Forsaking the Bridal Veil: Henry James's Allusion to Correggio's The Marriage of St. Catherine in The American

Forsaking the Bridal Veil: Henry James's Allusion to Correggio's The Marriage of St. Catherine in The American by Lynne P. Shackelford, Furman University The dramatic conflict in Henry James's The American arises from a single question: wiU Claire de Cintré marry the protagonist, Christopher Newman , or wiU she submit to the commands of an authoritarian mother and a sinisterly manipulative elder brother and renounce her engagement to a commercial Westerner? For the reader sensitive to the art clues James provides, the answer to that question is clear. In fact, from the first page of the novel James foreshadows that Claire's need for spiritual peace is stronger than her desire for possible emotional fulfillment as Newman's wife. She is to be a nun rather than a bride, as critics such as Edmund Creeth, Susan Ward, and Stanley Tick have noted in discussing Claire's identification with MuriUo's Madonna of the Immaculate Conception. There is, however, another art clue that so far has escaped critical notice; that is James's brief reference in chapter four to The Marriage of St. Catherine, painted most likely by the sixteenth-century ItaUan artist Antonio AUegri Correggio.1 In chapter four MademoiseUe Noémie Nioche and Newman stroU through the gaUeries of the Louvre deciding upon paintings that the capitalistturned -novice-art-patron wishes to commission her to copy. When MUe Nioche suggests a smaU picture of the marriage of St. Catherine, Newman repUes that it does not please him because "the young lady in the yeUow dress is not pretty" (AM 73). Such shaUow reasoning is not surprising considering Newman's admission in chapter two that he seeks as a wife "a beautiful woman perched on the pile [of luxuries], like a statue on a monument" (AM 48). Female pulchritude is Newman's primary criterion whether selecting a mate or a canvas. Moreover, Christopher Newman is one of those gentlemen who prefer blondes—elaborately dressed and bejeweled ones at that, as seen by his attraction to the golden-tressed bride in Veronese's Marriage at Cana and Veronese 's portrait of a Venetian lady whose attributes include fair hair, a pearl The Henry James Review 13 (1992): 78-81 © 1992 by The Johns Hopkins University Press The Bridal Veil in The American 79 necklace a purple satin gown, and "two magnificent arms" (AM 74). Thus the brunette Catherine, with her downcast eyes, her demure expression, and her simple mustard-colored gown, holds little appeal for him. Newman's rejection of the Correggio painting is not, however, merely a matter of taste regarding feminine beauty. On a deeper level it represents the theologicaUy indifferent protagonist's attempt to repudiate the threat he feels from the Roman Catholic Church, or, to be more precise, from Claire's devotion to her faith.2 For the Correggio painting calls into question Newman's concept of marriage as a festive celebration in which the bride becomes a prized possession of the groom—an ideal he finds reflected in Veronese's Marriage at Cana and Rubens's portrayal of the marriage between Marie de Medici and Henry IV of France, both pictures that he commissions MUe Nioche to copy. Entirely contrary to such secular pomp and circumstance is the spiritual union that Correggio presents between the Holy Son and one of his devoted servants, as he portrays the Christ ChUd, seated upon the Virgin Mary's lap, placing a ring upon St. Catherine's finger while St. Sebastian serves as witness. In her choice of a heavenly marriage over a human one, Catherine is Claire de Cintré's spiritual predecessor. According to legend, Catherine was a devout, learned, aristocratic young woman who lived in Alexandria. Disturbed by the worship of idols, she protested to Emperor Maxentius and successfuUy defended her beUefs against the arguments of fifty pltilosophers. When she refused to deny her Christianity and to marry him, the emperor ordered her beaten and then placed in prison. There Christ appeared to her in a vision. After an attempt to torture Catherine on a spiked wheel failed, she was beheaded; her body was then transported to Mt. Sinai, where a monastery was eventually established in...