Under the Shield of Our Lady of Consolation, Comforter and Saviour. Civic Meanings of the Cult of Mother of God in Kanuty Rusiecki’s Work

Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37522/aaav.114.2024.257

Keywords:

Kanuty Rusiecki, painting of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn, cult of Mother of God, civil resistance

Abstract

Kanuty Rusiecki’s painting Palm Sunday stands out as a singularly reliable visual iconographic source, providing a glimpse into the lost interior of the Church of Our Lady of Consolation. However, researchers have observed a discrepancy in the artwork: while Rusiecki meticulously reproduces the church’s interior details, the image of Our Lady of Consolation depicted in his canvas differs from the one that once adorned the high altar. It prompts a question: Why did the artist, known for his precision in capturing the church’s interior, choose to portray an image more aligned with the iconography of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn?

The article delves into the meanings of this painting, drawing connections to the key work of patriotic literature of the 19th century between the two uprisings – Adam Mickiewicz’s The Books and the Pilgrimage of the Polish Nation. The author posits an assumption that the patriotic analogies of the narratives of Christ and national martyrology, articulated in Mickiewicz’s work, serve as a crucial lens for interpreting Rusiecki’s painting. It suggests that the community, bound by the ideals of civil resistance and hopeful for the restoration of the state, may have seen in Rusiecki’s work an allegorical representation – just as Christ’s resurrection symbolizes hope, so does the belief that the Commonwealth of Both Nations will one day experience a revival. The Messianic metaphors expounded by Mickiewicz find reflection in the festive scene depicted in Palm Sunday, commemorating Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem.

The insights gained from Rusiecki’s painting were further enriched by the frame’s inscription, positioned above the image of the Mother of God in the High Altar of the Church of Our Lady of Consolation. According to the testimony of Michał Józef Römer (1878–1853), the Latin words “Convertam luctum eorum in gaudium” [I will turn their mourning into joy], extracted from the 13th verse of the 31st chapter of the Book of Jeremiah in the Holy Scripture, were affixed in 1844. This reference to the Old Testament carried clandestine patriotic intentions, as Prophet Jeremiah’s prophecy was linked to divine directives on the nation’s conduct following an unsuccessful uprising.

Contextualizing the period between the uprisings in politics, culture, and religion, it became evident that the veneration of the image of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius was burgeoning. This leads to the assumption that during Rusiecki’s creation of the painting Palm Sunday, the image of Mary revered by the faithful in the Augustinian church was gradually being eclipsed by the increasingly popular image of Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn. This shift likely explains why one of Rusiecki’s sketches shows the painting of Our Lady of Consolation hanging in the altar, while the final work features the image from the Gate of Dawn.

Author Biography

Vaida Ragėnaitė , Vilnius Academy of Arts, Vilnius, Lithuania

is an art historian with Doctorate in Humanities. She completed her Bachelor’s studies in Art Research at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and her Master’s studies at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University, which informed her research direction. Her main research areas is to explore the expression of civil resistance in 19th-century works of art in Lithuania and Poland, with a particular focus on the context of the uprisings of 1830–1831 and 1863.

Published

12/09/2023

How to Cite

Ragėnaitė , V. (2023). Under the Shield of Our Lady of Consolation, Comforter and Saviour. Civic Meanings of the Cult of Mother of God in Kanuty Rusiecki’s Work: Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis. Acta Academiae Artium Vilnensis, (114), 290–319. https://doi.org/10.37522/aaav.114.2024.257