Earthly Treasures: Material Culture and Metaphysics in the Heptameron and Evangelical Narrative

Chapter Two: Evangelical Dimensions in Decorative Arts: Emblems, Earthly Objects, and the Economy of Transcendence

47 Chapter Two Evangelical Dimensions in Decorative Arts Emblems, Earthly Objects, and the Economy of Transcendence Command those who are rich in the present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. 1 Tim. 6.17–18 Marguerite develops a hybrid narrative form in the Heptaméron by incorporating representations of material culture. Although Scripture labels such objects untrustworthy and illusory, earthly treasures, in the form of art objects and emblems, are very much in evidence in the nouvelles. However, this focus on things produces a very un-material effect, and facilitates a theological statement. Working with the Lutheran understanding of the hidden worth of materiality as a sign of what surpasses it, Marguerite uses material objects as markers of metaphysical meaning. In his 1519 treatise The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ, Martin Luther stated that in the sacraments we see nothing wonderful—just ordinary water, bread and wine, and the words of a preacher. There is nothing spectacular about that. But we must learn to discover what a glorious majesty lies hidden beneath these despised things. It is precisely the same with Christ in the incarnation. We see a frail, weak and mortal human being— yet he is nothing other than the majesty of God himself. In precisely the same way, God himself speaks to us and deals with us in these ordinary and despised materials.1 Luther’s point concerns the paradoxical lack of markers here, rather than the presence of markers in material things: faith 48 Chapter Two requires overlooking a lack of evidence. However, material markers do exist that, while lacking full presence, nonetheless point to complete truth elsewhere. These things can be valuable , but must be treated with caution. Marguerite imitates Luther’s use in sermons and other texts of ordinary objects, developing an evangelical approach to writing about these objects , a style with which other evangelical and Protestant writers of the period demonstrate affinities. Evangelical writers distinguish themselves by their drive to move beyond the things on which they first build their texts when portraying the terrestrial realm. Further, evangelical writers use image as icon. Such iconic images act like arrows: they pass through the medium to attain the metaphysical message behind it. One laboratory for examining some aspects of this new interdisciplinary evangelical idiom is that of emblematic texts. Evangelicals find emblems useful because no single component of an emblem is sufficient by itself; further, the totality must be deciphered, encouraging the reader to look elsewhere for meaning.2 In the Heptaméron, Marguerite de Navarre deploys a number of techniques and displays certain attitudes that are akin to emblematic modes of writing, reading, and thinking . A similarity exists between the emblematic mode of reading and Marguerite’s hope to lead readers to spiritual awareness, paradoxically, through the telling of worldly tales. Although the material objects used in her narrative may differ from objects used in emblem books, which are primarily nonnarrative , the manner in which the objects are treated in both is much alike. Evangelicals are skeptical about the truth-value of images. Emblem writers are similarly wary of placing too much emphasis on images without accompanying text. (Although emblems want to be hieroglyphs, this goal is nostalgic and never can be realized fully. The theological explanation for this gap between signifier and signified is that, at the time of the Fall, meaning was wrenched away from materiality. Consequently , no image or thing may entirely or exactly encapsulate significance.) In emblem books, this tension plays itself out through the dialogue among motto, device, and image. This dialogue produces what might be called a fourth emblematic dimension—the interpretive mode used in reading the emblem— 49 Evangelical Dimensions in Decorative Arts or what Daniel Russell has called the “emblematic process.”3 While the interpretation of an emblem does not influence its construction, it does influence its reception, similar to the conversion process at which evangelical narratives aim. Motto (which can be equated with the nouvelles’ thesis), image (similar to the objects used in the nouvelles), and devise (acting like the nouvelles’ commentary or frame) produce a fourth component that both equals the sum of their parts and surpasses them: the reader’s reception. A secondary meaning of devise is a “dividing line,” something...