to the exhibit, like those of viewers of the Gala, ranged from enthusiastic approval to puzzlement, discomfort, disgust, and impassioned denunciation, with some of those who questioned the events’ proprietry being reassured by the absence of vocal clerical disapproval of the project and by the Church’s active involvement in it. Dissent was most spectacularly demonstrated at the Met Fifth Avenue on Saturday, 9 June 2018, the feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. There, accompanied by drums and bagpipes, some six hundred people assembled to condemn the exhibit as sacrilegious, sing Marian hymns, and say the rosary. One of their banners declared that lay Catholics were offering “reparation” for the exhibition, and another proclaimed, “Cardinal Dolan: Mixing sin and sanctity is a sacrilege75.” This protest, reported only in the Catholic press, witnessed the strength of the emotions the exhibition aroused. On a less dramatic level, on 21 May 2018 Curator in Charge Griffith Mann reported that “someone [was] praying for [him] in Kansas City” because of his part in organizing the show76.
Opulence and the Church
- 77 Winfield 2018.
- 78 Ravasi 2018. See Matt. 23.2 and 5: “Super cathedram Moysi sederunt scribae et pharisaei. […] Omnia (...)
23At the Met, the nature of the objects exhibited and their stunning installation inevitably called attention to the Catholic Church’s wealth and its enthusiastic embrace of secular material tokens of power and affluence. In a preview of the Vatican’s participation held in Rome on 26 February 2018, Gianfranco Cardinal Ravasi acknowledged that excess and luxury in fashion “is undoubtedly a factor to be judged from a moral and religious standpoint77.” Far from resolving the issue, his subsequent observation that “God himself was concerned with dressing his creatures” served to emphasize the disparity between primitive simplicity and later extravagance. In his contribution to the exhibition catalogue, Cardinal Ravasi invoked “the bond between beauty and faith” and also priestly vestments and sacred ornaments described in the Hebrew scriptures to defend the Church’s engagement with art and fashion, but, more to the point, he also called attention to the unpretentiousness of early Christian practice and Jesus’s criticism in Matthew of elaborate Jewish clerical garb78.
- 79 Matt. 19:21-29. The material connotations of the reward Jesus promised the young man – “a treasure (...)
- 80 Brown 2012. See also Brown 2005. The passages advocating care and mindfulness of the poor attribut (...)
- 81 Brown 2012, XXV and 523. For the charter, see Diplomata, p. 227, no. 241, a charter of Theodetrudi (...)
24Jesus’s earlier injunction in Matthew to the rich young man to sell what he had and give it all to the poor to attain salvation79 is fully as relevant to the issue of the morality of ecclesiastical wealth. As Peter Brown has shown, the Church gradually but inexorably transformed Christ’s teaching into an exhortation to give not only to the poor but also to the Church – as its leaders sought to increase its wealth in order to reinforce and expand its power in the world80. A charter of 627 refers to a “lesson,” a lectio – surely delivered by a member of the clergy – proclaiming that “although the world and all that is in it perish, what is given to churches and basilicas and the poor never perishes but is reckoned for justice in eternity81.” Here the poor are transferred from the position where Jesus placed them, as sole and exclusive recipients of beneficence linked with the promise of celestial reward, to third place, after churches and basilicas.
- 82 Miller 2000, esp. p. 13-15, 253-259; Miller 2014, esp. p. 133-177, 208-213; Woodfin 2012, esp. cha (...)
- 83 Ladner 1941-1984, vol. 2: p. 57, fig. 17; p. 262, fig. 128.
25Accumulation of wealth brought with it not only imposing buildings but also fine trappings for the clergy, both of them indispensable tokens of worldly authority, signifying and solidifying earthly ascendancy82. The appetite for clerical adornment and impressive structures grew steadily stronger as the Church’s possessions and power increased, particularly when conflicts generated by late eleventh- and twelfth-century reform movements stimulated material representational strategies to demonstrate the clergy’s closeness to Christ and their equality with if not superiority to secular rulers. As if acknowledging the questionable propriety of such extravagance, the grandest clerical finery has been reserved for celebrations within churches, and in depictions of Christ, His disciples, and His saints in the company of impressively garbed popes, Christ and His companions generally wear the plainest and least ostentatious of garments83.
- 84 See the publications of Paravicini Bagliani cited above, and the work of Julien Théry on the papal (...)
26Regalization and imperialization of the papacy led in turn to the papalization of monarchies as kings adopted the rhetorical, visual, and ceremonial strategies for aggrandizement that the popes fostered. Thus popes and secular rulers became rivals in inventing and exploiting tools both secular and spiritual to increase their power and wealth – although secular rulers, to their regret, never succeeded in arrogating to themselves the power to pronounce excommunication and interdict – or in developing any viable analogue84.
27Throughout the centuries during which the papacy has become increasingly entrenched in the world, there have always been nay-sayers, like Saint Francis and his spiritual heirs. Yet the call for for simpler and more authentically Christian practices, churches, customs, and garb has consistently been stifled by louder, more secularly-oriented, and more powerful voices, like those that resounded through the Metropolitan Museum at the Gala and during the run of Heavenly Bodies.
Christianity, Catholicism, and Fashion: The Sacred and the Profane
- 85 See, in Gallery 301, three gold necklaces (17.190.1650, 1659, and 1660), a necklace with pendant c (...)
28Focussed on modern designers and their work, Heavenly Bodies side-stepped the important questions of when, why, and how lay people began using sacred Christian symbols as amulets and for secular ornamentation. Gold crosses displayed on necklaces in the Met’s Byzantine galleries, which were not featured in the exhibition, suggest that the move from holy token to adornment, and the absorption of the sacred by the secular was well under way by the sixth century85. The modern designers whose work was shown in Heavenly Bodies were drawing on and perpetuating centuries-old practices and traditions, themselves inaugurated and adopted for a variety of reasons. The Catholicization of fashion in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries demonstrated in the exhibition is a reverse mirror image of the early Church’s appropriation of pagan objects, motifs, and customs, foreign to Christianity. As an evangelizing device, such tactics may have been useful in converting pagans who cherished their own heritage. However, to the extent that the process paganized the Church, it resulted in the faith’s contamination – just as the Church’s deracination of pagan elements deformed and corrupted them.
- 86 For the remarks by Bolton and Martin, see Sheen Talks interview.
- 87 Refreshingly, in her review of the exhibit, Emma McClendon stressed the “fraught,” “complex” and “ (...)
- 88 Bolton was apparently in contact with at least some of the designers whose work was displayed, sin (...)
29For the exhibition the designers whose works were shown were lumped together and their motivations attributed to a single, unifying, broadly conceived “Catholic imagination.” Andrew Bolton suggested that “nostalgia” for the Catholic faith might have moved the artists, while Father James Martin emphasized “devotion” and “deep faith” as likely impulses86. The objects in the exhibition were, however, heterogeneous and disparate. Their religious elements ranged from the strikingly obvious to the undiscernible. Similarly, the ways in which the elements were deployed ranged from respectful, to cynical, to mocking. As the diversity showed, the designers selected, utilized, and manipulated elements in different ways – and doubtless for different reasons and with different aims, depending on their individual upbringings, and the nature of their experiences with the Church87. It is unfortunate that the living designers whose creations were exhibited were not afforded an opportunity to discuss these issues88. Nonetheless, the objects in the exhibition witnessed the designers’ genius in marshaling holy motifs and themes to express their own feelings, positive and negative, about the sacred and the Catholic Church, and, in turn, influence the perspectives and emotions of those who viewed what they had made.
Conclusion
30Heavenly Bodies will long remain a landmark in the history of the Metropolitan Museum because of the crowds, revenue, and attention it commanded. Yet it deserves commemoration not only for its popularity but also as a cautionary example of the dangers of allying with powerful, wealthy, and partisan partners, and privileging provocative display over intellectual exchange.
31Like the spectacular Gala, the exhibition dazzled and intrigued those who viewed it. But those who thronged the halls of the Met learned little of substance, nor were they prompted to reflect on their reactions to the many issues raised by the show. Such questions as the nature of charitable and religious institutions’ responsibilities to the public and the varieties and determinants of creative imagination were not examined in symposia or lectures. The catalogue, the principal lasting record of the exhibition, regrettably omits some objects that were shown, misidentifies the locations of others, digitally distorts images of the works that were displayed, and lacks photographs of the installations, while introducing comparanda not present in the exhibition.
- 89 See Holcomb 2018. The silver crown of thorns exhibited in Heavenly Bodies was again displayed in J (...)
- 90 See Bolton – Van Godtsenhoven – Garfinkel 2019, splendidly printed in two separate parts, with man (...)
- 91 In his Introduction to the second part of the catalogue, Bolton answered the question by quoting t (...)
32In 2019, still working on this essay, I wrote that the allure of shows like Heavenly Bodies was demonstrated by the exhibitions that followed it. Jewelry: the Body Transformed, which opened in November 2018, was greeted as “extravagant, sparkling, glittering, and fascinating,” privileging as it did the splendor of the ornaments that were shown over the varied motivations of their designers and wearers. Just as the title Heavenly Bodies suggested that human beings can somehow become celestial through the clothing they wear, Jewelry aimed to demonstrate the power of the material to transmute the body by exploring “how jewelry acts upon and activates the body it adorns89.” In 2019 the Met’s next fashion extravaganza, inspired by Susan Sontag, focused on Camp: Notes on Fashion90. For the Gala the Fashion Institute mandated dress that exhibited “studied triviality,” whereas the show itself carried out this theme with an array of garish and expensively vulgar images, clothes, and objects. As background “Over the Rainbow” vied with relentlessly intrusive and stentorian asseverations of what Camp is and isn’t91. Shying away from serious engagement, the press offered pronouncements of puzzlement and assorted images of smartly packaged and vitrined bizarreries. No brochures, no symposia, and no lectures were offered.
- 92 Turner – Bailly 2019 (Jacob Lawrence, The American Struggle). The exhibition was planned to circul (...)
- 93 At the same time as the Lawrence series was exhibited at the Met, the Whitney Museum of American A (...)
- 94 Unfortunately the Met Gala for 2021, entitled “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” demonstrated tha (...)
33Major exhibitions are planned four or five years in advance, and thus the predecessors of the Met’s current administrators share the credit and the responsibility for Heavenly bodies, Jewelry, and Camp. At the Met fresh planning and realignment of priorities began in mid-2018, when Max Hollein became director of the museum after the position had been vacant for a year. Since then political upheavals, natural disasters, and the global pandemic have altered the world we knew and took for granted, making clear what radical reassessment is wanted. In the face of quarantines and closures, social protests, cries for diversity, and burgeoning innovations in global communication, the appeal of prodigal celebrations and opulent display has diminished, as has the attractiveness of exhibitions aiming primarily to dazzle, shock, titillate, and amuse. Times change. In the summer and fall of 2020 a sobering display of twenty-seven of the panels Jacob Lawrence painted between 1954 and 1956 for his series Struggle: From the History of the American People attracted crowds to the newly re-opened Met92. Informed by Lawrence’s challenging readings, the paintings lay bare the expansionism, violence, divisions, enslavement, and discrimination that have characterized the American experience since European invaders confronted its indigenous inhabitants and launched their efforts to people and exploit the continent, while still revealing Lawrence’s tempered hopes for the future93. Organized by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, the exhibition resonated with the somberness of the moment, challenging viewers not only to reflect seriously on what they saw and the way it was installed, but also to question conventional perceptions and received interpretations. A harbinger, one hopes, of exhibitions now being planned and in due course to be mounted.94
Notes
1 This paper was first presented in Rome, at John Cabot University, on 24 November 2018, at the conference The Middle Ages in the Modern World. I am grateful to the organizers of the conference, and especially Lila Yawn, for inviting me to speak, and to members of the audience for their comments. I thank as well Irma Boom, Claire Dillon, Helen Evans, Eleanor Giraud, Mellissa Huber, Charles T. Little, Wendy Stein, and particularly Maureen C. Miller, with whom I have been exchanging ideas about fashion and Catholic imagination since she first read and commented on my paper in January 2019.
2 The exhibition checklist, with photographs of all the installations except for the Vatican collection, is available online on the Museum’s site, under Watson Library Digital Collections, and through Watsonline, with the subtitle Checklist and gallery installation views of the exhibition held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 20-October 8, 2018 (hereafter, Checklist), 2-32 (Met Fifth Avenue), 32-42 (Vatican Collection), 42-67 (Cloisters). The catalogue can also be seen on the site, under MetPublications: Bolton et al. 2018. Father James Martin’s interview of Andrew Bolton and C. Griffith Mann on 21 May 2018 at the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Center for Thought and Culture in New York (a project of the Archdiocese of New York), is available on YouTube in the series “Sheen Talks,” through “America: The Jesuit Review” (cited below as Sheen Talks interview). Numerous internet sites provide images and videos of the Gala, including Madonna’s performance; full photographic coverage is found in “Vogue Met Gala 2018.”
3 Here I cite Mellissa Huber, an assistant curator in the Fashion Institute and specialist in twentieth-century fashion (who has been at the Museum since 2012), who worked with Andrew Bolton on the project and talked about the show at meetings of Museum patrons, on 15 May and 1 and 21 June 2018. Unfortunately none of her talks was recorded; in citing her comments here and below, I draw on notes I took at the lecture she gave on 21 June 2018. Boehm and Mann both contributed essays to the catalogue: Mann 2018; Boehm 2018.
4 See Passy 2018.
5 The Tut show ran from 15 December 1978 to 15 April 1979. See Hindley 2015, available on the Internet. Hindley reported that the 300 Tut-themed souvenirs for sale netted an average of $100,000 a week.
6 This program and Martin’s appearances on 23 February 2009 and 18 March 2010 can be seen on YouTube. See also Paul McKay’s article dated 15 March 2010 on the site Jitterbugging for Jesus, entitled Stephen Colbert’s Teevee Chaplain (The Outstanding Jesuit Writer James Martin) (McKay 2010), which draws on an article by David Van Biema entitled Father Martin: The Priest Who Prays for Stephen Colbert, in Time, 7 March 2010 (Van Biema 2010).
7 Bolton, Sheen Talks interview, at about 28 minutes.
8 On 14 August 2018, the press reported the issuance of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report on sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy; on 22 August, Cardinal Carlo Maria Viganò called for Pope Francis’s resignation because of his tolerance of such behavior. Just after the show closed, on 27 October, a report from Dublin publicized the 20-year struggle of Elizabeth Coppin to obtain justice for the criminal wrongdoing perpetrated by the “industrial schools” and so-called Magdalene laundries run by the Sisters of Mercy, the Religious Sisters of Charity, and the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. See O’Loughlin 2018. In Weigel 2018, George Weigel declared that “[t]he Church is now called to a great purification,” and exhorted Catholics not to “let the seemingly endless sexual-abuse scandals overshadow their trust in Christian teaching.”
9 A session focused on the exhibit was held on 8 March 2019 at the Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America in Philadelphia. Organized by Anne E. Lester and Sarah Spence, the session was entitled “Heavenly Bodies Reconsidered: Medieval Textiles and Medievalism’s Fabrications.” The chair, Jacqueline Jung, and the speakers, Maria J. Feliciano, Valerie Garver, Jeffrey Hamburger, Maureen C. Miller, and Warren Woodfin, have kindly shared their remarks with me. In the fall of 2019 Professor Miller offered at the University of California, Berkeley, a seminar entitled “Fashion, the Middle Ages, and the Catholic Imagination: Reconsidering the Heavenly Bodies Exhibit.” In the spring of 2020, a special edition of Clio’s Scroll: The Berkeley Undergraduate History Journal, vol. 21, was dedicated to outstanding papers written in the seminar by Tate Archibald, Zoe Carwin, Dorian Cole, Sofia Howard, and Emily Su.
10 I have found particularly useful Hooper 2018; Friedman 2017; and the review by Jason Farago (Farago 2018).
11 Checklist, 33.
12 Checklist, 10-11; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 190-193.
13 Checklist, 32.
14 Checklist, 33. Only the red shoes appear (without a caption) in Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 86.
15 Checklist, 38; Bolton et al.2018, 1, p. 70, 76. The catalogue includes photographs of most of the vestments, and several of the ornaments.
16 Checklist, 34-35; Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 44-47. For a better image of the chasuble, which can be magnified, see the site of “Treasures from Heaven: A Special Exhibition of Artifacts from the Holy See,” on view at the National Palace Museum in Taiwan from 5 February to 3 May 2016 (under “The Holy See”) (theme.npm.edu.tw/exh105/artifacts/en/index.html#main, viewed on 20 November 2018). In Habit Forming, p. 218, Boehm commented that Saint Francis “was particularly attuned to fashion messaging.” Maureen C. Miller provided a complementary perspective (Miller 2014, p. 44, 139-141).
17 Checklist, 33, 38. Benedict XVI (r. 2005-2013) substituted a mitre for a tiara decorated with his own arms, but the tiara remains part of the armorial bearings of the papacy and the Città del Vaticano.
18 Cf. Friedman 2017 (“and, presumably, to defray criticisms that could incur [sic] if a visitor were to see, for example, a sacristy robe [sic] next to a Jean Paul Gaultier dress with a chalice embroidered over the breasts”).
19 See the companion volume, Katzew 2017; the exhibition was shown earlier at Fomento Cultural Banamex, Mexico City (29 June-15 October 2017), and at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (19 November 2017-18 March 2018). In Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 188-189, an eighteenth-century Peruvian painting of Our Lady of Guápulo was juxtaposed with a wedding gown by Dolce & Gabbana shown at the Met Fifth Avenue near an altarpiece featuring the Virgin and Child.
20 Note Bolton’s remarks in Sheen Talks interview, at 38 minutes.
21 Photographs from Roma were reproduced in Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 37, and as artistic comparanda in ibid., 2, p. 152-156.
22 Checklist, 12. See Infernal ‘Heavenly Bodies’: How the Directorless Metropolitan Museum Went Astray, posted on 11 June 2018, on CultureGrrl. Lee Rosenbaum’s cultural COMMENTARY, where Rosenbaum described the music as “numbingly portentous” (Rosenbaum 2018). Part of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” played in the Robert Lehman gallery: Checklist, 27.
23 Checklist, 2-32.
24 Checklist, 2-3, 5; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 114-121.
25 Checklist, 3-4; Bolton et al. 2018, 2:110-113. Versace’s five cross dresses were displayed in the southern hall leading from the main entrance hall to the Medieval Great Hall; they were featured in his autumn collection in 1997-1998. For Chanel’s cross jewelry, ibid., 2, p. 128-129; and Checklist, 8-10.
26 Checklist, 7-10.
27 Checklist, 13-19; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 148-149, 162-163, 166-173.
28 Checklist, 13; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 156-157, where it is shown with a photograph from Fellini’s Roma. Bolton commented on this item in Sheen Talks interview, at 37 minutes.
29 Checklist, 12-13.
30 Checklist, 5-7; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 109. The Bard Graduate Center’s exhibit, Agents of Faith: Votive Objects in Time and Place, curated by Ittai Weinryb and on view between 14 September 2018 and 6 January 2019, presented a range of votive objects spanning centuries and continents, which were carefully situated within their cultural and religious contexts.
31 Checklist, 25-26; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 326-327. Consult the website lechanelphil.com, for hypotheses concerning the origin of Chanel’s linked C’s.
32 See Jaeger 2018 and also, featuring the object, Smith – Laneri – Sheehy 2018 (“A leather bondage mask draped in rosary beads”). The label identified it as “Mask, autumn/winter 2016-17” by An Vandevorst and Filip Arickx for A.F. Vandevorst, and described it as “Black leather, silver metal chains and charms with black plastic beads”; see also Checklist, 26.
33 This necklace is not shown in the catalogue, but see Checklist, 25.
34 See Bolton’s Introduction to Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 95-96, at 96; and Checklist, 11-12. On 21 June 2018 (see n. 2 above) Mellissa Huber referred to the presentation at the Cloisters as “subdued and contemplative.”
35 Checklist, 43, 45, 46, 61-62, and also 52, 54, 56, 63, 65; Rosenbaum 2018.
36 Checklist, 43-45, 47, 49-50, 60.
37 Checklist, 43-45; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 264-265 (where the digitally-manipulated image is distorted). Mann commented on the similarity, in Sheen Talks interview, at 26 minutes.
38 Checklist, 43-45, 46-47; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 258-263. A Jean-Paul Gaultier gown, called a “‘Communion’ Ensemble,” decorated with an image of a framed chalice, was shown in the Treasury (ibid., p. 316; Checklist, 59).
39 Checklist, 64.
40 Checklist, 52, 53, 55-57, 62, 65, 66; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 254-256, 274-281.
41 Checklist, 50-51 (listed twice) (the label read: “With a ‘pee[p]’ hole at the crotch, Rick Owens’s playful, subversive ‘habit’ evokes the popular literary stereotype of the lecherous, debauched, and scandalous medieval monk, satirized by Geoffrey Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales [1387-1400]”). See also Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 228 (where the garment is described simply as “ensemble”), 231 (a digitally-altered photograph of the costume). In Sheen Talks interview, at 39 minutes, Bolton referred to this costume as inspired by a “Chaucerian flasher monk” and said that it was Curator Barbara Boehm’s “least favorite” item in the show.
42 Checklist, 62; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 298-299. Although Bolton showed this gown in his YouTube presentation of the exhibition at the Cloisters he did not mention the tennis rackets. Before the exhibition opened, Browne used the unicorn as the central theme of his spring collection for 2017-2018: Muller 2017, and Fisher 2017. For Browne’s relationship with Bolton, see Leland 2016. Reviewing the show Browne opened in Paris after Heavenly Bodies ended, Guy Trebay focused on Browne’s “inner erotic life,” which he said “appears to have been arrested around puberty” and characterized as “a struggle to manage unruly sexuality” (Trebay 2019).
43 Checklist, 58-59; Bolton et al. 2018, 2, p. 310-311, where the crown is shown with a late-medieval limestone head of Christ. Shaun Leane discussed his work on a video created on 17 November 2017, which can be seen on YouTube, “Shaun at Savage Beauty: Creating the ‘Crown of Thorns’ for Alexander McQueen” (produced for the Victoria and Albert Museum website, The Museum of Savage Beauty). Shaun himself originally displayed the crown with a silver vine-like tendril twining up the arm and over the shoulders, which resembled a botanical design created by Elsa Schiaparelli in 1938.
44 Nicole Winfield, Vatican, Versace and Vogue Team Up for Met’s Spring Exhibit, written for The Associated Press, dated 26 February 2018, and posted on the internet by America, The Jesuit Review, and by Renaissance, Religion News Service (Winfield 2018).
45 Friedman 2017; and also Sheen Talks interview. According to Friedman, Bolton expressed his hope “to expand his purview in a future exhibition.”
46 In Sheen Talks interview, Bolton said he was raised as a Catholic until the age of 14.
47 Hooper 2018. In Sheen Talks interview, Bolton thanked Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museum, for helping him overcome obstacles he encountered at the Vatican and gain access to the Treasury. In her talk on 21 June 2018 (see n. 2), Huber noted that Bolton visited the Vatican ten times in preparing for the show.
48 Friedman 2017, quoted on 28 February 2018 in an article, At the Met, Catholic-inspired fashion now in style, distributed by CAN (Catholic News Agency) and first published on 9 November 2017.
49 Greeley 2000; a citation from the book prefaces Checklist, 1. Greeley dedicated the book to David Tracy, “theologian of the enchanted imagination.” The Wikipedia article on Greeley notes that by 1999 his books had earned him some $110,000,000.
50 First published in 1981, the book has been often reprinted by Crossroad in New York. Tracy, born in 1939, is now emeritus professor of Catholic Studies at the University of Chicago, where he held the Andrew Thomas Greeley and Grace McNichols Greely Distinguished Service chair, which Andrew Greeley endowed. On 21 May 2018, calling Tracy “one of the greatest theologians of our age,” James Martin asked Andrew Bolton how he had persuaded Tracy to contribute to the catalogue (Sheen Talks Interview, at about 10 minutes). Bolton responded that Tracy was initially “reluctant to be involved” but, coming from Yonkers as he does, eventually agreed out of nostalgia, and love of his own father and the Met. During the interview, Bolton commented that he found Greeley’s writings “much more manageable” than Tracy’s. Bolton discussed the work of both Greeley and Tracy in Bolton et al. 2018, Introduction, p. 95-96.
51 See the first chapter of Greeley 2000, “The Sacraments of Sensibility,” p. 1-22.
52 Tracy 1981, esp. his last chapter, “A Christian systematic analogical imagination,” p. 405-455, where he called for “the emergence of an analogical imagination for all those thinkers, secular and religious alike, who cannot accept either the brittleness of self-righteous ideologies masking some univocal monism or the privatized sloth of an all too easy pluralism masking either a decorous defeatism or some equivocal rootlessness.” He emphasized the importance of analytical imagination in broadening and facilitating human communication and understanding (ibid., p. 454-455). See also his Blessed Rage for Order (Tracy 1978). In his The Catholic Imagination: the Example of Michelangelo (Tracy 2018), esp. p. 13-15, Tracy focused on Michelangelo rather than fashion, and his comments on Roman Catholics’ view of the world are restrained, although in the end he followed Greeley in ascribing “an unmistakable Catholic analogical tonality” to a range of movies by directors who were either practicing Catholics or raised as Catholics and “informed by erudition in the history of art” and declared that “[a] Catholic analogical imagination pervades artworks in all media: fashion, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, literature, film.”
53 Bolton et al. 2018, Introduction, p. 96; see also Checklist, 1. On 21 June 2018 (see n. 2 above), Huber suggested that the show might make “heavenly paradise visible to the devout.”
54 Friedman 2017.
55 “Sponsors’ Statements,” in Boston et al. 2018, 1, p. 6-7.
56 Friedman 2017.
57 “Sponsors’ Statements,” in Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 6.
58 Exhibition Map; Checklist, 1. In his introduction to the catalogue (Introduction, p. 96), Bolton declared, “While the fashions that comprise this journey might seem fanciful, they should not be dismissed lightly, for they not only embody the imaginative tradition of Catholicism but also exemplify its propensities for storytelling. As expressions of the Catholic imagination, they sing with distinctly enchanted and enchanting voices.” See also Trebay 2015.
59 I consulted the site on 18 November 2018; see also Checklist, 1.
60 Dated 10 May 2018, the first is entitled “Heavenly Bodies and the Catholic Imagination Gallery Views” and had 104,205 viewings as of 16 November 2018, whereas the second one, called “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination Gallery Views – The Met Cloisters,” had been seen 49,274 views times by the same day. Jessica Glasscock, a research associate of the Costume Institute and author of Striptease: from gaslight to spotlight (2003) and American fashion accessories (2008), gave tours of the exhibition at the Cloisters as well as the Met Fifth Avenue.
61 See n. 1 above.
62 In Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 9.
63 See Hall 1983. Entitled The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art and comprising 237 items, the exhibition was on view in New York from 26 February 1983 through 12 June 1983, then traveling to The Art Institute of Chicago (21 July – 16 October 1983) and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (19 November 1983 – 19 February 1984). The Vatican received 10% of the proceeds of sales of items produced for the exhibition.
64 See the comments of Susie Wilkening, a museum consultant in Seattle, quoted by Passy 2018. As yet I have found no reference in print to one of the justifications for the show that I heard from some staff connected with the Museum: that no matter how controversial the objects exhibited in the show and the ways they were shown, the exhibition had the virtue of introducing newcomers to the Museum (and particularly its medieval collections) and enticing them to return even after the splendid (and provocative) objects had departed.
65 Jessica Andrews wrote on 9 May 2018 that the theme of the Gala (which was taken from the title of the show) “seemed to court controversy from the start,” like the exhibition, “aim[ing] to explore the tenuous relationship between Catholicism and high fashion” (Andrews 2018).
66 See Donatella Versace’s “Sponsor’s statement,” in Bolton et al. 2018, 1, p. 7.
67 In preparing the show, Bolton asked Cardinal Nolan and different Catholic groups “to identify garments that could be incendiary” or “a potential lightning rod”: Friedman 2017. Although no objections were lodged, Bolton himself judged some of the items “inflammatory”: Sheen Talks interview.
68 See the website cardinaldolan.org/index/Philip/heavenly-bodies-fashion-and-the-catholic-imagination, under the date 7 May 2018.
69 White 2018. Claire Chretien offered a similar appraisal (Chretien 2018).
70 This is the title of the article Piers Morgan posted on Daily Mail.com, on 8 and 9 May 2018.
71 This is the title of the blog posted by Moore, a student at Cardiff University, on 8 May 2018 (mooretalks.wordpress.com), viewable on the website of Premier Christianity.
72 This was posted by “Clevver Style” on 9 May 2018.
73 See Kosin 2018; Cole 2020; and n. 8 above.
74 Recorded on 9 May 2018 as part of a series called New Catholic Generation, the episode is entitled “Catholics React to Met Gala 2018 Fashion” and is available on YouTube. On 30 May 2019 it had been viewed more than 73,000 times.
75 See the article by William Gossett, undated, on the website Return to Order, entitled Protest at the Met: It Feels Good to Be Catholic Again! (sponsored by the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property [tfp] and its campaign “America needs Fatima”).
76 Sheen Talks interview.
77 Winfield 2018.
78 Ravasi 2018. See Matt. 23.2 and 5: “Super cathedram Moysi sederunt scribae et pharisaei. […] Omnia vero opera sua faciunt ut videantur ab hominibus: dilatant enim phylacteria sua, et magnificant fimbrias.”
79 Matt. 19:21-29. The material connotations of the reward Jesus promised the young man – “a treasure in heaven” (thesaurum in coelo) – are surely significant, as is the similar nature of the recompense He pledged to His disciples, telling them that when He presided in sede maiestatis suae, they would sit “super sedes duodecim, iudicantes duodecim tribus Israel” and also that all who gave up everything for Him would receive centuplum, as well as everlasting life (vitam aeternam).
80 Brown 2012. See also Brown 2005. The passages advocating care and mindfulness of the poor attributed to Jesus and his followers in the Christian Bible are massively outnumbered by similar sentiments in the Jewish scriptures.
81 Brown 2012, XXV and 523. For the charter, see Diplomata, p. 227, no. 241, a charter of Theodetrudis or Theodila for Saint-Denis of 627 (12 kl. May, 43rd year of the reign of Clovis) (“Cunctorum christianorum spes confidere debet ut potius pro anima laboremus, quam seculum diligamus, juxta lectionem ubi dicitur: perit mundus et ea quæ in mundo sunt; illud vero quod in ecclesias aut in basilicas sanctorum, vel in pauperibus confertur, numquam perit, sed in memoria æterna pro justitia reputatur”).
82 Miller 2000, esp. p. 13-15, 253-259; Miller 2014, esp. p. 133-177, 208-213; Woodfin 2012, esp. chap. 4, “Earthly Rivalry: Imperial and Ecclesiastical Dress”; and Woodfin 2014. See also Ladner 1941-1984 and Ladner 1934; Paravicini Bagliani 2000, esp. p. 46, 86, 88, 146; and Paravicini Bagliani 1998, esp. p. 61-84; as well as Rash 1987. The papal appropriation of the pagan title pontifex maximus in the late fifteenth century is equally revealing of changes in papal ambitions. Schieffer 1971 outlined the history of the phrase, responding to the recommendation of a commission of theologians that the title be abandoned. I am grateful to Thomas F.X. Noble for counsel on this point.
83 Ladner 1941-1984, vol. 2: p. 57, fig. 17; p. 262, fig. 128.
84 See the publications of Paravicini Bagliani cited above, and the work of Julien Théry on the papalization of the French monarchy. Théry’s work stems from his Mémoire de DEA (Théry 1998). See, e.g., Théry 2004; Théry 2011; and the expanded English version, Théry 2013. Miller 2000, p. 253-254 discussed clerical misuse of excommunication and interdict. See also Brown 2017a.
85 See, in Gallery 301, three gold necklaces (17.190.1650, 1659, and 1660), a necklace with pendant cross (17.190.1650), a gold cross pendant (2006.569), and two gold necklaces with ornaments (17.190.150 and 151; both found in Cyprus). A necklace with 15 small pendant crosses made of pearls and sapphires, perhaps from Constantinople, and dated to the 6th-7th century seems particularly ornamental (17.190.1667); the Museum’s notice describes the crosses as “display[ing] both the faith and wealth of the owner” (I consulted the Museum’s Collection site on 28 January 2019, when the necklace was on temporary display in the Jewelry exhibition, in gallery 999).
86 For the remarks by Bolton and Martin, see Sheen Talks interview.
87 Refreshingly, in her review of the exhibit, Emma McClendon stressed the “fraught,” “complex” and “complicated relationships with the Church” of many of the designers, and characterized as “unique” each individual designer’s relationship with Catholicism: CAA.Reviews. A Publication of the College Art Association, 2 January 2019.
88 Bolton was apparently in contact with at least some of the designers whose work was displayed, since he reported (in Sheen Talks interview) his disappointment that one designer had declined to participate. As has been seen (above, n. 65), Donatella Versace offered some comments on her brother’s motivations, although she did not explore them in detail.
89 See Holcomb 2018. The silver crown of thorns exhibited in Heavenly Bodies was again displayed in Jewelry (next to a feathered “dart earring” and a “jaw-piece”) as three pieces of “jewelry on the edge,” “designed to push the limits of glamour, courting danger.” The “jaw-piece” was designed by the same artists, Shaun Leane for Alexander McQueen, as the crown of thorns; in Jewelry, “Jewelry on the edge,” is part of the section devoted to “The Alluring Body” (see 189-197, with the crown of thorns shown on 195); see also above, at n. 42, and fig. 10. The catalogue contains a list of “Works in the Exhibition” (ibid., 262-271) but no installation images; no checklist was posted on the internet, but two symposia were held. The Bard Graduate Center exhibition “A View from the Jeweler’s Bench: Ancient Treasures, Contemporary Statements” (14 February – 7 July 2019), curated by Sasha Nixon, took a different tack by focusing on twelve contemporary artists, their attitudes to tradition and the resources they use, and the shifting meanings of objects used for adornment.
90 See Bolton – Van Godtsenhoven – Garfinkel 2019, splendidly printed in two separate parts, with many blank as well as gold fold-out pages, but no photographs of the installation. The exhibition’s dates were 9 May through 8 September 2019; Gucci and Condé Nast were supporters, and Vogue again sponsored a website dedicated to the Gala, which was held on 7 May.
91 In his Introduction to the second part of the catalogue, Bolton answered the question by quoting the Miss Clairol advertising slogan, “Only her hairdresser knows for sure.”
92 Turner – Bailly 2019 (Jacob Lawrence, The American Struggle). The exhibition was planned to circulate to the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and The Phillips Collection in Washington DC.
93 At the same time as the Lawrence series was exhibited at the Met, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York featured the memorable Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945 (17 February 2020 – 3 January 2021) (Haskell 2020). There a portion of Lawrence’s Migration Series (1940-1941) was on view with Mexican and North American works (largely public art) that focused on and protested against social, economic, and racial injustice; the fourteen panels of Lawrence’s War Series (1946) were shown elsewhere in the Museum. For recent studies of the aims and policies of New England settlers, see Fraser 2020, and for research on the relations of indigenous peoples with settlers and their descendants and with British and European powers, see Treuer 2020, a review of Pekka Hämäläinen, Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019).
94 Unfortunately the Met Gala for 2021, entitled “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion,” demonstrated that no fundamental change has yet occurred. In The Wall Street Journal (16 September 2021) Peggy Noonan condemned the Gala, held three days earlier, as “a freak show [with] no feeling of responsibility to present to the world a sense of coherence or elegance,” and a prime example of America’s “losing the thread” and the ability to lead (“America Has Lost the Thread”).
Table des illustrations
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Titre | Fig. 1 – Medieval Europe Gallery, The Met Fifth Avenue (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-1.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 77k |
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Titre | Fig. 2 – Crypt, The Met Fifth Avenue (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-2.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 93k |
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Titre | Fig. 3 – Valentino evening dress (2017-2018). Medieval Europe Gallery, The Met Fifth Avenue (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-3.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 81k |
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Titre | Fig. 4 – Evening ensemble (2007). Jean Paul Gaultier. Apse, The Met Fifth Avenue (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-4.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 138k |
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Titre | Fig. 5 – Gilet (2007-2008). Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel. Apse, The Met Fifth Avenue (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-5.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 208k |
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Titre | Fig. 6 – Medieval Treasury, The Met Fifth Avenue (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-6.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 107k |
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Titre | Fig. 7 – Wedding Dress (1967). Cristobal Balenciaga. Fuentidueña Chapel, The Met Cloisters (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-7.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 109k |
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Titre | Fig. 8 – Ensemble (2015-2016). Rick Owens. Cuxa Cloister, The Met Cloisters (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-8.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 70k |
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Titre | Fig. 9 – Wedding Ensemble (2018). Thom Browne. Unicorn Tapestries Room, The Met Cloisters (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-9.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 64k |
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Titre | Fig. 10 – Headpiece (1996-1997). Shaun Leane for Alexander McQueen. The Treasury, The Met Cloisters (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-10.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 119k |
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Titre | Fig. 11 – Heavenly Bodies Gift Shop. The Met Fifth Avenue (photo by the author). |
URL | http://books.openedition.org/efr/docannexe/image/18822/img-11.jpg |
Fichier | image/jpeg, 95k |
© Publications de l’École française de Rome, 2021